*^*^*^*^COPING WITH CANCER --- <<< SUPPORT THREAD >>> ^*^*^*^*^*

[KittyLetteMeEatAnEasterEgg]

Hi,

i thought it might be a good idea to start one of these as its something that affects so many people and its just devestating. Hopefully we can support each other

This is a thread for anyone who is being affected by this awful disease, whether it is you, a family member or friend that is diagnosed feel free to come her and share how you feel, im sure as in true mumsnet spirit there will always be someone here to listen .

xxx kitty xxx

Your mum's story is so positive.
Shemust be a very strong woman.

you need to have a serious talk with your paretns and explain how it is so much harder not knowing the full picture and imagining things than being told everything there is to know.

They may not know themselves sometimes people can't cope with being told the whole truth initially or they don't understand what the doctors say and don;t like to ask questions.

she said that the cancer was in some ways easier than dealing with my Dad waling out on her after 40 years of marriage (he literally went to work one day and didn;t come home)

I was amazed at how strong she was. She sort of treated it as her "job" to get through chemo and was focussed on doing that however rough she felt. For what its worth, I don;t think she had a particularly posistive attitude, she wasn;t all "ok I can beat this", she was always convinced that the chemo/redio wasn;t working. I have come to beleive that it won;t affect the outcome whatever your attitude is - its down to luck and good medicine. Of course having a positive attitude makes life a lot easier for the people around you but IMO there is a lot of pressure on people with cancer to be jolly and positive when sometimes they just feel like shit. But they're scared to admit that in case it will make a difference to the outcome - it has become culturally unacceptable to be able to say that you are miserable!

I went to most of my mums appointments (she lives close to me) but I remember well the ones when I was waiting for the phone call... god its just awful.

how are you spud?

Good news! All is well to proceed with the next round of chemo. He goes in tomorrow to start that.
They are pleased with how he is coping with the side effects. He has not lost any weight -only his hair!
Dad is sounding much more positve - he said: 'Bring it on!' about the next round.
He has booked travel to come up and see my girls in their dancing show at then end of the month.
He has booked a posh restaurant for a big family meal next week when we go down to see him.

Bloody hell. What a rollercoaster this lark is.
I feel knackered now.

wonderful {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
to you and your dad,

I'm so pleased - if it helps you can tell him my mum was in his boat and still going strong three years later. It is a rollercoaster but there ups as well as down - you will find you make the effort to do things that you didn't before, apreciate things more, take more photos, just generally live more.

I'm really looking forward to this month now. We have so many nice things planned.
He will be having a scan at the end of this round, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.
Thanks for your support today suejonez. Invaluable.

You're more than welcome - funny I should choose today to post - have looked at the title and consider it several times but thought I wouldn;t have much to add as we are not currently (cross fingers) dealing with the fall out.

I probably shouldn't say that when you're still on a high but be aware though that the chemo getting progressively tougher And make sure when he starts getting side effects that he tells the hospital all about them - many have drugs to control them - like mouth ulcers can be controlled (my mum had a nasty bout until she mentioned it and they cleared up almost completely with drugs).

Don't konw if any of you are in Scotland or Oxford but the Maggie Centres are designed to provide support to patients, friends and families. Thought I would pass this on.

my mum went to a Mulberry centre in London but absolutely hated it and never went back! She said it was full of counsellors who weren;t happy until you'd cried and showed your pain. Said she could mnage that quite well on her wn thank you.

Spud - wonderful news.
Hope you have a fantastic month with your family.
[[hugs]]

I've just spoken to dad he is finding it hard to cope at the moment he is waiting to hear from the doctor about his full body scan he knows he will need more treatment but he is just waiting for them to say it. His radio therapy starts on the 17th now and he will be having a course of 12, he has been told he will be very tired so he is preparing himself for a hard few weeks.

