New member

Hi Peteinlancs and welcome to the community. It's good to hear you are so far out of treatment and doing well. Thanks very much for offering your support and I see you have replied to   who was asking if there were any men in the group which is helpful. I have found this group very useful too  although I wish I had discovered it sooner than I did. Bev. 

Hi Peteinlancs,

Welcome to the online community. It’s great to hear you’re doing so well but completely understand the difficulty with some ongoing side effects. I was diagnosed February 2018 aged 52 & found this community a huge source of support. I’m a little over 2.5 years out of treatment & know it can be difficult at times, I tend to get flare ups of these side effects that sometimes send my mind in a bit of a tailspin & have to make a conscious effort to remind myself that this is probably just my new normal. 

It’s great to have a guys perspective on this particular diagnosis & someone that’s willing to offer support to others too. Thank you for that. 

Nicola

Hi 1in1500 and niikki65

thank you for welcoming me to the community.  I hope that by joining the community other men diagnosed with anal cancer will seek out support from this group.  

This cancer is rare and not one that is highlighted enough about despite all the current info on HPV. I told who I considered a close friend only to find them become distant and eventually ignore me. 

if anyone is reading this and not yet a member please don’t suffer in silence you are not alone. This community has a wealth of support for anyone from just being diagnosed to those that are sharing their journey with positivity and hints and tips that make the journey more bearable. 

pete.

Hi Peteinlancs sorry to hear of your ‘friend’ who distanced himself from you. There does need to education on HPV and cancer. Virtually everyone who has ever had sex will have come into contact with at least one of the strains of HPV. Most people are lucky in that their immune systems process the virus in a different way to ours or they will not be exposed to a strain that can cause cancer. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t understand this. Bev 

Hi again Pete, I logged in to ask more questions, sorry. I was going to ask about morphine and if you was on it in the past and how did you manage to give it up. 

But reading your post I see HPV ....A little bit of my past and circumstances. I was born with Haemophilia A (a blood condition that stops my blood from clotting) Back in the 70s when I was about 10 years old I was given one or more doses of contaminated factor 8 (this was the new treatment for Haemophilia to clot my blood after having a tooth out) It gave me hepatitis c. The factor treatment has since been called a virus soup with factor 8 in it...

When I was diagnosed with cancer I was shocked to find out that the rare cancer I had was linked to  a virus (HPV) I was angry that the same treatment that gave me HCV was almost certainly in my eyes the same way I had contracted HPV. After looking it up I can't seem to find anything about testing for this virus. I'm not sure where this post has taken me , I'm so angry that my parents were never told of any risks,  it took my doctors over 10 years to tell me that they had infected me with HCV and I was lucky I wasn't infected with HIV later in the 80s .they have never told me that HPV was also in the mix ..do they know or has it been swept under the table along with HIV and HCV .

Am I just going to suck it up or make a fuss?  not sure at the moment but i would like to know if this is part two of my infected treatment come back to haunt me.