Transcript for CRN Wessex thank you video

Contents

Text on screen: A thank you to research teams across Wessex.

Nick: I'm an 80 year old man, or almost 80, and I've been having a very enjoyable retirement so far. Until, of course, it was disturbed by the onset of my asthma, some five or six years ago. It was not a very nice time. My connection and association with the research team came about as a consequence of a major attack. So bad that I was reported into A&E at about 4:00 in the morning. Well, as a consequence of there being a member of the research group that's country wide doing trials on a drug which has got an interesting name which even I have difficulty remembering. I thought it would be great fun to help somebody out in a research team in, you know, benefiting not just me, but maybe others as well.

Nicole: Hello, my name is Nicole.

Summer: Yes, my name is Summer. And basically our lives were quite normal until about two years ago when we both had the devastating news that we'd got breast cancer.

Nicole: When they tell you the news, that's the first thing they said. You know, this is a treatment we're going to give you. We are doing a trial research at the moment. Would you like to participate? Without hesitation, I said yes, I'll do it.

Summer: Debbie, the trial nurse, was there and said, Can I give you some leaflets and would you you know, we've just flagged up that you you've got this type of cancer that we're doing research on. And it was actually quite interesting and sort of like chemo once a week for 12 weeks. It was like, yikes!

Summer: We met at the Look Good Feel Good convention. We sort of talked for about 10 minutes and we didn't it didn't really dawn on us that we were the two people on the trial because there were only two of us. And then it sort of dawned on us and we saw each other a few weeks later on the chemo ward and yeah, just swapped numbers and...

Nicole: We kept in touch ever since. Summer had started before me. She'd give me a heads up. This is what's going to happen. This is what to expect. You know, I always had a preview of what was going to happen

Summer: And between us we decided that we had a pair of good boobs.

Nicole: Speak for yourself!

Summer: And when I got told that the cancer had gone and Debbie was just stood there and we just ran towards each other and I was just so touched that she had come to find me and we just hugged and I said to her "it's gone" and she said "I know!". Both of us were cancer free.

Nicole: So that is actually miraculous. Which showed that the treatment we were receiving had helped.

Summer: Boom! Go on Nicole, you know you want to do it.

Nicole: No, no - you like acting! Well, I'm glad that the cancer is not there anymore. We've had our treatment. We've gone through the good, the bad, the ugly, and we're looking a bit normal again.

Summer: The cancer has left the room.

Nick: Did it affect the family? Yes, it did. Did it affect me? Obviously it did. I was restricted in walking the dog, because literally I couldn't walk up hills. The family have also noticed the difference in my demeanor, my behavior, no shortness of breath, no coughing. I've not had a single exacerbation of any description or asthma attack or anything. And it's down, yeah, to the guys who are doing this research programme, who introduced me and got me onto the programme. And you can quote me here: it's the happiest eight months I've spent in many a year.

Nicole: I would, you know, if somebody came to me now and said to me, would you if they were diagnosed with breast cancer and it was offered to them, I'd say don't even hesitate go for it because it's worth it in the long term.

Summer: Yeah. And for the whole of the staff, I have total admiration. Not only for like the people at the front but for all the people behind the scenes that just don't get recognition for what they do. Like all the scientists, all the people that take blood, all the people that spend days over the test tube, the amazing nurses down in the lab that actually made our chemo.

Nicole: Yeah, they are fantastic. I cannot fault them at all. And I just say, keep up the good work and they work their butts off.

Summer: Thank you for the trial. Can we do it? Boom!

Nick: The message I have is very simple. It's two words. Thank you.