Home again and reflecting on another Information Event

What an interesting event.

left-right: Emma Thomas, Lorraine Williams, Mr Fausto Palazzo (and in background slide, Alaska Blue, Emma's gorgeous and beloved rescue sled dog, who featured in her talk, as a great source of support and inspiration through her illness)

Thanks to all who came along and to all who helped out and to our speakers and to the Royal Free for hosting us and the great catering team who did our refreshments and to those who have sent lovely feedback afterwards.

One person texted me yesterday to say:

“thank you for working so hard to organise such an enthralling lecture.”  

 I love these meetings. So much work goes into them but it is so worth it.

We learn such a lot and it is so good to meet and chat to other thyroid patients.

Thyroid surgery is not actually particularly relevant for me to know about. As someone with an underactive thyroid, as opposed to thyroid cancer, Graves disease (overactive thyroid disease) or a very enlarged goitre growing down into my chest, I won’t ever need thyroid surgery, unless something highly unexpected happens sometime down the line.

But I still enjoyed learning about it from eminent Consultant Endocrine Surgeon, Fausto Palazzo. And I enjoyed hearing from patient, Emma Thomas, who had her surgery more than 20 years ago, when she was just 21, even though she actually had a bad experience with complications, her story was inspiring as she has learned so much about how to manage the condition surgery left her with, hypoparathyroidism. And many of her lessons were relevant to anyone with a chronic health condition who wants to take responsibility for being as well as they can be.

We had been planning to have a third speaker, Louise Davies was going to give a talk on how yoga can be beneficial for people with thyroid disease, but I was concerned our programme was over full and our speaker was concerned about timings as she had to be somewhere else straight after our meeting, so we agreed to rearrange her for a future date (tbc) and we had a short relaxation session instead. That was lovely too. We’ve done relaxation sessions at previous Patient Voices events but this was the first time we’ve done it at an info event and it really worked beautifully. More of this in future I think. 

We also shared photos of our summer activities – the London 10K, Jill Liddington’s walk from Yorkshire to London and the London Group summer walk from Broadstairs to Ramsgate.  Some of our group had also been to a follow up session with the researchers at Imperial who wanted to canvas the views of thyroid patients on changes to how data is being used in the NHS.I hadn’t realised how busy we’d been till I stopped to pull all the information together.

In a couple of weeks BTF has 30 walkers taking  part in the Carrot Walk in London (as well as more walkers at events in Birmingham and Glasgow) organised by the charity Fight for Sight. And next year there’s going to be a special meeting in Leeds for parents, carers and children with thyroid disease. So we promoted both of those upcoming events too.

We finished with another epic Q&A session.

I’ve a lot to write up. And donations to bank. People as ever were very generous.

   

And I’m quite knackered, it’s a 150 mile round trip for me to get back to London these days and it’s a tiring day as you can imagine. But it’s all good. I’ll post again soon with write ups of the talks and some of the Q&As. 

If you came to the meeting and would like to share any comments on here please do, I seem to be very low on comments on these days though I know lots of you are reading the blog, please don't be shy - all comments are warmly welcomed! 

Thyroid surgery, London patient event 7th Sept 2013 - info

The London group of the British Thyroid Foundation (BTF), a national patient charity, is organising an event for thyroid patients and people with an interest in thyroid disorders at the Royal Free Hospital, London on Saturday, 7^th September.

Leading Consultant Endocrine Surgeon, Mr Fausto Palazzo, he will be talking about thyroid surgery and answering questions on all aspects of thyroid health.  

Mr Fausto Palazzo, Consultant Endocrine Surgeon, see bio below

The event will also be an opportunity for patients to share their experiences and connect with each other.

Thyroid disease is very common and usually easily treated - one in 20 people in the UK have a thyroid disorder - yet it is largely a hidden disease and some cases can have a devastating impact on people’s lives. 

Thyroid surgery is used in managing several disorders of the thyroid gland and there are several different kinds of surgery. Complications are rare and usually treatable but can be significant. To avoid complications, thyroid surgery should always be performed by an experienced surgeon who regularly performs thyroid operations.

Thyroid disease will be relevant to many of your readers and a real problem for some of them, we would be thrilled if you could write about our event to help reach out to those who could benefit from it.

Where and when

The event will take place on Saturday, 7 September, from 10am to 1pm, in the Sir William Wells Atrium, Royal Free Hospital.

For more information or to book a place, email lorrainewilliams@btf-thyroid.org.

Refreshments will be provided. Donations will be welcomed, with a suggested minimum of £3 per person, to help cover the costs of the event.

 Notes:

Mr Fausto Palazzo is a Consultant Endocrine Surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London where he is Clinical Lead for Endocrine Surgery. He trained in general surgery in London and in endocrine surgery in Oxford, Sydney and Marseille. He has one of the UK's largest practices in thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal surgery and in 2012 performed over 350 procedures including 160 parathyroidectomies and 40 laparoscopic or retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomies. His specialist interest is thyroid cancer, re-operative parathyroid surgery and minimally invasive endocrine surgery. He teaches on national and international courses and has published extensively on all aspects of endocrine disease and surgery. 

The British Thyroid Foundation (BTF) is a national patient support charity dedicated to supporting people with thyroid disorders and helping their families and people around them to understand the condition. It has been established for 21 years and works with medical professionals from the British Thyroid Association and the British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons. Website www.btf-thyroid.org

The BTF London group was launched in 2011 and meets around five times a year. We usually get around 40 attendees and feedback on all events so far has been mostly very enthusiastic.

The Royal Free Hospital is six minutes walk from Belsize Park underground station, 14 minutes from Hampstead underground station, and just four minutes walk from Hampstead Heath railway station. The meeting will be held in The Atrium which will be clearly signposted from the main entrance. Parking space is extremely limited in the local area so attendees are encouraged to use public transport.

You are warmly invited to attend this event, just be sure to email me to book your place in advance. 

The next event after this one is 2nd November, on nutritional medicine and thyroid disorders, with speakers from the University of Surrey MSc in Nutritional Medicine.