Here’s the latest report from our EPOC volunteers Sue, Ron and Lorraine:
“We managed to speak to 111 people this time around, in the space of 3 hours.
- One lady was shopping with one of her daughter’s, and they were very interested in seeing what we had in our information leaflets. The mother had been treated for a number of cancers quite recently. She had a very positive outlook, and was supported by her family. She had received surgery and radiotherapy for breast cancer 20+ years ago, and she was still here.
- Another chap had fairly recently had major treatment done to his bladder. When the surgeons had a look into his bladder, it was full of small cancers. Thankfully they had all been ‘zapped’, and he was slowly getting his bladder control back. Very positive!
- A lady who was at the Subrooke Patients Group the other month, stopped to say how much she appreciated our talk, and she had even managed to get her husband to read through the Blue Boxer information, and make sure he examined himself.
- We had quite a large number of people ask about skin cancer and moles, mainly mums with small children. We gave out not only the information on moles and skin cancer, but also the Fun in the Sun.
- I spoke to one young lady about breast cancer. There was a history of it in her family. She checked herself but wasn’t sure of all the signs to look for. I gave her various leaflets on breast cancer and how to check yourself and also explained, as there was a history of breast cancer in her family, she could ask her GP for her to have breast screening.
- Another lady I spoke to was in her late 60’s. She was due to go for her last mammogram very soon. She was not aware she could still request breast screening passed age 70. I gave her one of our Over 70 Breast leaflets and a Check it Out leaflet.
- Most of the people who stopped to talk to us at any length we spoke to jointly. It was a lovely sunny day outside and a lot of people just wanted to do their shopping and get home, I gave out a lot of leaflets to people in passing but they didn’t want to stop and talk to us.”
Thank you all so much for your time and dedication!
