Recently I’ve been filling out a questionnaire as part of a research project I’m helping with. One of the questions asked me to calculate the financial cost to me of my cancer. There was a list of all the items I might want to consider in the calculation. Some are obvious, like loss of earnings. Others take a bit more working out. For example my husband has driven me approximately 2500 miles for hospital appointments, but I can only roughly calculate how much petrol this took.
Then we have to consider what has been essential and what was just something nice to have. Scarves illustrates this point well. I have been told a scarf is vital as it keeps my delicate scar tissue warm in winter and protects it from the sun in summer. So a couple of scarves could probably be considered essential. However I seem to have acquired a drawer full of them. Not all essential but definitely nice to have! Especially my latest one which is cream with a few multi-coloured flowers and butterflies on it.
I’m also not sure if I should count all the items which were purchased in an attempt to cheer me up and get me through my treatment. Things like books, jigsaws, music downloads, bird feeders, cuddly toys and a widescreen TV to watch Wimbledon on. Probably not, especially the TV. I do feel though that they were crucial to my wellbeing at a difficult time, and perhaps they helped contribute to my recovery.
It’s getting to be a difficult calculation. I wasn’t asked to consider money saved, but there has actually been a fair bit of this. For example I have had to buy special toiletries and clothing, but it was instead of my usual purchases and it probably worked out cheaper. We lost the deposit we’d paid for our holiday, but we saved considerably more by not going. I’m not even sure now that I should include the petrol for the hospital trips, as we’d have used more than this if we’d had any social life over the last year.
So let’s just settle for loss of earnings then, which is about £5,000. That doesn’t sound too bad and it’s considerably less than I’d have had to pay if we didn’t have the NHS.
I’m still struggling with two more of the questions. I have to calculate my health and my quality of life as percentages. I’m finding that very difficult. I don’t feel unwell but I still get tired and I certainly couldn’t do a full day’s work. My quality of life when I’m at home is great, but I have little quality of life outside the house as I don’t have the energy for a social life. So let’s settle for 50% so I can pop the questionnaire in the post and get back to watching the tennis.
