I would still need someone to help me get there, but I would really like to do it. (And now there's the possibility that I could live long enough to take in another "Ring" Cycle!)
I hate to whinge, but the edema really is awful, and my oncologist has run out of ideas to make it go away. Kyrie eleison...
I had a touch of peripheral oedema after my brain surgery. They were quite concerned, but a CT scan (is that right?) showed that all was well, and no nasties (like blood clots) were lurking.
Later on, in rehab, I still had Swollen Toes, and the staff nurse (a Bulgarian lady, who graduated in Greece, and therefore spoke and wrote fluently in Bulgarian/Cyrillic, Greek/Greek, and English/Roman) was very anxious about my Toes!
However, as I became more mobile, the problem disappeared. Dear sister Rossweisse's oedema is much more serious than mine, I think, so prayers ascending that it goes away...
BTW, those compression socks are, I suppose, a Good Thing, but O! what a relief it is to get 'em off!
Call up the devil by name and he will appear... This message comes to you from a hospital bed while friendly doctors and nice nurses chase away the third visitation of cellulitis, consequent upon the effing lymphoedema. As previously announced, lymphoedema is a bastard.
Thank you all - the invisible kindness feels so good. It's actually not so bad. When you've done it once, you know what to do, they throw a heavy duty antibiotic at it and send you home after two three days. Ain't any fun, though.
Call up the devil by name and he will appear... This message comes to you from a hospital bed while friendly doctors and nice nurses chase away the third visitation of cellulitis, consequent upon the effing lymphoedema. As previously announced, lymphoedema is a bastard.
{{votives}} for said friendly doctors, and nice nurses. Their reward(s) will surely be in Heaven.
Greatly touched by all the kind messages down here in Hell! I'm home again this evening (had to negotiate an early exit treaty) and will soon be back to normal curmudgeon status. I have it very easy now compared with so many, but thank you all.
Now, all of you, get back to cursing cancer like you were supposed to be doing!
24 hours ago, our dog was demanding to get onto our bed.
12 Hours ago lying on my lap, our dog was put down.
My wife and daughter and my tears, mingling. My son half way across the world crying via video said goodbye a few minutes earlier.
Alfie was almost six. He was a spoodle, a cockerpoo to some. On Tuesday he ran five km with me and my wife. He's only ever been good for 5km.
And then he went off his food.
We went to the vets and then again when he looked sicker.
And yesterday, the vet sent him to the bigger clinic, the ultrasound and the call. Mrs Patdys, please put your husband on speaker phone...liver cancer, and metastases and free fluid and jaundice and we can't fix this....and the trip in, to hold him, to love him and to let him go. So he could live and love as he always has. I would have liked some days to say goodbye, but that would mean pain for him, and our gift to him was to hold and cry as his heart stilled on my lap.
He was cheeky, he would have the final bark when we said time out, and then put himself in the laundry. He would lie on the couch across 1-2 laps on his back, legs akimbo. He would hold hands for hours. and he demanded touch and play as was his birthright.
He helped our anxiety, our blood pressure and he loved us unconditionally, and we him.
He was supposed to die of old age. Or never.
I wish I could put up a photo.
Vale Alfie.
And fuck you cancer.
This is not what you are facing. It is not the same. He is a dog. And I am not diminishing us all on this thread. I live in the world of the dying, maximising life and managing symptoms. I see the difference daily. And today, respecting you all, praying for us all, I mourn.
My maternal grandmother kept having to put dogs down... She swore no more. And gave in. And again some disease or old age got them. It is a great loss. She was the toughest woman I have ever known [she was dealt a shit lot in life]; but the death of each dog devastated her. God bless.
{{{Patdys}}} I am so sorry. Losing them is always terribly hard. I lost a beloved cat to cancer when she was 9, and I still feel cheated; at only 5, I cannot imagine. Prayers ascending for all of you.
((Patdys)) It's a hard, hard thing. I lost my beloved cat Bjorn to cancer and posted about it on this thread, two years ago, so don't feel your post was odd or out of place,
I have a very old friend whom I see every few months when she comes up from London to see family. I realise she is neurotic around illness and death and for this reason is very faddy about food, plus subscribing to all sorts of quack nostrums.
