Chemo number 26. The art of ploughing on

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foggy said:
My chemo works on a week on week off shift pattern. On week on week I see the oncologist on a Monday, talk about the last treatment and what’s coming up and bloods taken. Tuesday is chemo proper. I bashed my chest port off the car door while trying to get out of a tight parking spot the other day and judging by the pain when I was connected up just there now I seem to have bruised the surroundings. A bite of the stiff upper lip and a, not quite true, it’s ok to the nurse.

A flush, a few anti sicks then the green bag delivers its poison before a burst of another sort, then a pressured bottle attached until disconnect on a Thursday. Followed by chronic fatigue for 3 days where even sitting still is not enough to feel any better and fending off nausea. Then in a moment my cells will fill up with energy again. Well not exactly fill up but I have an awareness I can get up and do things. And be interested in stuff.

The oncologist said ‘it does get harder’ so that’s that then. She also said if I didn’t respond to the chemo then there would be no point continuing. To hear that was a kick in the bollocks. Yes this is shit but it’s my ‘magic potion’ as the chemo nurse calls it. Without it I will rot away for want of a better expression. It’s been 2 years and 4 months since I went from being in the rat race, worrying about jobs and mortgages and thinking like most I would live forever, to having my world turned upside down and fighting the good fight against bits of me going wrong. In a fatal way.

I am well past the 12 month life expectancy of a stage four Bowel cancer sufferer. I live with pain. In my dreams I don’t have that pain so when I wake up I have probably less than a second until my first thought of every day is. Oh I have cancer. And then it’s a battle for the rest of it. We are all on death row. It’s just I can hear the keys jangling and footsteps up and down the corridor. I’m glad I’ve survived so long. I will die having fought a long battle against and not from a short illness. Meanwhile the trick is to make the most of things while I’m here. So I need to ignore those keys and footsteps.

In my latest week off l managed this mostly. First off was a trip to Bristol to pick up the bairn. The 20 year old bairn. I used to live driving up and down motorways. Now it was all a bit odd. There’s been some dooey ups of roads and services but it’s still much the same.

Except I’m not heading to a prison to talk HQ stuff to staff who mostly don’t want to hear it. Instead I arrive in Bristol and we head out for pizza. Gluten free in my case. I’ve found if I manage my diet like I have IBS then I don’t need the amount of painkillers I lived on for over a year. And subsequently I can go for a shit unaided by packets and packets of Laxido. The trip to A&E with a blockage was my last try of steak.

Then on Friday a trip up to the Lakes. Unusually for me the south Lakes. I’ve been going over there since I was around six years old. The bairn was conceived up there funnily enough. Just after Brooklyn Beckham. We didn’t call her Plumbland though.

So three nights in an old cottage with no internet or even a phone signal. Just me the bairn and the dog. Magic. The National Trust spot at the south of Windermere between Newby Bridge and Bowness was deserted on Sunday evening. There was a tennis and a cricket match on in London. We saw the cricket due to two bars of 4G on my phone and the All4 app. At ten in the morning when I bobbed the little telly on in the cottage the bairn knew nothing about cricket. Not even what an over was. A few hours later sat beside the lake, between doggy swimming lessons we sat gripped by what unfolded down at Lords. The lone fisherman looked up when we yayed and fistpumped.

Then a crushing low on the way home. The despair from being a happy relaxed person on holiday to one about to be sat in a chemo ward hoping the potion was still magic. Plus being with the bairn brings it home how shit this whole thing is. I am very lucky to have the relationship I have. She described it as ‘chilled’. I don’t bang on with a million questions. I don’t tell her what she ‘needs to do’. Her mother has that market cornered. While being a good mother I should add. She is priority number one to her and I never needed a Batman suit on a rooftop. We don’t have to talk. I can see and feel she is happy in life. University is going well. The Air Force thing she is on is going extremely well. She is happy. Except when it comes to me. And this f***ing terminal illness. It pains me that I cause those closest to me hurt. It makes me cry truth be told. Yes there is other family and our lass of course. That pains me too but they are peers and elders so it’s not on the same same scale. I am the bairn’s safety net. I want to make her life as happy as possible or the least shit and it feels like I’m making a big shit sandwich sometimes.

