What impacts has NETs had on your life?
NETs has had both a huge physical and emotional impact on both myself and my family. Being told I had cancer came at a time when many of my life’s hard yards had been done. To compound this impact, two days after being told I had cancer my mum who had dementia, health had declined, and she was admitted to hospital. Her dementia rapidly escalated and I was told she needed to be placed into a nursing home as soon as possible. Being Mums power of attorney I had to take control of all of her affairs and with the help with my 3 sisters get her into a nursing home, clean out her home, then put in rental tenants all in the space of 4 weeks and all whilst I was still trying to carrying on working and of course attend oncologist appointments etc. The point I’m making is this was all occurring at the same time as I was dealing with my situation and it sums up the impact NETs can have on people other than the diagnosis and treatment itself.
What drew you to become involved in the CAG?
If I can assist in anyway to make life a little easier for people dealing with NETs then I will be happy.
What advice would you to give to a newly diagnosed patient? What has been most helpful to you in your NET experience?
I would advise any newly diagnosed NET patient to take ownership of their health and treatment plan as much as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and learn as much as you can. Without NeuroEndocrine Cancer Australia I wouldn’t have had the opportunity and access to the Clinical Trial I was part of.