I could thole this until she made a really stupid and unkind remark (of which, tbf, she repented immediately) which implied Mr F deserved his cancer because he ate cheese. Which is, apparently, Evil.
She is coming to dinner Friday (I will do chicken and rice and fresh fruit. I always do.) But I would really like to lose the undercurrent of resentment.
Oh, Firenze, that's awful. I've encountered my share of self-trained nutritional experts who are eager to tell me how I brought on my cancer (usually by eating dairy products), and it can be hard to keep smiling. Good luck to you!
Pshaughhh...! I would die of starvation in a couple of weeks without dairy products. I have a good friend who has gone vegan, and dinner with him is sheer misery. Nothing makes him happy any more. I'll trade a long miserable life for a shorter, happier one, as I must be doing perfectly well already.
Same here, @Stercus Tauri. And since I'm already Stage IV (and have scored all four of the common metastasizes for this kind of breast cancer: bones, brain, liver, and lungs), I see no point in making myself more miserable by eating kale - unless a kind soul brings me a meal with kale in it. (I am not ungrateful.) I'll keep up with my dairy products, my chocolate, and my red wine for as long as they taste good.
Last week (beginning of the stone-fruit season) I bought nectarines and peaches. Yesterday iIbought some apricots. From the regular supermarket. I had been off them for decades (except for jam-making) as they are sprayed with tons of stuff (like really tons) to even just get them to grow here.
This in response to being diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Drives me nuts those people ... ooh I said nuts!
I do not eat dairy because when I eat it I do not feel good. I can tolerate small amounts but it is easier just to not have it in the house. Having said that, if someone else is cooking for me you better believe I will eat what ever is provided just watching portion size. This would be different of course if one has a true food allergy, such as some do to peanuts. I find it hard to be around people who think their way is the only way, and others need to conform to their ideas. At my age I no longer feel the need to put up with their foolishness. " No,---- I do not think my husband should not have surgery because you think his cancer could be cured if he would just eat asparagus everyday." Yes, someone suggested that.
My friend has a device - marketed as she acknowledges by a convicted fraudster - ‘which cures every cancer’ if we would just give it a go.
I always check what people prefer to eat, and pull anything which might have the slightest issue. I would just like reciprocal acknowledgment that my choices are thoughtfully considered as well.
[quote=
I always check what people prefer to eat, and pull anything which might have the slightest issue. I would just like reciprocal acknowledgment that my choices are thoughtfully considered as well.[/quote]
Of course that is just good manners, I am thinking of those who have way out requests such as a member of our women's group who is vegan, no problem we always label our food, and make sure there are choices for those who do not eat meat, at group pot lucks. But this women requests every one make their dishes with only organic produce, as that is the only kind she will eat and then takes 10 minutes to tell us we are all going to die early if we keep eating things that are sprayed. I have nothing against organic and indeed get a fresh organic delivery box each week, but I am sure if she eats something non organic at a pot luck she will survive.
We used to have an organic shop nearby. I would buy veg there - not always, it was expensive. I remember having to take back a bag of onions as every one had neck rot - a condition treated by spraying.
People forget that pre-industrial farming gave us joys like ergot poisoning and the Irish potato famine.
It’s like the objection to Big Pharma. Yes, pharmaceutical companies are grossly exploitative, but the drugs keeping Mr F alive aren’t being produced in dinky little artisanal laboratories.
Because current cancer treatments focus on killing cancer cells, but cannot achieve it 100%, leaving some cancer cells that have adapted to survive that treatment still in the body to recoup and try again.
(There are experiments in treatment that work on the ability of cancer cells to mutate currently to work around this.)
Comments
I hate to whinge, but the edema really is awful, and my oncologist has run out of ideas to make it go away. Kyrie eleison...
Later on, in rehab, I still had Swollen Toes, and the staff nurse (a Bulgarian lady, who graduated in Greece, and therefore spoke and wrote fluently in Bulgarian/Cyrillic, Greek/Greek, and English/Roman) was very anxious about my Toes!
However, as I became more mobile, the problem disappeared. Dear sister Rossweisse's oedema is much more serious than mine, I think, so prayers ascending that it goes away...
BTW, those compression socks are, I suppose, a Good Thing, but O! what a relief it is to get 'em off!
