‘After being diagnosed with a brain tumour, I was worried about paying my mortgage... thanks to a great new service I was able to find a way to return to work’
As she went through treatment for a brain tumour last year, Judith Gault faced a huge worry which she could have done without. Like so many cancer patients, the Cookstown occupational therapist was anxious about how she was going to return to her job with the Northern Trust.
Legally, you cannot drive for two years if you have a high-grade brain tumour and as Judith relied on her car for her community-based job, she was concerned about how she would manage.
Worry about returning to work has become such a big issue with cancer patients that a new service has been launched across Northern Ireland to support patients.
Macmillan Cancer Support has trained a team of people for a new Support Conversation Service, which has just been rolled out to all trusts.
For Judith (31), who was one of the first to benefit during a pilot of the service last year, it has already proved a lifeline.
Thanks to the support of Macmillan, she has been able to work with her employers to overcome the obstacles she faced returning to her job.
She says: “It was a big worry at what was already a very difficult time and also a time when I really needed to be trying not to get stressed about things.
“I couldn’t see how I could go back to my role, which involved driving to clients’ houses and also a one-hour drive to and from home in Cookstown to my base in Coleraine.
“I was also immune-suppressed because I was going through chemotherapy, which meant I couldn’t use public transport or have client contact.
“I needed to get back to work because I was worried about finances and paying my mortgage and I also wanted to get some normality back in my life by being in work again.”
Macmillan was able to signpost Judith to two government-run services she didn’t even know existed — Workable NI and Access to Work (NI).
Both organisations worked with her and her employer to make changes to her role, which were necessary to allow her to return to work.
Workable NI is run by the Department for Communities to offer long-term support to help people with disabilities, who face a lot of barriers to employment, find and keep work.
Access to Work (NI) can help people with disabilities who wish to take up employment, or who are in work and experience difficulty related to their disability.
Judith says: “Both organisations really helped work out a way that I could continue to do my job without a car.
“I found the service offered by Macmillan completely invaluable.
“I didn’t know my rights and it was even good to learn that my employer is legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments to allow me to return to work,” she says.
Judith was able to arrange to travel to work by taxi and her employers offered her a new office-based role in a different centre in Magherafelt, which drastically reduced the distance she had to commute to work.
She managed to return to her job last September and continued to work right through her chemotherapy treatment, which finished before Christmas.
Judith’s diagnosis came out of the blue in March 2017, just as she was about to fulfil her dream of taking a career break and living in Canada for a year.
She had spent three years planning her trip and getting the necessary paper work organised and was due to leave at the end of that month.
However, she had been suffering ongoing headaches since Christmas, but only decided to go to her GP because of her planned trip to Canada.
Nothing prepared her for what was to come.
She says: “I actually felt really silly going to my GP with a headache. I had been going through some changes at work and I blamed the headaches on stress because you don’t think it could be anything serious,” she says.
“In fact, I honestly don’t believe I would have gone to see my GP if I hadn’t been planning to go to Canada — my dad encouraged me to go because of the long-haul flight.
“It was Valentine’s Day when I went to the GP’s surgery and my doctor prescribed anti-anxiety pills and made an appointment for me to come back a week later. I didn’t have any other symptoms, only the headaches.
“But the anxiety pills didn’t help, so my doctor wanted to refer me to a neurologist.
“I knew the waiting list was really long, so I tried to make a private appointment and could only get one two days before I was due to leave for Canada.”
Just days after seeing her GP, however, Judith woke one morning with such a severe headache that she couldn’t lift her head from her pillow.
On March 6, just two weeks before she was due to leave for Canada, she went to Antrim Hospital, where a scan revealed she had a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma, which was a large growth on the frontal lobe of her brain.
She was admitted to hospital and later transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, undergoing a major 10-hour operation just a week later.
“I think it was more of a shock for my mum, who was with me when doctors told me what was wrong,” she recalls. “Mum just broke down, but I was numb. I don’t think at that point I really took it in fully.
“They wanted to keep me in to do an MRI to confirm it and when the results of that came through, it became real to me.”
Surgery followed within a few days, when 90% of the tumour was successfully removed. At the time, she should have been packing for her trip to Canada, but instead she was recovering from her operation and preparing to start six weeks of radiotherapy.
She then faced six chemotherapy sessions, but only completed three as her blood count was too low to continue the treatment.
Just over a year on, Judith has recovered and is doing well.
She says: “It has been a complete whirlwind of ups and downs.
“The biggest frustration for me was losing my driving licence and worrying about getting back to work.
“I used to be so active and so able and not being able to drive and having to rely on friends and family was the hardest thing.
“But now, I am feeling back to normal again. An illness like this changes your perspective on life and while I was really looking forward to taking a year out in Canada, I am now happy to make the best of what I have here.”
I had been going through some changes at work and blamed the headaches on stress