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Phone Pals - the Icing on the East Anglian Cake

Ella Pybus, Phone Pals host and Brain Tumour UK trustee wants to start an East Anglian Phone Pals Telecon group

Listen out! Come the second Monday of every month - if you had digitised super-natural hearing - you might hear the distant sound of voices talking down the humming wires. That’s when five or six of us with area codes scattered as far apart as Leicestershire, County Durham, Scotland, East Anglia and Hertfordshire get together to talk about life, living with a brain tumour, problem-solving, and what we’ve all been up to since our last Phone Pals teleconference.
We tried out Brain Tumour UK Phone Pals in December 2004 with a pilot group and found it did just what we hoped for – bringing together people living and coping with brain tumours, and breaking down the feeling of isolation caused by this serious condition.

Eastern Promise or should I say Phone Pals LookingEast?
The number of groups has expanded to meet the demand. Now we are ready to start an East Anglian group to complement our regional support groups for brain tumour patients and carers group in the eastern region. Just the ticket for those who cannot get to meetings!

The service is provided for us by the communications charity, Community Network, who ring Phone Pals group members on the due day at an agreed time. Thanks to Brain Tumour UK Phone Pals telecon calls are free to users. It’s easy to take part as the Community Network operator rings up everyone in turn to join them into the call which normally lasts for an hour. We keep to a once-a-month booking, always on the same day and same start time each month. This helps us all to remember when our group is meeting and keeps our diaries straight. It also allows us to blockbook Phone Pals calls, which helps to keep the costs down.

We are learning as we go, which is as it should be. At first, I imagined that once set up Phone Pals would stay the same, but it’s become clear that groups, once established, are not set in amber. Phone Pals members move about; some go back to work; some take on a course; holidays bring about changes, so do school holidays and hospital appointments, MRI scans, and so on. So group membership ebbs and flows with the seasons and our lives.

After two and a half years of hosting Pals telecons, what strikes me over and over is the variety of topics that surface in an hour’s conversation: the obvious topics of tumour, treatments, scans, doctors loved and doctors loathed, but work issues crop up, too, and keep-fit, films, travel, hobbies, books, DIY, life management, and life’s new beginnings and endings.

Friendship and Hope
It’s a curious thought that brain tumours, which can inspire so much fear, can also bring people together and help them to see life in brighter colours, and to meet new friends with whom they come to share far more than the tumour.

As one Phone Pal put it:
The information in the newsletters and the personal stories have really helped, and Phone Pals is the icing on the cake!

If you’d like to know more about Phone Pals please call Ella 01787 374084

Brain Tumour UK Website: braintumouruk.org.uk