Covid and cancer have slowed us down over the whole month of November. The Auckland lockdown and the fact that the secretary (me) has had a recurrence have been factors.

We’re back in business now and looking forward to more intiatives in the new year, Covid or not. My stay in hospital has given me some ideas for our tote bag patient packs and also bigger items that might make a patient’s hospital stay more tolerable. We are always open for ideas about fundraising and spending.

As a patient advocate I tried to document some of the procedures I went through for my throat cancer op. I’ve posted some informal and rather personal accounts on hncmaureen.com. I’ll tidy these up into a more coherent story for our patient stories section in due course.

The good things are that the pohutukawa buds are bursting, early summer is here, we can get haircuts in Auckland and I’m having the NG tube out soon!