Cancer support thread # 75 - come on in!

[Bloodybridget]

This is the new thread for anyone at any stage of cancer, from noticing a possibly warning sign, through tests and scans, diagnosis, treatment and beyond. Come on in for advice, sympathy and support.
The last thread is here.

If you've been on a previous thread, please come and say hello and introduce yourself!

If you are a relative or friend of someone with cancer and looking for support, there are other threads on this topic - this one is for cancer patients ourselves.

@Bloodybridget at least tomorrow I'm semi-expecting it. I know they need manage the bed situation but 72 hours before is at least 24 more than necessary imho

I'm now worried that I have developed some kind of full on anxiety relating to inpatient care - sort of PTSD. This doesn't bode well for my transplant but at least they have counsellors on hand.

Yes, don't be shy about asking for help to cope with the anxiety, Otter. I should think just being able to have a conversation with someone, during a long stay in hospital, would be a bonus.

@Bloodybridget hugs always welcome. I've accepted now the wait is out of my control. Consultants letter even stated Covid as a factor in delay.

@ElaineMarieBenes Thanks for flowers 
@balkanscot thanks for your good wishes. Tonight will not be easy for you but I hope you get it in as best you can. Hope tomorrows results are a lot less scary than you are imagining

@InOtterNews Sending you love and think you made the right decision

Told a trusted colleague today about my situation. Got the tilted head. She then proceeded to tell me about someone's mother who had advanced bowel cancer!!

I've been looking up social media about others cancer experiences. Maybe obsessively so. It's like seeking fellow tribe members. Does anyone else do this? Or am I being weird!

Hi to all the lacies here. Xx

"Got the tilted head. She then proceeded to tell me about someone's mother who had advanced bowel cancer!!"

A particularly common form of idiocy, I find!

I've had two emergency admissions and just about every type of scan you can think of, plus a blood transfusion since I last posted in much detail in here. Happy to report that I feel alright just now though, except for...

THE CONSTIPATION, OH, THE CONSTIPATION!

I don't think I've been in over a week. Such a common thing, but so uncomfortable! I feel like one of those beached porpoises while trying to get out of bed.

@BitOfFun. It's certainly put me off sharing too much again. I actually felt shamed and I don't even know why. I ended up reassuring her. Wtf.

Hope you get relief soon. Nothing as uncomfortable as constipation.

Sorry to hear about your admissions. Are you still getting radiotherapy and did it help with pain relief. I hope so. 🙏

On a lighter note. Did you get a chance to start watching Good Girls?

Oh @BitOfFun the constipation! You have my sympathies. I always have a week of it following cytarabine. I don't think I've found anything that's a miracle cure - prune juice, dulcoease and these satchets called movicol (I think) the hospital give me. But it can still take week 😬 (constipation face)

Massive cock up this morning. Received a phone call not to come in as they haven’t received my scans yet! Why book me in for today if there isn’t enough time for the scans to be ready? Just about to have lost my shit in a serious way, and then got another phone call to come in this Friday at noon.

Fecking’ hell, two more days of this psychological mind fuckery of not knowing!

@balkanscot - I’m so sorry you have a few more days to wait! My next appointment is now Saturday! I did go to the hospital today for change of dressing - but full test results will have to wait for the weekend (including finally knowing actual staging)!

It seems to be a frustrating week all round!

Pleased to announce the The Eagle Has Landed. I know you'd all be interested.

@gillmoregirl - me, too! Although currently I am under a strict self-imposed veto while waiting for my results.

@BitOfFun - congratulations!

@ElaineMarieBenes - argh, sorry to hear you have to wait, too. So bloody frustrating! I feel like I have been through 3 world wars today. And look like it, too! 😒 Psychological stress is the pits.

Today I also finally told my mum over the phone (she lives in a nursing home in my home country, is totally blind due to glaucoma - thanks, again, genes!), she took it pretty well, bless her.

