"H.O.D.U."

Anything else?

When you or someone you love is told they have Cancer, the world stops. Not just for the sufferer, but for their loved ones as well. The feelings of anger, loneliness, resentment, and uselessness are kept in check by a thin veneer of composure. Why me, why her, why him? Why - why? It’s not fair! Then you visit H.O.D.U. A haven. A busy, bewildering, bustling haven where complex matter-of-fact treatments are dispensed with kindness and sensitivity by busy, bustling, matter-of-fact people. Just people. Eye-wateringly wonderful people with the same problems we once had. People who have lives outside which are not interrupted like ours. People who gossip. People who have made the concious decision to help us and the hundreds - thousands like us. Just when we’re hyper-sensitive. A phone rings - too loud, perhaps we think a word is said out of place or the chips are cold,..... a simple misunderstanding. The veneer begins to crack, resentment flares, fanned by the ever present feelings of abject uselessness. It’s then that we should all take a minute and look around. We’re not in McDonald's or Sainsbury’s or Starbucks. We are not the customers of an inconsequential service industry. We’re in H.O.D.U. at Airedale. Like the thousands who have been before, we're at the centre of an organised chaos, it’s clean, it's safe, it’s made as comfortable as it can be, and the people who run it are just brilliant.