MUM HAILS NHS STAFF AS SHE LOOKS FORWARD TO HITTING
20 Sunday Mail email
But, for Alison Tait, the operation was all the more frightening as she had her breast removed during lockdown.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Alison, 50, who was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer four years ago, attended Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital for the operation to help prolong her life.
She wasn’t allowed to have loved ones sit with her as she waited for the surgery or to see visitors as she recovered.
What haunts Alison most of all about her hospital stay was the deafening silence of the building’s normally bustling corridors and waiting rooms. And the sense of loneliness she felt when she first arrived. Alison, of Edinburgh, said: “Living with cancer can be a lonely journey at the best of times and losing a breast at any time was always going to be daunting but to go through such a big operation with everything else that is happening did bring additional worry. “My daughter Ellen took me to the hospital but wasn’t allowed in and just had to drop me at the door. As she drove away, I remember just standing with my bag. I knew things at the hospital would be very different but I never expected it to be so eerily quiet. It was like a ghost town.
“It hit me how seriously ill I must be for my operation to be going ahead when, a ll around the hospital, so many other procedures had been cancelled. It was a real double- edged sword knowing how vital my operation must be. And I couldn’t help but feel very alone.”
Alison, who is a single mum