This is prob a really stupid question but I've been told to self isolate at home for one week prior to scope. I've arranged to work from
Home to save some leave for when I need it later. I'm assuming this doesn't mean isolating from
DD and DH as well or maybe is does? Don't want to phone hospital and make an idiot of myself. !!!

This is prob a really stupid question but I've been told to self isolate at home for one week prior to scope. I've arranged to work from
Home to save some leave for when I need it later. I'm assuming this doesn't mean isolating from
DD and DH as well or maybe is does? Don't want to phone hospital and make an idiot of myself. !!!

Don't know why this posted twice. I am an idiot!

@BitOfFun Glad you've had touchdown. 🥳

Glad to hear mission accomplished @BitOfFun!

@gillmoregirl here it means for us that DH (mostly) uses a separate bathroom and when he comes back from shopping he changes his clothes (straight into washing machine), washes all supplies (including himself!) etc. Masks are compulsory here (and have been since March) but DH wears gloves for shopping too and will have disposed off before returning home. He does take it quite seriously - I had some flowers delivered from work this week and DH wouldn’t let them in! They didn’t go to waste they went straight to a neighbour! We still share the same bed!

I don’t think it would harm to ask for clarification though!

• disposed of them (i.e. the gloves!)

Apart from hospital appointments I haven’t left home for weeks!

@balkanscot really sorry you have to wait till Friday to get results. What a fuck up, honestly.
@BitOfFun I was very pleased to see your most recent post. Hope you can keep going! Commiserations re hospital admissions, though, and the rest.
@gillmoregirl I wonder if anyone in the history of the world has had cancer, and not been the recipient of some crass response. And it's weird how, rather than making us want to punch the speaker on the nose, we often feel kind of humiliated ourselves. Fuck her and the horse she rode in on. Hope you manage the self-isolation OK.
@ElaineMarieBenes sending good wishes to you while you wait for Saturday's appointment.
@InOtterNews I guess you're having the beastly chemo today, hope it's going OK.
Sending warm wishes to everyone on the thread. It's a lovely day here, but the window cleaner has failed to show up for the third day running . .

Of course nobody can do much but say "go to a g.p.", but every bit of information would really help. A patch of skin was flaky, then appeared to have a hard lump under the surface, then turned red. From the start, about six months, it itched, sometimes intensely. More recently, an uneven shaped varicoloured mole has developed elsewhere. I would like to see a cancer specialist not a g.p. or sneering specialist in the wrong speciality in the wrong hospital. I'm really scared of Covid because I wouldn't have much chance, so I don't go out at all, and need to make one trip out do all the work, not back and forth all over the place. I have virtually no income but would pay from savings, or better would go to the right person in the right hospital on the n.h.s. I'm in London. I agree with Baroness Cumbernauld that it's good to find information and be cautious over everything. Someone will know which person to see, and how to get through the battlelines . Please help.

Hi @20mum - sorry you find yourself here with these worries. You may not believe me, but starting with your GP probably is the best thing to do. You will probably find that you are referred to a specialist under the 2 week regime - this won’t mean they think you have cancer but is intended to get quick investigation for you. (I speak as someone who was treated for malignant melanoma last year).. Good luck

@Bloodybridget You made me laugh out loud. Fuck her and the horse she rode in on. Never heard it before but definitely gonna use again.

@20mum @Toofaroutallmylife has given excellent advice. See your GP.

DH has just completed this painting about the time I was really ill in hospital at the height of the coronavirus outbreak, when for a while I didn't know where I was, and he wasn't allowed to be with me.

Oh my, @BitOfFun. So evocative, eery, sad.

It made my poor mum cry- she said it was the most awful time of her life. But I made it home, and I'm still here!

I got a wheelchair today, which was weird. I never in a million years thought I'd get this sick so relatively young.

@20mum my husband had a suspicious skin patch checked last week. His first port of call was his G.P who referred on to dermatology all the consulations were done over the phone and he had to send in some photos of the area, from initially speaking to Gp it took about 2 weeks.