fuck cancer

So 3 weeks ago my wife was admitted to hospital with suspected sepsis, then suspected chemo toxicity, but also maybe just stomach flu. She was told to cease taking her chemo until she could see her oncologist. Trouble is her oncologist right that very week stopped working at our hospital and we now have a new oncologist. Who only works Mondays and Fridays, so she couldn't see him for 3 weeks because of Easter. So she wasn't taking any chemo for 3 weeks.

We finally managed to see him today. When we went in he was playing with his phone. He stretched and yawned as if we were keeping him up, didn't answer questions, laughed when my wife said the previous oncologist said if she didn't take any chemo she wouldn't live to see Xmas and generally just didn't seem to give the slightest shit about anything. He said she should just go back on the chemo and come back in 2 months. 3 weeks waiting for that. In the meantime scans have shown more cancer progression in her bones and her liver. We don't know if that's directly because she had no chemo for 3 weeks but I doubt it helped.

Our brave NHS heroes once again setting new standards in caring. I don't know if these people start out as total cunts that have no business being anywhere near medicine or it's "the system" turning them into useless scumbags who just don't give a shit if you live or die but please try not to be ill if you live in the UK.

At this point I view doctors like I view Tory MPs, they are human vermin.

jesus fucking wept. my wife was supposed to go on a "sanctuary" away day on Monday through a local charity but she hadn't heard anything about when they were coming to pick her up so she emailed the charity and they fucking didn't book her on it, and said she never replied to the email, she forwarded them the reply from her sent mail but it's too late now.

why is literally everyone who is supposed to help us a fucking useless piece of shit?

Jesus Christ, CP, I’m so sorry, that’s just utterly shit and awful. Is there anything you can do yourselves that won’t take a huge amount of planning?

The terrible thing is you think to complain but to go through that process (I think as I might have mentioned in some ealrier post on this or some other thread) you are so emotionally consumed by the situation and the traumatic events that its just very difficult to follow through. The logging of it then writing etc. Not least because its entering another bloody process.

Very sorry to hear it.

if you do one thing, it's write all of this up into a book or something, or sell it to a paper. it's a tale that's probably getting repeated across the country and it needs to be told

it already basically sounds like 'Bodies' (old Jed Mercurio show which I'm currently watching and had hoped was exaggerated for dramatic effect). right down to combining my worst fears which include being at the mercy of a sociopath and having basic admin errors fuck everything up.
hope you're documenting it all.

I’m so sorry CP. How completely unacceptable and infuriating. Fuck.

I'm really sorry to hear that, man.

ugh cp that sucks so much

my wife wrote an email to her Macmillan nurse, asking about possibly getting referred to her old oncologist at her current hospital which is 40 miles away from where we live but my wife trusts her and she seems to be interested in the well-being of her patients, which is a start when you are a doctor. my wife explained what happened with her new oncologist.

the nurse wrote back and said this new shit oncologist is just a locum and is only supposed to be there for a month, so she won't have to see him again, assuming she has no more adverse chemo reactions, because she isn't due to see an oncologist again for 2 months. there will be another new oncologist by then. so fingers crossed that one isn't a cunt.

hey sorry for kindersplaining Bodies to you. really hope things look up!

Firstly I don't think you were splaining anything kinder.

We got a stairlift installed this week, this has taken various wrangling with our landlord/my BiL, but it's done now. This means we don't have to move house. It cost a fucking fortune but it is now done. We are lucky enough to live on a hill in Hastings with great views and foxes and badgers running around us. It might not seem like much but this means a lot. My wife doesn't want much but she loves living here and without the stairlift we'd have to move pretty soon because stairs wear her out already.

Hopefully this will give her some respite before the next round of bullshit the "NHS" throws at her

Small pleasures are important, I am glad you are able to stay <3

I agree with what VG says; thank goodness you were able to make the best of things, and I'm sure the stairlift will be an investment you'll be happy to have made. Also, I'm pleased to hear you live surrounded by an abundance of picturesque wildlife for your wife to enjoy for as long as she can.

hello. i am currently in radiation therapy (more than halfway through 28 treatments, thank fucking jeebus) for cancer. taking chemo pills, tho the infusions are done for now. worked all through the past six months since i was diagnosed, am now off for the summer and trying to figure out when surgery will happen. they're probably going to have to remove my whole lower intestine and i'll live the rest of my life with an ileostomy, but nothing is certain.

what is certain is that the prognosis is good and i'm doing pretty well despite occasional crying jags and just feeling tired a lot of the time. went on a five mile hike this past weekend, can still do 200 pushups in a day, etc. i'm in good shape and young, so that helps, but this whole thing really does suck. a lot.

i've written about it here, and am working on other essays (one on Yasunao Tone and MRI machines!) at the moment, too. http://www.full-stop.net/2019/03/06/blog/ted-rees/make-me-real-make-me-sick/

i should also write that i returned to ILX after years away because I have grown very weary of social media, but miss being a part of an online community of intelligent and interesting people. i hope that some of the more recent stories in this thread have turned out for the best. <3

Phew indeed. Glad things are looking well and hope that continues for you.

thanks, Ned! i'll let you know next time i make a trip to the Bay, would love to grab a beer or coffee.

My thoughts are with you during this trying time, the table is the table. I am heartened that you've chosen to be optimistic about your situation and hope this will augur good fortune for you and your health. In the meantime, I hope you're taking excellent care of yourself and that you allow yourself those "occasional crying jags".

oh wow, table. i'm sorry you're still in the midst of treatment. but there is a lot of hopeful news in there, too! seems like a really good sign that you're still hiking 5 miles and doing 200 push-up - that stuff is difficult for most people on a good day.

welcome back! :)

xxp Please do!

