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Patient’s praise for ‘brilliant’ hospice
APPEAL ... cancer patient Andrew Hudson, right, is encouraging people to help St Clares Hospice. With him is Brian Brown, vice-chairman of the board of trustees.
A ST Clare’s patient says hospice staff made him feel like he “could take on the world”.
Andrew Hudson spent two-and-a-half weeks in the inpatient unit when he was first diagnosed with bone cancer – and he says he couldn’t have been in a better place.
The 65-year-old, who is backing the Gazette’s ‘c/o St Clare’s’ campaign to raise £50,000 for the hospice, developed bone cancer after undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer.
He was diagnosed in November, and by December he couldn’t walk due to the development of lesions on three parts of his spine.
Mr Hudson, from The Nook, South Shields, said: “I was transferred to St Clare’s from the Northern Centre for Cancer Care in Newcastle, when I was first diagnosed with bone cancer.
“I’d had prostate cancer, but it changed and went into my bones.
“The first couple of days were really hard, because I thought I was going to St Clare’s to get more treatment and then I was going to get better, but that wasn’t the case, and now I’m in a wheelchair. On the morning of November 14, I got up myself and got dressed – and just a couple of weeks later I couldn’t walk at all.
“The worst-case scenario for some people is that they go to bed at night then can’t get up in the morning.
“But there’s also hope that if I continue my exercises, I might be able to walk again.”
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Mr Hudson had been working as a chef in a Northumberland hotel before his diagnosis.
He added: “The staff are amazing, right from the cleaners who come in to your room in the morning to the nurses who care for you.
“Everyone had a smile on their face, and was willing to do anything for you.
“The first couple of days in the hospice were really hard for me, but the staff were brilliant.
“They talked me through everything, and really helped me to understand what was happening to me.
“You couldn’t pay for better care.”
Mr Hudson felt so well-cared for by staff at the hospice, in Primrose Terrace, Jarrow, that he is now a daycare patient.
The hospice has provided palliative care to people in South Tyneside with life-limiting illnesses for the last 25 years, as well as daycare, a number of clinics, and much-needed advice for both patients and their families.
It has annual running costs of £2m – £1.4m of which it must raise itself.
But this year, it is facing a £50,000 shortfall and the Gazette is hoping to help raise the funds.
Mr Hudson added: “I really hope that people back the campaign because just a fortnight here really sorted me out, and made me feel like I could take on the world.
“It’s a big part of the community because everyone knows about it. I’ve known about the great work it’s done since it opened, I’ve just never needed it until now.
“You can tell how loved it is by everybody just by how long the volunteers have been here.
“They have the freedom to walk out whenever they like, but most of them have been here for years and will be for years more.
“I’d highly recommend the hospice to anybody who needs it.”
Twitter: @ShieldsGazVicki
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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