fuck cancer

i realise this is not going to help matters, but hopefully the fact that its 4 years post chemo could mean the fucker is not massively aggressive, and so, could be held in check.
bh had no respite after her chemo.
the evil lump was already back within a matter of days after her chemo.
also, sounds like they have picked up on it sharpish, which despite the shock is probably a good thing.

One of my friends from college has been battling a brain tumor for the past year. He had surgery last month to remove it and address swelling that was affecting his cognitive abilities; he never fully recovered from the surgery and is currently in a coma with a terrible prognosis. His family is currently saying their goodbyes and his friends are sharing memories of him and his performances; he was a fantastic baritone who was currently singing with the choir at Washington Cathedral.

This song from an album our college choir recorded in 1992 has been making the rounds today; I've already posted it on I Make Music but I want to share it here as well. It features my friend as baritone soloist singing an incredibly poignant text given the current situation.

https://clyp.it/0tyy3hax

So sorry to hear that, man - fuck cancer.

He passed away about an hour ago.

Sorry djp

My hugs to you djp

Aw, man. xoxo

<3

I'm sorry DJP.

So sorry, man.

My best, DJP

I'm so sorry. <3

Thanks, everyone. I think the thing upsetting me the most right now is that he was in town right before he got his initial diagnosis and we couldn't make a meetup happen but we promised to catch up next time we were in the same town.

On a sillier sad note, I will also never know if he ever followed up on my suggestion to listen to Babymetal.

A woman who was in my elementary school class died of metastatic breast cancer yesterday, at age 38. She's the first person I've known to die of cancer, other than my grandmother 30 years ago. I wasn't friends with her, but our circles overlapped through the years and I always thought she was cool. Fuck cancer.

Just after having good news about my friend I posted about upthread a few months ago (she almost miraculously went back into remission without any treatment, baffling doctors, not sure if there was some mistake by the consultants reporting a false positive or what, but they are saying the cancer mutated into something benign and disappeared or something), my uncle has cancer in just about every organ in his body. I'm not close with much of my family for various reasons but this uncle was always my favourite. He lived with us for a bit when I was a young teenager, as he was often sleeping rough around that time. He was a teenage punk when I was born, the youngest sibling of my mum, so he's only 13 years older than me. He gave me my first ever record (Baggy Trousers by Madness) which I still have. I'm going to try to visit this weekend but the tumour in his brain has made him delirious/incoherent/babbling about aliens so it's not like he's really there at the moment. May be too late to actually talk to him now. This all came on extremely suddenly. He was ill for a few weeks but we didn't know until a couple of weeks ago it was cancer and then it was just suspected to be lung cancer, then it was in his liver, kidneys, brain, even his bones.

:( best wishes

I managed to spend 3 days visiting my uncle last week. He was relatively coherent for most of it, but he went downhill pretty quickly this week. He died this morning.

Ah damn. Sorry to hear it, and my best wishes and condolences.

rip my uncle dan. my mum's brother-in-law. second uncle to pass away this year, both to cancer.

dan was one of the kindest people i ever met, always took an interest in your life, was always curious, liked to sing at weddings and was always extremely well-dressed. i remember going to my first funeral and it was some grand uncle of my dad's, never met him, everyone taller than me, the whole thing kind of distant. maybe i've had a lucky life to be able to say this but it feels like the older i get the closer i am to the people who die.

fuck cancer.

Ah man. Sending best and condolences for sure.

sorry lg <3

Thanks pals. Feels really weird having to fly home for 10 hours and back, without properly seeing anyone, but glad my work is completely accommodating.

very sorry, lg, he sounds like a lovely man. cancer is a cruel thief.

Sorry ronan

Sorry for your loss, Ronan. My best wishes you you and all your family.

My neighbour across the road sadly passed away from cancer a couple of days ago. So yeah fuck cancer.

maybe i've had a lucky life to be able to say this but it feels like the older i get the closer i am to the people who die.

perfectly valid thing to feel and nicely put.

