Hello all, I am writing as a worried wife who always wants to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. My husband aged 75 is going into Blackpool Victoria Hospital in a few days time for a S C T. We live in Blackburn so about 35 miles away. I just wonder if anyone has experience of this hospital, the visiting hours allowed etc. I have tried asking while he’s been having his various tests and PCCC
line fitted but we never seem to get a straight answer.
Things are more complicated as we have two dogs to be looked after, no family members that can have them, and of course because of school holidays no room in kennels. If not for the dogs I would move near to the hospital to visit every day.
I know we’re probably worrying needlessly but we both feel if we were 10 years younger we would be able to cope much better. Anyhow we’re keeping fingers crossed for next week and looking forward to beating this awful disease at least for a few years.
Hi Berni and welcome across to this corner. Has your husband not been given a named SCT coordinator?….. this was our go-to person when we had any questions. You could call the hospital and ask to be put through to the SCT Unit and ask your questions or leave a message for someone to call you .
Lets also look for any member with experience of the Blackpool Victoria to pick up on your post.
Not living near the SCT unit is a problem and your dogs also just make it that harder…,. it’s not easy.
We live in Inverness and my SCT unit was down in Glasgow so this was a 200ml 7-8 hr round trip drive (that we did over 30 times over my 2 SCTs) so we moved down to a Glasgow for the 4 weeks for my first SCT then 7 weeks for my second….. we did not have dogs so did not have to deal with this challenge.
I will say that during my second SCT at times my wife could have been on the other side of the world as far as I was aware as I was in very high levels of antihistamines so I slept a lot and most likely we did not talk for a few days at a time…… so she went in Edinburgh to our daughters to see the granddaughter.
It looks like we were leaving on a Wold Cruise when I went to my SCT unit as I had to have a complete change of cloths for every day and night….. that was a challenge being so far from home.
You may have seen this link Checklist for SCT Unit and this one as well Top tips for stem cell transplants as these highlight the things that people found helpful for when they were in the SCT unit.
Have you been told the name of the chemo that will be used to take down his immune system….. this is often called conditioning treatment…… if it has an M or the word Melphalan in the band this link is important Melphalan and Ice
If you have any questions do get back to us and we will help as best as we can.
