The Alfred, Melbourne

Daniela has been a nurse at The Alfred for the past 20 years and has provided care for many cancer patients during that time. She is passionate about caring for myeloma patients in all aspects of their treatment phase, ensuring their needs are met for a positive patient and carer experience. One aspect of Daniela’s role is coordinating stem cell transplants for her myeloma patients.

She has seen first-hand the huge difference that Dry July funding makes to her myeloma patients. Many of these patients are going through some of the toughest times in their lives and living rurally or regionally, which means they have additional financial, emotional and transport pressures. The accommodation provided using the Dry July funding means that select regional and rural patients have the first phase of their transplant as an outpatient in The Alfred's outpatient centre. The accommodation is their home away from home for a short period, taking a five-minute walk to the hospital from the accommodation for appointments until their admission day.

“The support from Dry July means we can ensure that myeloma patients that need accommodation are not disadvantaged by their location of residence which reduces additional worries at such a challenging time,” Daniela said.

Join us this Dry July and help The Alfred continue to support people affected by cancer. Programs funded through Dry July include the patient accommodation, a music therapy program for patients and loved ones affected by cancer, helping them explore and express difficult emotions. With your support we hope to be able to continue to fund these amazing programs again this year.

Your fundraising for Dry July has enabled The Alfred Foundation to support programs like our Music Therapy Program.

For several years now the money raised through Dry July has been used to continue the Music Therapy Program here at The Alfred, employing our fantastic and very talented Music Therapist, Lucy. We’d like to thank all of those who stepped up to the challenge of going Dry in July to support our cancer patients in their treatment and recovery.

Head here to listen to Lucy playing the in the hospital corridors during the pandemic: www.dryjuly.com/2021/the-alfred-music-therapy-program 

For the past 5 years Jacquie, now aged 70, has been sailing around the world on her boat. First Jacquie travelled up to Darwin, then across the Indian Ocean to South Africa, before heading over to South America and up to the Caribbean. Then it was through the Panama Canal and on to the islands of the Pacific before heading back to Australia again. Jacquie has known many adventures along the way as a solo sailor and in that time, she also wrote and published her own book “Just Me at Sea”. Her boat’s name is Shanti, which means peace, tranquility, bliss & the ability to rise above stress and adversity. As Jacquie says “kind of sums up my circumnavigation as well as my current journey.”

Both luckily and unluckily, it was in the time that Jacquie was back in Melbourne that she noticed a persistent sore shoulder that she went to have checked. There were no other symptoms to report but a routine blood test picked up an abnormality and Jacquie was diagnosed with Leukaemia.

On the 1st of December 2020, Jacquie was admitted to hospital at The Alfred for an initial 6 weeks of treatment. While in The Alfred’s Haematology and Oncology Department for treatment, Jacquie was very touched to experience Lucy’s majestical harp playing thanks to the Music Therapy program funded through Dry July.

Jacquie says “Music is very important to me. I love to play guitar and sing and my daughter, Misha Bear is a professional musician, singer /songwriter. I had a guitar while travelling too and loved to play around a bonfire on the beach with my fellow sailors. Hearing Lucy play the harp and sing, while I was receiving treatment in HOC was tremendously uplifting, an unexpected lightness and joy. It made me feel emotionally moved, delighted that someone should bring their music to lift our spirits.”

Jacquie isn’t shy of a challenge. It took her an entire year to do up her sailing boat before it was ready for the long voyage. Her treatment also continues ahead of her with multiple weeks needing to be spent in hospital for a stretch of 8 months in total before it will be completed. Jacquie says “this experience is certainly a good training in patience and acceptance. I find it important to stay in the present moment as much as possible and also to take it as it comes.”

For several years now the money raised through Dry July has been used to continue the Music Therapy Program here at The Alfred, employing our fantastic and very talented Music Therapist, Lucy. We’d like to thank all of those who step up to the challenge of going Dry in July to support our cancer patients just like Jacquie in their treatment and recovery. We hope this additional support will mean Jacquie can return to full health to be reunited with her boat as soon as possible.

Jacquie is adamant “I would strongly recommend music therapy to all hospital patients. It is a universally recognised panacea. The face on the man in the chair next to me showed the same joy. There should be more of it, and for longer.”

Your participation this Dry July, to support the continued joy of bringing music therapy to the Alfred’s HOC department, is deeply appreciated.

Lisa has three grown children and lives with her husband Shane in Mildura, a 6-hour drive from Melbourne. Her and her husband have a morning ritual to get up early and go for a walk along the beautiful Murray River. In late 2019 & early 2020 it became increasingly difficult to go for those walks.

She says, “I was just in so much pain, those morning walks became impossible.”

When physio and pilates made no difference, Lisa went to her doctor. After a series of tests and scans she received the devastating diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma – A type of blood cancer.

For her more complex care needs and treatment, Lisa needed to make the long trips to Melbourne. While so far from the comforts of home, Lisa was lucky to have access to the patient accommodation program funded entirely thanks to our donors and participants in Dry July.

This meant Lisa and her husband had free accommodation right next to the hospital. As a regional patient this also meant Lisa didn’t need to spend any more nights staying in the more sterile hospital environment than was necessary for her monitoring. Lisa says,

“It was great to be so close to the hospital, and also Fawkner Park across the road for walks. Being away from home for a month was very isolating and it was such an incredible comfort to have a place that felt like home while getting treatment. Having a place for my husband to stay as well was amazing. It was one less thing to worry about!”

From numerous scans, tests and biopsies, to surgery to remove her L1 vertebrae which contained Multiple Myeloma lession, then following chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, it’s been a long tough road for Lisa - and while things are looking good, she will still need further monitoring and medication into the future. 

Read Lisa's full story here: https://www.dryjuly.com/2021/lisas-story