Early Days Group for head and neck cancer patients from UCLH

Being discharged from hospital can be a difficult time for head and neck cancer patients.

For some patients, it can mean facing the reality of living with a changed appearance.  Some patients will have experienced some or significant changes to functions such as speech, eating and drinking. How we present ourselves to the outside world, our appearance, our voice, the way we speak, our capacity to share food and drink socially, is profoundly linked with who we are, how we experience ourselves and our sense of identity.

Whether surgical interventions were relatively confined or more radical, patients can experience a deep sense of loss of what used to feel so familiar, so much part of being themselves.  Emotions can be unusually strong, it may feel hard to share experiences with close ones or with people who have not gone through something similar.  Some patients wonder how to manage everyday life and consider the future with all these new dilemmas.   

The Early Days Group will be an on-going group of eight to ten patients recently discharged from UCLH Head and Neck Cancer unit who will meet for eight sessions of one hour and 30 minutes. Together we will look at how we can deal with difficult emotions and also how we can use coping strategies and new resources to manage today and tomorrow’s difficulties.  

Help with adjustment can make a huge difference.

If you have been referred to us by UCLH and have received your Early Days Group leaflet, contact us at 0845 4500 275 or at info@changingfaces.org.uk, leaving your full details and stating your interest in the Early Days Group.