{{votives}} for said friendly doctors, and nice nurses. Their reward(s) will surely be in Heaven.
{{Stercus Tauri}} ; as BF wrote, how nice to have wonderful doctors and nurses. Best wishes for a speedy recovery and return home.
((Stercus Tauri))
Now, all of you, get back to cursing cancer like you were supposed to be doing!
12 Hours ago lying on my lap, our dog was put down.
My wife and daughter and my tears, mingling. My son half way across the world crying via video said goodbye a few minutes earlier.
Alfie was almost six. He was a spoodle, a cockerpoo to some. On Tuesday he ran five km with me and my wife. He's only ever been good for 5km.
And then he went off his food.
We went to the vets and then again when he looked sicker.
And yesterday, the vet sent him to the bigger clinic, the ultrasound and the call. Mrs Patdys, please put your husband on speaker phone...liver cancer, and metastases and free fluid and jaundice and we can't fix this....and the trip in, to hold him, to love him and to let him go. So he could live and love as he always has. I would have liked some days to say goodbye, but that would mean pain for him, and our gift to him was to hold and cry as his heart stilled on my lap.
He was cheeky, he would have the final bark when we said time out, and then put himself in the laundry. He would lie on the couch across 1-2 laps on his back, legs akimbo. He would hold hands for hours. and he demanded touch and play as was his birthright.
He helped our anxiety, our blood pressure and he loved us unconditionally, and we him.
He was supposed to die of old age. Or never.
I wish I could put up a photo.
Vale Alfie.
And fuck you cancer.
This is not what you are facing. It is not the same. He is a dog. And I am not diminishing us all on this thread. I live in the world of the dying, maximising life and managing symptoms. I see the difference daily. And today, respecting you all, praying for us all, I mourn.
And the tears and the snot still run.
My maternal grandmother kept having to put dogs down... She swore no more. And gave in. And again some disease or old age got them. It is a great loss. She was the toughest woman I have ever known [she was dealt a shit lot in life]; but the death of each dog devastated her. God bless.
RIP Alfie.
I could thole this until she made a really stupid and unkind remark (of which, tbf, she repented immediately) which implied Mr F deserved his cancer because he ate cheese. Which is, apparently, Evil.
She is coming to dinner Friday (I will do chicken and rice and fresh fruit. I always do.) But I would really like to lose the undercurrent of resentment.
This in response to being diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Drives me nuts those people ... ooh I said nuts!
I made tartiflette for dinner - potatoes, onions and bacon drowning in reblochon - and the hell with it.
I always check what people prefer to eat, and pull anything which might have the slightest issue. I would just like reciprocal acknowledgment that my choices are thoughtfully considered as well.
I always check what people prefer to eat, and pull anything which might have the slightest issue. I would just like reciprocal acknowledgment that my choices are thoughtfully considered as well.[/quote]
Of course that is just good manners, I am thinking of those who have way out requests such as a member of our women's group who is vegan, no problem we always label our food, and make sure there are choices for those who do not eat meat, at group pot lucks. But this women requests every one make their dishes with only organic produce, as that is the only kind she will eat and then takes 10 minutes to tell us we are all going to die early if we keep eating things that are sprayed. I have nothing against organic and indeed get a fresh organic delivery box each week, but I am sure if she eats something non organic at a pot luck she will survive.
People forget that pre-industrial farming gave us joys like ergot poisoning and the Irish potato famine.
It’s like the objection to Big Pharma. Yes, pharmaceutical companies are grossly exploitative, but the drugs keeping Mr F alive aren’t being produced in dinky little artisanal laboratories.
Kale is delicious when served with strips of bacon stirred through. Cheese also improves kale no end.
And the only thing to make that dish even better, is to replace the kale with a glass of red.
And praying and cursing as usual.
And thank you - I really appreciated the expressions of support and to know I am not alone. I know that- and- It was still important for me.
Yeah, why the fuck did that happen? Shithouse.
(There are experiments in treatment that work on the ability of cancer cells to mutate currently to work around this.)
Three separate cancers is shit.
It's really really shit.
Pause and wait
As is having to explain to family Mad Cat.
(I tell *some* patients this without the f-bomb-otherwise word perfect)
Prayers and curses.
[that does have a nice ring to it; best wishes to you all...you all are bloody amazing]