Effing cancer is an effing effer, frankly
Discussion
Spydaman said:
I've had the sigmoidoscopy and they took a sample for biopsy. I've also had a PET scan. They both get reviewed by the MDT team on Tuesday but have already penciled me in for an op to remove the stricture. Hopefully they conclude it's not cancer. The NHS really are very good at what they do.
Fingers crossed for you.My colonoscopy (6 month follow up) came back clear, thankfully.
I'm after ideas to help my partner / her family process what's about to happen to her Mum (70s, life long smoker until about 15 years ago, COPD plus other stuff).
Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
Munter said:
I'm after ideas to help my partner / her family process what's about to happen to her Mum (70s, life long smoker until about 15 years ago, COPD plus other stuff).
Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
We're going though this at the moment with my MIL. Some patients are easier than others no doubt. But without having gone through it, I don't think anything can prepare you physically or mentally. Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
My wife has been strong and stoic, but now close to the end of her tether. My advice don't be proud or try to muddle through. Some great help and support (and some not so great) out there. Use it at every opportunity.
If I'm ever in the same situation, I wouldn't want to burden my relatives, or suffer the humiliation.
Edited by How u doing on Monday 21st June 12:15
The wife was diagnosed with cancer on Monday, apparently the one you’d want to get if you had to chose one…
Prognosis good but cosmetic results of tumour removal are really worrying her.
Worse bit was explaining it to our son, nothing held back so there wouldn’t be any surprises following surgery.
Effing cancer.
Prognosis good but cosmetic results of tumour removal are really worrying her.
Worse bit was explaining it to our son, nothing held back so there wouldn’t be any surprises following surgery.
Effing cancer.
22 said:
Best wishes r159, make sure you look after yourself too while looking after your wife.
I found a Maggie's centre this week while in Oxford and took more from a short time in there than I imagined (as a supporting spouse).
If you are Oxfordshire based, I have found the Humminbird Centre in Bicester very useful for our whole family, We didn't gel with Maggies at all...I found a Maggie's centre this week while in Oxford and took more from a short time in there than I imagined (as a supporting spouse).
22 said:
Best wishes r159, make sure you look after yourself too while looking after your wife.
I found a Maggie's centre this week while in Oxford and took more from a short time in there than I imagined (as a supporting spouse).
Cheers for that, tbh usually it’s me getting bits cut out, chopped up and generally messed about with, so it’s my turn to be supportive one. She has problems with anxiety after a series of very unpleasant events, that’s her biggest battle at the moment. I found a Maggie's centre this week while in Oxford and took more from a short time in there than I imagined (as a supporting spouse).
We are fortunate to have family local and she has some great friends. Both our respective bosses are good people too.
I started another thread but finally found this main cancer thread.
My wife was diagnosed with AML leukaemia two weeks ago. I would do anything to swap with her. We have two children and I’m struggling to keep everything together at home to be the “man” and tell everyone it’s going to be alright.
She started two weeks worth of hydroxycarbamide tablets, first 2*2 a day then 2*3 then finally back down to 1*2 a day and now none. Her white blood cells are back to a “normal level” from a high of 75000 to 3000 per micro millimetre ( I think it is measured like that) However this process has knackered her platelets and red cells so she is absolutely shattered even just having a shower. We keep getting informed that it was caught early, treatable , fit, young and healthy. The proper chemotherapy should start this week once the results of the bone marrow biopsy come back.
I’ve seen her every day and she is shrinking in front of my eyes, now lost over 1.5 stone and she looks ill and her face looks so thin.
I know this isn’t about me but I’m lost. I cry myself to sleep, my youngest is in bed with me. My eldest is in denial. Nobody wants to eat and our world has stopped. McMillan have given us books but nobody wants to read them after seeing the chapter on Death at the end.
I keep looking online about AML and it’s just puts me into an even worse states when I start looking at % rates and life expectancy if it cannot be fixed.
I’ve spent over half my life with her and I need to be strong but I go to see her and I can’t face it. She’s much stronger than I am.
She’s had a CT scan and it was all clear, a heart scan was all clear and they decided not to bother with a lymph node biopsy because they are certain it has not spread.
At this stage I believe we are at the start of the treatment, reacted well to the first tablets and we have a long journey to go with chemotherapy and bone marrow donation. Please can someone post positive news about leukaemia.
My wife was diagnosed with AML leukaemia two weeks ago. I would do anything to swap with her. We have two children and I’m struggling to keep everything together at home to be the “man” and tell everyone it’s going to be alright.