Mummylin thanks for the positive story we havent heard that many to be honest.

i think there are a lot of poitive stories its just that we all tend to be told the sad ones .There was a time when we thought we would lose my brother when we were told there were 4 stages of hodgkins and he was in stage three already,but with a great deal of care( chemo ,spleen removal etc ) he is still here to tell the tale.And of course over the years the treatment has obviously improved such a lot ,so take heart from that.wishing you and your dad all the best ,if he or you would like to speak to my brother i could arrange it for you,maybe that would help you .

dazie - has he had chemo or is he just having radio? My mum found radio a lot easier than chemo, but I guess if you don;t have chemo thsts not much consolation!

Dad has had two lots of chemo already, first treatment he lost his hair and weight he also had stem cells taken. second treatment he had was really hard he was in hospital (chemo again) and he had his stem cells put back in and radiothearpy by his eye. He is having radio therapy this time to reduce the lymphnode by his eye and is waiting to find out if he will have further treatment. In between these two times he was also diagnosed with skin cancer and has had that treated. Each time he has had treatment new treatments have become available which is great, its just a case of waiting for them to be licensed.

Welcome Waswondering.
I have found a lot of support on this thread!
I hope you do too.

Dad has just had his results back from his scan he said that the scan showed he doesnt need any more chemo at the moment. It also shows the cancer is at the same level it was at in 2005 which is really good. So he will only be having radiothearpy. This is a big weight off of all our minds for now.

Hello all,

I've been told this evening that one of my best friends has grade 3 brain cancer

So sorry to hear about everyones experiences whether present or past.

My poor Grandma really suffered from when my grandfather died before I was born (32 yrs ago) and she was on her own. Blind, bad heart probs and stomach probs.

She complaied about stomach probs for many years to GP who took no notice and she wouldnt have seen blood in her stools as she couldnt see anything.

She went into hospital end November 2005 with what they call Heart Failure (fluid around the heart and body) and finally went home 10 days later. Only to be re-admitted same day (my mum stayed with her at home and took her back) and she was awful. She went downhill very quickly and was diagnosed with Liver Cancer on 13th December 2005. We decided not to tell her as she had suffered enough already. She was out of it most of time on morphine but 2 days before her death she asked if she was going to die. We said not looking good and you could see her whole body slump as she gave up fighting.

My lovely wonderful Grandma died 2 days later, only 10 days after diagnosis and 2 days before xmas. I still sit here and cry my eyes out most days as I miss her so much.

I am just so proud mroe than anything that I was able to make her a Great Grandmother. She lived for Kai and we spoke every day on phone without fail.

Sorry to rant but its good just to get it out in the open. Over a year ago now but still as painful as the day she went.

It does scare the crap out of me that we can have this horrible horrible disease and not be diagnosed until its too late.

I don't need any support right now, but I wanted to let you know that there are a few people on here who have experience of having had cancer themselves. In my case, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2005. I was 33 and dd was 2. It was a bugger of a cancer and had spread into the lymph nodes, and I've had the whole range of treatment - surgery, chemo, radiotherapy and herceptin. I've got 2 herceptin treatments left and am on arimidex. At the beginning of my treatment, my 10 year prognosis was 20%. (It's around about 50% now having had all of that treatment and if/when I get to two years after diagnosis without a recurrence, it improves again).
In my experience, the family have it almost harder than the patient, and there is a lot of overt support around and available for patients, whereas, whilst it is there for family members, it's a bit more difficult to find out about, and often family members find it difficult to seek or admit that they need support because they are trying to be strong for the patient. My advice on this would be do what you need to do to resolve the issues you have. My experience of cancer was that the emotional aspects of the impact on myself and my family were more difficult to cope with than all the physical treatment, and we're still pulling our lives back together.
My local hospital has a cancer information and support centre - worth finding out if yours has one. Websites that have helped me are breastcancercare.org.uk (support) and cancerbackup.co.uk (information on all cancers, treatments, etc).
Happy to help if I can with any queries, etc

Right here I am visting my dad - second lot of chemo at the moment. He is very short of breath. Is this normal?