"Treatment for Bowel Cancer"

The Beacon centre staff and operating theatre staff especially the surgeon were brilliant, also the stoma nurses, keeping me informed every step of the way through chemo/radio therapy and the final operation to remove the remains of the tumour., Numerous appointments were made to ensure I understood all procedures and thus to prevent over worrying, they were all extremely considerate and helpful. I was then put into ward 4 after the op to recover, on the whole most of the staff did a very good difficult job, unfortunately a large number of overseas persons were employed there a couple who did not converse well, or record things accurately or at the time. On one evening handover I heard the nurse say I was eating and drinking well, when in fact I had not eaten a thing since the op, also an auxillary topped my water jug up from an half filled jug on her trolley the history of which was unknown, this was unacceptable & again not recorded. On day of discharge I was having a shower when a knock on the door came and I was told to hurry and pack my belongings as my bed was needed, there was then a debate between staff as to whether I could stay for lunch or no, I told them to just take me to the discharge lounge and forget lunch. I was taken to the lounge where some tablets were given to me and my husband picked me up, when at home we looked at the drug discharge sheet and found that two lots were not there, I was then in considerable discomfort for a day until I obtained the drugs through my GP, My niece is a qualified GP who visited the next day and it was her who emphasised what tablets could be taken together and when, after this my discomfort became manageable. Such a shame that this spoiled my Musgrove experience.