Well it has been 6 months since our world was turned upside down, shaken around and stuffed back in.... So far Tony is still NED, but I do find I worry about the slightest thing. If he acts slightly different I panic that he is getting a brain met, if he has a slight mark or papule on his skin I worry it is a patch of melanoma, if he sweats during the night I think "It's back" if he has a bit of a cough, lung cancer, recently he had a gastric bug and I then thought 'Bowels" I am trying to get better at not always assume the worst, and I am trying to live my life not in constant fear. It is always at the back of my mind, but hopefully not as bad as it was initially.
We went to see a Naturopath and a nutritionist to see what we could do in a natural way as after his LND there was nothing much else on offer to us other than a 12 month trial in the UK which would have meant him uprooting from his family here in Goa and having to live with family and friends in the UK, unable to work, on a 50% chance he would actually get the trial drug and not a chalk pill, and even then there was such a small % that it would actually do him any good, in fact on the contrary, there was a 40% chance it could give him another form of skin cancer.... !!! Not to mention all the other ghastly side effects. Due to the fact that he is NED at the moment we came to the conclusion that we should save the trials for if and when it reappears... as in any case he could even develop a resistance to it and then where would we be if he really needed it in the future. So, we have decided to go along the natural path and he is now eating so healthily (considering he rarely ate salad or too many veggies before) he is now eating nothing with preservatives, no highly processed foods, no refined sugar products, just natural such as jaggery and honey in small doses, and follows quite an alkaline diet. No red meat, no alcohol (he didn't drink before) and no coffee. I am so proud of him for being so strong willed as I am sure if it was me I would be reaching for the wine bottle, but he feels it is necessary to give himself as much of a chance as possible and get his immune system as strong as it possibly could be. He is also following a protocol of a natural adjuvant therapy for the next 6 months to get his body fighting fit. I am hoping and praying that this all helps to eradicate any little b*****d cancer cells that are hanging around still. And if it doesn't at least it feels like we are doing something and we don't feel so helpless. Please God let us be in the 30% that it doesn't come back....
So, mostly I am fine, and back to my normal way with him, moaning and groaning! But every now and then I just get paralysed with the fear that it is not over yet.... and then I have to remind myself that if that happens then we will deal with it... I have to enjoy our life now... I found for a while that I would either be in a total mess of tears or I would find myself being really nasty and angry as then I couldn't feel... I wanted to get some counseling, but I seem to be through that dark phase now I think! I hope!! I almost didn't want him to do stuff on his own, like go for his month long trek he usually goes on to the mountains as it takes him away from me and what if? But then I realised that I can't be like that. He also needs to do and have his time away for himself. It's not all about me! He needs that more than ever now. Hard tho as the bucket list we had has now been brought to the fore which I find really upsetting sometimes! Especially as there is a lot on there that we planned to do when our daughter leaves home so for a while I felt that he was a bit almost resentful as he couldn't do those things yet and in his head he worries that he might never do them... But at least we talked about it and talked about ways we could get round certain things so neither of us feel that we are missing out...
Anyway, to date I seem to have clawed my way to the top of the black hole... I hope I can stay there!