She started two weeks worth of hydroxycarbamide tablets, first 2*2 a day then 2*3 then finally back down to 1*2 a day and now none. Her white blood cells are back to a “normal level” from a high of 75000 to 3000 per micro millimetre ( I think it is measured like that) However this process has knackered her platelets and red cells so she is absolutely shattered even just having a shower. We keep getting informed that it was caught early, treatable , fit, young and healthy. The proper chemotherapy should start this week once the results of the bone marrow biopsy come back.
I’ve seen her every day and she is shrinking in front of my eyes, now lost over 1.5 stone and she looks ill and her face looks so thin.
I know this isn’t about me but I’m lost. I cry myself to sleep, my youngest is in bed with me. My eldest is in denial. Nobody wants to eat and our world has stopped. McMillan have given us books but nobody wants to read them after seeing the chapter on Death at the end.
I keep looking online about AML and it’s just puts me into an even worse states when I start looking at % rates and life expectancy if it cannot be fixed.
I’ve spent over half my life with her and I need to be strong but I go to see her and I can’t face it. She’s much stronger than I am.
She’s had a CT scan and it was all clear, a heart scan was all clear and they decided not to bother with a lymph node biopsy because they are certain it has not spread.
At this stage I believe we are at the start of the treatment, reacted well to the first tablets and we have a long journey to go with chemotherapy and bone marrow donation. Please can someone post positive news about leukaemia.
Edited by oldaudi on Sunday 1st August 20:32
I'm sorry to hear of your situation oldaudi. I'm not sure anything we randoms can say will help, but an early catch, treatable, fitness and youth can only help.
As for you and your children, all I can say is talk about it. Be open. Talk to them, involve them a little; make them realise that much can be done and that the prognosis is positive; give them some control over the way they feel. I know that's much easier said than done, but 'being lost' is normal. There's no rule book at times like these, so do what feels instinctively right, rather than what you 'feel you ought' to be doing. Crying, denial, anger ... all 'normal'.
I hope the circumstances for you are very, very different, but my father's grief and uncertainty - and what he would have seen as 'weakness' - as my mother's diagnosis got worse and as she eventually slipped away, made me love and respect him all the more.
As for you and your children, all I can say is talk about it. Be open. Talk to them, involve them a little; make them realise that much can be done and that the prognosis is positive; give them some control over the way they feel. I know that's much easier said than done, but 'being lost' is normal. There's no rule book at times like these, so do what feels instinctively right, rather than what you 'feel you ought' to be doing. Crying, denial, anger ... all 'normal'.
I hope the circumstances for you are very, very different, but my father's grief and uncertainty - and what he would have seen as 'weakness' - as my mother's diagnosis got worse and as she eventually slipped away, made me love and respect him all the more.
r159 said:
Cheers for that, tbh usually it’s me getting bits cut out, chopped up and generally messed about with, so it’s my turn to be supportive one. She has problems with anxiety after a series of very unpleasant events, that’s her biggest battle at the moment.
We are fortunate to have family local and she has some great friends. Both our respective bosses are good people too.
Just as an update Mrs159 had the 2nd lot of surgery to reconstruct her eyelid after confirmation that all of the tumour was removed in the first. We are fortunate to have family local and she has some great friends. Both our respective bosses are good people too.
The eye is healing, hopefully for her sake it will look ok.
For oldaudi above, I work with a guy who had leukaemia 20 years ago…and I’m sure treatment has got even better since then.
oldaudi said:
I started another thread but finally found this main cancer thread.
Please can someone post positive news about leukaemia.
Not me, Sorry bud.Please can someone post positive news about leukaemia.
We've been doing Cancer for the last 12 years, granted, not Luekimea, but stage 4 breast cancer. It's not the end, until it's the End. This is Important!!
Get help: Call in sick to work and get a doctors note, for you - I finally did this last week - best thing I ever did - too many plates to spin - my work said they were surprised I hadn't done it sooner.
Find a local Cancer charity, they will have councillors for you and the kids. We found McMillan a bit impersonal for us, the local charity has been incredible.
You've still got to go to the shops, and do the washing up etc, as daft as this sounds, it still has to happen.
Tell everyone! tell them how s
t it is, and watch some people you thought were friends disappear, and others that you thought were on the fringe STEP UP and help out to the max.I can only wish you and your family the best of luck.
Kind regards.
