Hi
I was diagnosed with a Melanoma (Skin Cancer) on my face in early 2020 so I know that the whole cancer experience is a very difficult and scary time for us patients and our family and friends.
At the time of my diagnosis, I was told that there was a patients support group at the Norfolk Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) my local hospital, but because of Covid nothing was happening at that time. I remember thinking that being able to talk to others who were either going through the same or similar treatments or being able to talk former patients would have been helpful to me.
Unfortunately, the old patients support group never started up again. So, after talking to a number of people, including members of the old group, Jenny from the Big C, Sue from the Ipswich Skin Cancer Support Group, Gemma (Skin Cancer Oncology Nurse Specialist), Tracey who runs our facebook group and Bev (Senior Lead Skin Cancer Nurse Specialist), I thought I would make an effort to try and get things rolling again.
Clearly all the wonderful people at NHS are under real pressure at the moment so they don’t have much time to be that involved but everyone seemed very supportive of the idea of re starting something.
The idea is that the group will be patient led and be the ideal place for us the patients and friends and family to chat with others who are in the same position, and it will also provide a platform where we can ask the many questions that we may have.
So, as you will see from the poster on this site, we are now up and running and so far, we have had three very successful meetings. We currently meet every two months on Saturday morning at 9.30am at the Big C centre at the NNUH.
So far, we have had a talk by Jenny Daly from the Big C who told us what services and help the charity has on offer to us. For our second meeting we had Dr Khaylen Mistry who has a real interest in Skin Cancer come along and demonstrate how those clever medical people use a dermatoscope to identify a cancer and talk about his national skin cancer research project. For our third meeting we had a super talk by Gemma Hewitt a Skin Cancer Oncology Nurse Specialist who gave a very informative talk and presentation about many advances in the treatment of melanoma over the last decade, (immunotherapy and targeted therapy treatments) and how to live with skin cancer.
So, if you if you do fancy coming along, we would love to meet you
There is no need to book, just turn up. But if you do want to contact me before hand, please e-mail me John at norfolkscsg@gmail.com
Hope to meet some of you soon.
John Ragan
Norfolk Skin Cancer Support Group 