We met on Saturday afternoon at Ward 47 tuition room. I was the first patient. SF was 2nd and they wheeled KH in soon after. The rest were Fiona, GK (a 20-yr survivor), nurse Minako (13-yrs in nursing and still so cheery) and another lady (I forgot her name).
The session started with us introducing ourselves and some instances were really funny when we could relate to what the person was feeling. The nurses shared many insights on other patients and we all had an enjoyable time and agreed to meet on 6 Feb08.
What I enjoyed was that we could talk freely about our infliction and all could understand what this was about and we had the benefit of the survivors telling us what possibilities and options are available. There's a difference in knowing that there are survivors and meeting one is an experience. Then you get to ask questions like, how was the chemo? Where did you buy that wig? How was it? Does it really not hurt? What tests are there and so on....
The breast care nurses at SGH are a friendly and helpful group but nothing beats being in the support group to be able to ask first hand information about anything. The nurses would then facilitate or explain more why certain things would happen, like why some choose not to go for treatment.
There are actually several breast cancer support groups in SGH:
- Blossom - this is the main one that has been running for a while.
- Chinese-speaking group - specifically for those speaking mandarin. Our Under 40s ended up speaking in mandarin most of the time 'cos it felt more qingqie :-)
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