<3 thanks all - i can't actually post in full thought mode on social media cos of relatives following and fear of impropriety - my relatives are mostly good people and wouldn't really judge but still, it is good to be able to talk here.

Best to you Ronan

My wife's younger sister, only 37 years old with a two-year old daughter, has just been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer that I guess is basically leukemia. It's everywhere - her blood, spinal cord, bone marrow. Terrible situation.

Christ

Aw that's terrible.

Have to rant about this I'm sorry.

The NHS have been absolutely SHIT so far looking after my wife. I know it's probably the tories fault. But for fuck's sake. I'm getting fucking sick of Macmillan adverts on the TV as well. They've done NOTHING for her so far. The Macmillan nurse is a waste of fucking time. If you call her, you won't get through, and she doesn't return the call for at least 3 days (still waiting after the last one). My wife is having side effects from the medication they gave for the side effects from her other medication. She has "dissolvable" stitches from an implant operation that still aren't going anywhere 3 weeks later and are irritating her and keeping her from sleeping. The GP refused to remove them "because he's not very good at it". Nobody seems to give a shit. The Macmillan nurse gave us a great spiel about all the help we'll get. She noted my wife suffers from depression so will need counselling. The nurse has to refer her to get it. She hasn't done that. The nurse did refer her for acupuncture, which my wife didn't ask for, but she thought she might as well do it. The acupuncturist called last Friday while the police were here after we had a smack dealer banging on our door, my wife asked her to call back because we were in the middle of an emergency situation, they didn't call back. Nobody calls back. Nobody does fucking anything. We have to fight every step of the way. It's just a fucking nightmare. You're not alone! Good fucking joke Macmillan you useless cunts. I don't know what to do. I've called Macmillan myself they just say the nurse has to deal with it. Not their problem. Maybe we can complain about the nurse? Who to though? WTF.

They hooked her up with a "buddy". Somebody who has been through the same type of cancer. She was supposed to call a couple of days ago. She didn't. They won't let us have the number (it's withheld when they call) so my wife can't just call her instead.

colonel, i am so sorry you are having all this stress, and encourage you to vent as much as you need to. my very best wishes to you and your wife. i hope she heals well and you can put this ordeal behind you. i know from reading your posts that you've been having a rough time for a while now and i am very sympathetic and really hope things pick up for you both soon.

I feel like I'm just moaning all the time (which tbf I am) but it's just one thing after another. This year has just been misery after misery after misery and it never ends. I literally went to the funeral of my uncle who died from cancer 2 weeks before my wife was diagnosed.

i relate, had a year or so like that (several years ago now) and it was grimly ridiculous, one awful thing after another, so that i look back now and feel demented remembering it. the main thing i took from it is that i will never complain of boredom again for as long as i live. i'm really sorry about you losing your uncle as well, it is such a lot for you to bear. most future years will not be like this for you, i am certain. best wishes.

macmillan were useless for our situation as well.

during the chaos, during a particularly scary part, i was in desperate need for help re stress/depression etc.
everyone i spoke to about my needs to help deal with the logistics of the chaos told me to call macmillan as they were supposedly there for all going through this stuff.
i called and explained, but as i did not actually have cancer then i was told there was nothing they could do.
no help, no advise, no helplines to call, absolutely nothing.
i will never ever donate to them.

instead i donate to the hospice as they were wonderful.

CP : i totally hear you re the chaos, its just exhausting being the one who has to deal with all the logistics, the brick walls, the waiting etc.
my heart goes out to you sir.

They talk a good talk though, don't they? Came out of the initial diagnosis meeting full of hope we'd get support through this. That's all it is though, talk.

