Cancer sufferer praises hospice for special care

TERMINAL cancer patient Zadie Hill says Grimsby’s St Andrew’s Hospice have given her her life back. She spoke to reporter LAURA STUART-COOK about her illness and the services the hospice provides.

“WE may have one foot in the grave but the other one is alive and kicking!”

Those are the words Cleethorpes grandmother Zadie Hill (63) uses to describe her fellow patients at St Andrew’s Hospice.

Zadie has been using the Peaks Lane centre for six years – every Friday to socialise, for annual respite care and for lymphoedema massage.

In 2002, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured a mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

She said: “I was in remission for three-and-a-half years then sometime last year the cancer came back.

“Because the breast cancer was undetected for two years the first time around the cancer was always going to come back.”

She added: “Now I have cancer in my liver, lung, bones and head.

“I had chemotherapy for 13 months but it made me really ill.

“The toxins had built up in my liver and I had to be taken off all my medication for three months.

“Because the cancer is in small dots rather than big tumours it can’t be cured.”

Zadie says the hospice is an upbeat place where she can forget she is ill for a few hours.

She added: “When I first had my breast surgery I felt mutilated.

“The hospice helped me to reduce my scars and to come to terms with it.

“The surgeon may have saved my life but the hospice gave me my life back.”

Zadie – who is married to Alan (64) and has two children and five grandchildren – said: “We all come to the hospice to have a laugh and get to know each other.

“It is a very, very happy place where you can join in with things if you want to.

“We do everything from tai chi to making Christmas cards.”