My wife has had multiple myeloma for two years. Her treatment was suspended for most of last year due to COVID. By November she was very, very ill. She became so ill they had to carry out a stem cell transplant in January and was in hospital alone for three weeks in isolation. When she was released she was six stone, bald and couldn’t walk more than half a dozen steps. She looked like a withered old woman.
She’s now got all her weight back, hair is growing and she loves long walks. Her cancer can never be cured and she will be on medication for the rest of her life. But the future is a lot brighter than it was. Even when things seem lost, treatments today give so much hope.
She’s now got all her weight back, hair is growing and she loves long walks. Her cancer can never be cured and she will be on medication for the rest of her life. But the future is a lot brighter than it was. Even when things seem lost, treatments today give so much hope.
Munter said:
I'm after ideas to help my partner / her family process what's about to happen to her Mum (70s, life long smoker until about 15 years ago, COPD plus other stuff).
Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
Well that was a fast 12 months. 2 months after diagnosis she's passed away. Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
In a way faster was best because despite promises they could stop her pain, the nurses never did. The drugs did mask a mouth infection though. So she wasn't eating and essentially starved herself to death over 2 months of pain.
Perhaps it was an impossible job. But I can't say I'd recommend the support of "Dougie Mac" in Stoke.
Munter said:
Well that was a fast 12 months. 2 months after diagnosis she's passed away.
In a way faster was best because despite promises they could stop her pain, the nurses never did. The drugs did mask a mouth infection though. So she wasn't eating and essentially starved herself to death over 2 months of pain.
Perhaps it was an impossible job. But I can't say I'd recommend the support of "Dougie Mac" in Stoke.
Sorry for your loss In a way faster was best because despite promises they could stop her pain, the nurses never did. The drugs did mask a mouth infection though. So she wasn't eating and essentially starved herself to death over 2 months of pain.
Perhaps it was an impossible job. But I can't say I'd recommend the support of "Dougie Mac" in Stoke.
Munter said:
Munter said:
I'm after ideas to help my partner / her family process what's about to happen to her Mum (70s, life long smoker until about 15 years ago, COPD plus other stuff).
Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
Well that was a fast 12 months. 2 months after diagnosis she's passed away. Her Mum had gall bladder issues, eventually a few weeks ago it turned out to be cancer, that spread to the liver, then they also found it in the lungs, and bowel. They think possibly 12 months. I don't expect these to all be good months. Particularly as she's pretty much refusing to eat (eating causes more pain later, and she's stubborn, so despite being told she can have all the pain meds she likes "it's not that bad"). So I'm not sure 12 months is accurate, but I guess we'll find out.
I can see it's all a bit "distant" for them at the moment. Perhaps the best I can do is wait for the emotional fall out, but is there anything I can suggest they do before things get really difficult.
In a way faster was best because despite promises they could stop her pain, the nurses never did. The drugs did mask a mouth infection though. So she wasn't eating and essentially starved herself to death over 2 months of pain.
Perhaps it was an impossible job. But I can't say I'd recommend the support of "Dougie Mac" in Stoke.
Clinical decisions were made by a nameless someone who'd never met the patient or family. Information they received was 2nd often 3rd hand. Bearing in mind we have no medical training, learning on the hoof, the patient (allowed to die in terrible pain) had a pretty crap last few weeks.
Edited by 23.7 on Monday 2nd August 17:24
Elroy Blue said:
My wife has had multiple myeloma for two years. Her treatment was suspended for most of last year due to COVID. By November she was very, very ill. She became so ill they had to carry out a stem cell transplant in January and was in hospital alone for three weeks in isolation. When she was released she was six stone, bald and couldn’t walk more than half a dozen steps. She looked like a withered old woman.
She’s now got all her weight back, hair is growing and she loves long walks. Her cancer can never be cured and she will be on medication for the rest of her life. But the future is a lot brighter than it was. Even when things seem lost, treatments today give so much hope.
I wish you both well. She’s now got all her weight back, hair is growing and she loves long walks. Her cancer can never be cured and she will be on medication for the rest of her life. But the future is a lot brighter than it was. Even when things seem lost, treatments today give so much hope.
I’m still waiting for my annual CT scan which is now 9 months overdue.
GT3Manthey said:
Starfighter said:
I just lost a good friend over the weekend. He went from swimming 2 miles a night to not being able to climb the stairs in 18 months. RIP Dave.
Terrible sorry for your loss. Can I ask what type of C he had and his age ?
Driving my wife nuts about retirement now
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