(i am ZS, btw. i think i changed my display name soon after you took your hiatus!)

hi ZS! i remember you.

there aren't too many new folks, it seems.

good luck with your treatment, table

thanks jim! (an aside: i have a lot of friends in yr fair city, will definitely look you up on my next visit!)

hi table, hoping the rest of your treatment goes well, and look me up if yr ever passing through Eugene

CP that is great news and I'm very happy for you

xp. :)

thanks sleeve. also great display name, made me giggle.

best of luck table

xp the DN came from how's life/kkvgz, credit where it's due :)

xpost thanks darraghmac.

hugs table <3
(nice to have you back in general)

xpost <3 i was excited to see some of the old active posters still here, you especially!!

table! Holy shit dude, that sucks but I’m so happy to hear it’s a good prognosis.

welcome back table, i have little to say on the topic of cancer but am glad to see you here

Best of luck table. Lots changed here but it's nice to see you back in these parts, do stay around for awhile <3

hi tabes… had 10 sessions of radiation myself 2 months ago. glad things look good long-term, honey.

hey morbz, hope yr doing okay and things are looking up for you, too!!

also, hi everyone, thank you for yr well wishes. it is good to be back here.

Good luck, welcome back, and I'm glad things are going well.

It's been a couple of months since I gave a Casper update, here or on the blog, so here's one: https://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/basically-a-normal-baby-right-now/

oof, scik, that is some difficult stuff right there. i am cheering for you and yr fam and Casper, especially, at this very moment.

it's all very senseless.

for example, yesterday i had a conversation with my surgeon's assistant who gave me a different potential timeline for surgery than all my other doctors have given me. normally, no big deal, but since i teach at a university, his dates essentially would have fucked up my fall semester and made it so that i would be without any income for half of the goddamn year. let's just say i had a total freakout meltdown, but then after contacting surgeon directly, he assured me that there were other options for pushing potential surgery up so that i'll still be able to teach come fall.

it's wild how things that seem small to a doctor can legit seem like the end of the world to the patient. it's one of the biggest takeaways from all of this, in my mind.

(that said, i'm not switchin surgeons, because the guy is one of the most highly awarded and excellent in the country for his field).

Dunno if it;'s the done thing or not, but thought I'd stick this here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/neil-harrison30

finished radiation therapy and chemo for now!! surgery probably coming in late July. very excited to have some time off meds before the big event.

i went to the gym yesterday— yes, i had a membership to the local climbing gym lol— and can still get to the top of some pretty hard boulder problems! i climbed for about an hour before i had to stop because my wrists were getting a bit sore.

slowly but surely.

hope everyone here is doing okay. <3

mazel tov, tabes

my very best wishes to you, table. it’s nice to see you here again

so my wife's palliative care nurse has been on long term sick for nearly 2 months now. you'd think they'd assign her another one? fuck no, this is the NHS, you're just fucked. they say go to your GP. GP says GPs aren't fit to handle pain medication because as usual GPs are just totally fucking useless for anything whatsoever*. Nation Buck Passing Service in full effect.

fuck this country and fuck the NHS and fuck all "doctors" and fuck everyone who "works" in the "healthcare" "profession"

*my 80 year old grandmother has finally been diagnosed with arthritis after having to go to a different GP because her regular one refused to refer her for an x-ray saying she definitely does not have arthritis. turns out not only she does have arthritis but it's a severe case. fucking GPs. fucking scum

I forgot to include pharmacists in my list of cunts who do everything in their power to make things worse for people with terminal illnesses

Last week I took a pile of prescriptions to the pharmacist. They filled half of them and the rest were on order. Some of the owed prescriptions turned up in the post after a few days. 8 days later with 2 still outstanding my wife noticed they put the wrong name on all the pills we got 8 days ago. That's right, the incompetent fuckwits sent the outstanding pills to some other woman. I took the whole lot in and got it sorted out, but seriously what the fuck is going on with these people. Luckily they put the right name on her morphine pills! Then in the pharmacy while the pharmacist was trying to figure out how this happened, he accused a technician who denied everything saying that's not my signature, turned out she also had her name in the computer. Busted! you stupid piece of shit

How do these cunts still have jobs?

Many sympathies to everyone contending with cancer. A good friend of mine just got his second cancer diagnosis in the last two years. The first time around, surgery seemed to control it. But now he has multiple cancers, which could mean metastasis. Doctors are trying to figure out now if they need to do chemo before surgery. My friend is of course very upset, we've formed a small support network to help him, but it's a very scary thing. I've lost two friends to cancer already.

xp isn’t that a serious data breach? You should report them for that, if they’d given you someone else’s info as well as their pills, that’s pretty awful.

Sorry about having to deal with this shit.

Yeah, I'm shocked by that, I always assumed (naively) that the reason there's a whole production about getting prescriptions was that they were careful about this shit for decades.

nothing should really shock me any more dealing with the NHS and it's associated services

it'd be a miracle if I encountered someone who wasn't a completely incompetent cretin

the stupid fucking pharmacist cunts were out of stock of my wife's antidepressant last Friday (after sending it to the other woman) so they said they'd order it and deliver it on Saturday. nothing turns up on Saturday. my wife now only has 2 days left, so I call them today. the stupid cunts ordered the wrong strength. the pharmacist was "meant to call us, but must've been waylaid". so they are allegedly going to deliver it this afternoon

we won't be using these arseholes again but this is at least the 3rd pharmacy we've used because they are ALL fucking incompetent morons, it's just endless mixups, delays and bullshit wherever you go