The local support group that offered my wife acupuncture couldn't wait to get her off the phone, were really abrupt with her. I've got to wonder why these people volunteer to do this when they clearly don't seem to give a shit. I'm getting very uncharitable feelings about these people. I think they just do it so they can feel good about themselves, look at me aren't I great I volunteer for cancer support but I do fucking nothing. When you're dealing with someone with major depression who already feels like they are worthless and not worth bothering with and you fucking KNOW this because you even said in the meeting they would have to keep an eye on her mental state and you put obstructions every step of the way. My wife is just giving up. I have to try and figure out who to call but I get nowhere.

hey colonel - hope that things improve in some way.

I've no good advice for you Colonel. It's messed up everyone just leaves you hanging. Wishing you the very best.

CP : maybe the problem was the fact that i phoned.
perhaps things would have been better if my wife had phoned them.
unfortunately, due to the chemo excess, she was in no state to make a long protracted phone call.
and therein lies the problem.
i did not have cancer, i was just looking after someone with cancer.
but from the adverts/lovely brochures, they come over as being there to help all.
clearly not the case.

in the end in order to deal with the anxiety and stress, after a full on scary panic attack/breakdown (i was having to be a parent for the kids, and i got into a very bad place re them),
i went to my GP in a state and was put on anti-depressants.
the drugs helped me deal with things as they numbed my anxieties to a level that made the day to day bearable without panic attacks.
but coming off them was pretty nasty it has to be said.

Yeah I've done the same. I was already on anti-depressants but tbh they stopped working a long time ago. Went to the GP and he put me on different anti-depressants. This has actually helped a lot, believe it or not from the amount of moaning I do. I was a complete mess a few weeks ago, just anxiety/depression all the time. Couldn't cope, couldn't do my job. It has helped with that.

I think you might be right about the phoning as well. I've tried phoning a few places because my wife can't do it, whether because she feels to ill or just because she's depressed and thinks it's pointless because no-one cares. Not sure what to do about that. I try and encourage her to call places but it's only going to happen if she feels well enough to do it. It doesn't help that today is Thanksgiving and nobody celebrates it here and her family in the US have been pretty shit so far, probably because her mum is elderly and hasn't been the same since having an accident earlier this year and she's not got a good relationship with her brother, so she's down about that as well at the moment.

CP, so sorry to hear about this. I have no useful advice, but I hope you and B are able to find a way to make a shitty situation a little less shitty. Love to you both x

Just got back from 7 hours at A&E because my wife might have a blood clot in her lung, it's 6:30am and just after I get through the door one of my cats pukes on the carpet. Symbolism.

sending you both best wishes, colonel, so sorry you have all of this going on.

My wife is talking about stopping all treatment and just coming home from the hospital because they are so fucking incompetent in the ward she's in. She is doing really badly mentally. She is covered in a rash and they won't even give her any cream to put on it, just some antihistamines that don't do anything at all. She's hardly slept in 2 days no wonder she is in a state. She had to plead for a sedative last night but they must've given her a really weak one because she only slept for a couple of hours. She had to plead to be given a hospital gown! A nurse took her regular medication away and managed to lose it for several hours. I spoke to the ward sister last night to try and see what was going on and why they weren't doing anything and she was a complete moron, didn't even know what hydrocortisone cream was and said even if she did they wouldn't have any there. What kind of hospital is this ffs. If she says she's in pain they just give her paracetamol. She wants to come home and give up. They were supposed to be referring her for counselling weeks ago and haven't. It's a fucking mess.

What Estela said - and it makes me so angry to hear your wife is not being given the proper care she is entitled to.

Community nursing rang this morning because we weren't in yesterday for my wife's daily injection, because we were at the hospital. Couldn't tell them we weren't home because we have no contact number for them and nobody at the hospital had one either. Nurse confirmed that they don't have a contact number and at least agreed it wasn't our fault they had a wasted journey. What the fuck kind of system is this. I told her what was happening at the ward and she said I should try ringing the chemo ward emergency out of hours number and tell them because they might know what to do. No answer at the emergency out of hours chemo ward number! FUCK.

Sincerely wish every Tory voting scumbag in this country gets fucking cancer and has to deal with this shit. I hate this fucking country.