First of all anyone hoping to read of my adventures walking round the countryside....sorry not that kind of Rambling...more a case of me writing things as they pop into my head
I realised earlier my last blog was written when i was quite drunk and reading it back it made little sense, so i thought i would write sober this time (i don't have a drinking problem!!) and see what happens.
I am now 18 months ish into my journey/roller coaster/stairway to heaven/highway to hell, however people want to describe the situation is completely up to them. I don't feel like im any closer to the conclusion, however i feel no further away, i feel like not a lot has changed, however ive had an extra 12 months of life i honestly didn't think i would get if you had asked me 18 months ago.
The last 18 months have been a busy time (after recovering from surgery), i have been working full time, got married, spent 6 weeks honeymooning in Australia (insurance to go there was not cheap!!!!!), been on several family holidays in the UK, and generally enjoyed life.
I feel like there are two ways to deal with Cancer, firstly you can feel sorry for yourself and let it take you to a dark place, or you can feel sorry for yourself and make the most of your situation. I myself started with the dark place theory...why me? Two weeks before my 32nd birthday, recently engaged and loving life to the max, 4 tours of Afghanistan survived without a scratch. Why not those Paedophile priests (bit odd you might think, but i firmly believe they deserve a lot more misery in their lives than a prison sentence will ever give them!....rambling again!), after a few months of this, i began to think....what if i don't have long left, why am i wasting my thoughts on exacting revenge on Paedophiles? I began to look around at things i could still be grateful for, my family never stopped supporting me, my friends (that i had told) never stopped taking the p**** (its OK its banter), my work supported me 100%. So i thought lets go enjoy life.
I found a good way to do that was to take out some incredibly well timed critical illness cover and life insurance. Thanks to that (taken out 3 months prior to diagnosis) I was able to take the wife to Oz for 6 week, business class flights, the works! Thank you Vitality Insurance!! I spent approximately £1500 on travel insurance for the 6 weeks, turns out i didn't need it, but i know if i hadn't got insurance i would have needed it!
I mentioned earlier friends that i had told...Im not a big one for sharing, and i dont share my life on facebook or anything like that (i only changed my relationship status on there to married to keep the wife happy). Around the time i was getting diagnosed, i lost a friend to cancer, and all the while he was going through his ordeal, he kept it to a small group of people. I always wondered why, i never questioned him on it, as it was his personal choice. It wasn't until i was in the same boat that i realised i felt the same. For some reason (not sure i can ever explain it) i feel like its a personal issue, i don't want the world knowing and constantly being reminded when a different person is asking hows it going/how are you/no but really...how are you etc etc every day. I say i don't want to be reminded every day as if i have the opportunity to forget....i can assure you i think about it every day!!....rambling again.....So i told my close friends, and people i couldn't avoid (at weddings, social gatherings etc). The best thing was when seeing people i haven't told, and they say 'your looking really well'......if only they knew (mwahahahah evil laugh....probably not entirely appropriate)! One friend did however put a group photo on facebook not long after my surgery, and i was probably about 20kg lighter than most people would know me....one comment on the pic was 'F****** H**** you look ill!'.....if only he knew (mwahaha etc etc.) I didn't have the heart to tell him, as he had recently lost his dad, and i knew he would feel really bad about his comment!
I started my second batch of chemo this summer, having had 9 cycles of my previous one last year. But due to cumulative side effects, numb hands and feet etc, they tried me on a different treatment....Until now i could always pull off the look of being fine and nobody passing me in the street would know i have cancer....then the hair disappeared...well that was a shock...not the fact it happened, i got away with it during the first round, and was told it was far more likely to happen with the new drugs....the shock was more to do with the reality of it all. Now i looked like a stereotypical cancer victim, and having not long been in Oz for 6 weeks i had the most horrendous tan line...for me, for some reason looking like a cancer sufferer was a terrible thing. It took me a while to get over it, i wont lie. But again all the people around me were great, nobody mentioned it or took the p****, and after a while (probably about the length of time it took the tan line to fade) i got over it, and now think of the benefits....im saving a fortune on shampoo and haircuts! I remember going to a Demystifying Chemo class run by Macmillan and they said i can get a discount on wigs...i keep threatening to get a Donald Trump style one and hit the sunbeds!!
I had my last CT scan in July, and it showed the drugs were helping to reduce the size of the cancer still inside me, but i still need some sort of miracle to reduce it enough for a surgeon to be confident to slice and dice me. But it seems every month on the news there is a new breakthrough in the world of cancer treatment, so i figured its worth hanging around a bit longer and maybe they can use me as a Guinea Pig for something!
If you have made it this far thanks for reading, i hope i didnt make you any more bored than when you started. I might write another one of these in the future who knows!
