Be Positive

Morning all hope everyone    

Morning everyone,  Moi you are from Liverpool?  I love Liverpool I was born there but left when I was one as my Dad got a job in Cadburys South Africa.  I love the place the people the accent everything about it.  Good morning the original Lee.

Lee 2.

Hi Lee2, yes Liverpool is my home now, born and bread. I've moved about alot in uk Germany and various  places but always end up home, its where I belong. I know a few people who live in and around Cape Town and love it. I hope you have a good day XX

MOI 

I have this mindset that yes, positivity has it's place, but constantly being positive and hopeful isn't a great thing. It is exhausting and you tend to do it more for others than yourself.  It's ok to be fed up, worse than that even, and it is ok to be angry and to want to chuck all the pills in the bin and tell the doctors to bugger off. It's because this is our own body, our own life that has been basically ruined by an incurable cancer.  Yeah, maybe there will be a cure around the corner, fingers crossed, but also we are allowed time to grieve for what we once had and what we wont have.  I know these words from others are well intended, but smiling through as they are given is tough work at times.

Hi Grogulove,  yes I agree with you, being positive is very exhausting and smiling with everyone when inside you feel like crying.  I see you make jewellery, is that your full time occupation, it sounds really interesting?  Are you still on the RADAR trial?  I am sending you hugs and love.

Lee 2 x

The jewellery is more of a hobby. Since treatment, the eyes and fingers are suffering which isn't great for close up work, but it does bring me a lot of joy when I make a piece.  I'm still on RADAR and am coming to the end where they will randomise me to see if I continue treatment. Fingers crossed my next bone marrow will come back good too :)  As for positivity, I feel more so today, had some of my childhood vaccines and feel quite proactive.  Hope you are having a great Tuesday :) x

I think toxic / fake positivity is tiring and no good to us. I try to remain hopeful about my situation but also realistic about what is going on. A bit like buying a lottery ticket, we can hope to win the lottery but are also realistic enough to know that is highly unlikely. Some people will be the one in a thousand that the systemic treatment completely cures them. However, the majority don’t have that response. It is a very fine balance. Every stage 4 patient is different and unless you are them, there is no way of knowing how they feel and cope. 

People here might *like* this chat https://community.macmillan.org.uk/cancer_types/breast-cancer-forum/f/questions-about-diagnosis-and-treatment/222074/starting-to-avoid-people-because-of-the-silly-things-they-say?pifragment-13906=39 

Hi Stella,  I didnt know that there was any chance of stage 4 cancer ever being cured.  I suppose with the forever changing drugs and treatments maybe one day there will be a cure.  Thank you for the linke Mmum.

Lee 2 x

With bowel cancer, some patients can have immunotherapy (3%) , out of that a lot of patients can be cured (46%) so that is around 1.5% of all the stage 4 bowel cancer patients.

The rest of us not eligible for immunotherapy, can have chemotherapy, there is 1-2 % patients have a complete response and ‘cured’ too. I am not one of them but it can happen randomly. 

So there is hope but one needs to be realistic about it though.