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What a fantastic month June has been!
Dal weighed in at 13st 10 & 1/8th up 2lb since last time such a good sign. He continues to take Lansoprazole 30mg but only once a day as apposed to the two a day he had been taking in May. A week after his first chemo, Dal stopped taking any other pain killers, he had been on the maximum amount of pain killers prior to chemo, he was woken in the night with pain, but now, there was no need, there was no pain.
You may recall that Dal had been on mashed food...
I just wanted to share my journey which has been nowhere near as bad as I had feared. From Diagnosis, to treatment and surgery and Hair Loss with a dose of Covid-19 thrown in for good measure. I believe laughter and a positive mindset are the best coping mechanisms. If you worry it will change nothing, but it will make you miserable. If you laugh and are positive it may not change anything but boy does it make the journey so much easier.
I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in December...
So finished 5th round of chemo fine, only one more round to go! Went to a local hospital for my bloods this time which was much easier than travelling all the way into the city. My potassium was still low so will have to work on that this month.
I’d managed to drop my steroids down to 0.5mg a day and after finishing the 5th round of chemo went down to a tablet every other day and then a week later I came off them completely. I won’t lie it was like running into a brick wall, for over a week...
My chemotherapy journey (6 cycles of O-CHOP) began in earnest at 6.30pm on the evening of 25th November 2019 when I received a call from the hospital to go in to prepare for treatment the following day. It may seem strange, but I had actually been looking forward to spending a night or two in hospital as it was going to be a new experience. Although we had been expecting the call, it came as we were watching the final 10 minutes of the final episode of the final series of ‘Engrenages’, one of the...
The digital clock above the bed showed 8.43pm at the devastating, heart-breaking time when Julie Marie Lea took her final breath. The date was Thursday, June 20, 2019 – coincidentally, my soulmate had died on my 45th birthday. I was holding her left hand gently and stroking her. One last kiss on her forehead to say goodbye.
On the other side of the bed was her older brother David. He had been sitting loyally next to Julie almost entirely for those 36 hours when she was finally out of pain...
Since my mastectomy i do check regularly for any changes though it isn’t very easy as my left arm and hand are badly affected by MS. My husband checks for any changes too. I’ve just had my 6 monthly CLL check. Apart from the white blood cells everything was normal. The w.b.c. is 13 this time. Even though only 3 above the accepted level it has suddenly brought everything back and my brain is working overtime! Before lockdown I felt so healthy and upbeat too. I think because I’m classed as elderly...
I had a lot of questions , ranging from the wider ‘why has this happened to me’ through to more practical matters such as whether I could exercise during treatment and what to do if the side effects were bad. My advice would be to always ask questions during consultant appointments and make use of the Clinical Nurse Specialist team who in my hospital were available during office hours Monday-Friday. The consultant may not always be able to clear up all questions as in many cases there are no absolute...
Telling people you have cancer is not an easy thing to do as it is not just something you slip into a conversation. Starting a conversation in this way is fraught with difficulty too. I told my wife as soon as I got home from the neck biopsy and she was predictably shocked but immediately adopted a ‘we’ll get through this together’ approach which was very comforting. We told our daughter, who is 17, a few days later. She had a wee tear but otherwise seemed fine. Even though she is a resilient child...
Before treatment started I underwent regular blood tests, CT and PET scans and a bone marrow biopsy so the medical team knew exactly how my non-Hodgkin lymphoma was progressing, where it was located and whether I was fit enough to undergo treatment. I was shocked to see how much cancer there was in my body when I got the results of the PET scan. For me, the worst part of the whole experience was the bone marrow biopsy. The information booklet the hospital sent me stated ‘the procedure can be uncomfortable...
I was told I had cancer during a neck biopsy procedure on 29th October 2019. However I though this moment should have played out, this wasn’t it. In TV programmes and films you are summoned into an office, told to take a seat and soothingly informed by a doctor that ‘they have some bad news to tell you’. In my case, the radiologist simply asked me if I was aware my lymph nodes were abnormally long, proceeded to take some samples from my neck using a clicking device then told me a course of chemotherapy...