But I have to plough on. I am 50 a week today. I’m not sure what to think about that. Yeah it’s great. A birthday. A significant one. But it’s a bit young to be dealing with all this shit. Yet there are others. Much younger and dealing with worse. My small group of fellow stage 4 Bowelies has people with really young kids. In some cases mothers terrified of leaving their babies.

In my case I have had the fortune to see mine reach 20. I may see 21 and even a graduation. And for that I should feel lucky.

So it’s time to enjoy my off weeks and plough on through my on weeks.

After this I have two weeks without chemo. Even us raging sicknotes get time off. I’m away to York for a couple of nights of normalty with our lass. And before that following 144 hours of nausea and fatigue I am off for a night of spoiling in a posh hotel to celebrate being here for 50 earth revolutions of the sun. It’s not all bad really.


All the best.
Click to expand...

That's one of the most vivid accounts of facing ones own circumstances that I've ever read, I logged in to let you know. It was so well written you obviously have a way with language, could be a writer someday once the chemo has done it's trick. Good luck, I might stop worrying about work - in the end it doesn't matter, only family does.
 
Quench said:
Inspirational as always.

Every post you write makes me appreciate how blessed I am to have a healthy life and a family to share it with.

Keeping fighting Foggy, you deserve to see your bairn's graduation and her bairn's too.

All the best and enjoy your birthday
Click to expand...

And here come the tears


Edit. And thank you for your kind words, support and optimism. It's the grandchild I will probably not see that is a particularly tough one. I'd like to think I'd be a good grandad.
 
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foggy said:
My chemo works on a week on week off shift pattern. On week on week I see the oncologist on a Monday, talk about the last treatment and what’s coming up and bloods taken. Tuesday is chemo proper. I bashed my chest port off the car door while trying to get out of a tight parking spot the other day and judging by the pain when I was connected up just there now I seem to have bruised the surroundings. A bite of the stiff upper lip and a, not quite true, it’s ok to the nurse.

A flush, a few anti sicks then the green bag delivers its poison before a burst of another sort, then a pressured bottle attached until disconnect on a Thursday. Followed by chronic fatigue for 3 days where even sitting still is not enough to feel any better and fending off nausea. Then in a moment my cells will fill up with energy again. Well not exactly fill up but I have an awareness I can get up and do things. And be interested in stuff.

The oncologist said ‘it does get harder’ so that’s that then. She also said if I didn’t respond to the chemo then there would be no point continuing. To hear that was a kick in the bollocks. Yes this is shit but it’s my ‘magic potion’ as the chemo nurse calls it. Without it I will rot away for want of a better expression. It’s been 2 years and 4 months since I went from being in the rat race, worrying about jobs and mortgages and thinking like most I would live forever, to having my world turned upside down and fighting the good fight against bits of me going wrong. In a fatal way.

I am well past the 12 month life expectancy of a stage four Bowel cancer sufferer. I live with pain. In my dreams I don’t have that pain so when I wake up I have probably less than a second until my first thought of every day is. Oh I have cancer. And then it’s a battle for the rest of it. We are all on death row. It’s just I can hear the keys jangling and footsteps up and down the corridor. I’m glad I’ve survived so long. I will die having fought a long battle against and not from a short illness. Meanwhile the trick is to make the most of things while I’m here. So I need to ignore those keys and footsteps.

In my latest week off l managed this mostly. First off was a trip to Bristol to pick up the bairn. The 20 year old bairn. I used to live driving up and down motorways. Now it was all a bit odd. There’s been some dooey ups of roads and services but it’s still much the same.

Except I’m not heading to a prison to talk HQ stuff to staff who mostly don’t want to hear it. Instead I arrive in Bristol and we head out for pizza. Gluten free in my case. I’ve found if I manage my diet like I have IBS then I don’t need the amount of painkillers I lived on for over a year. And subsequently I can go for a shit unaided by packets and packets of Laxido. The trip to A&E with a blockage was my last try of steak.

Then on Friday a trip up to the Lakes. Unusually for me the south Lakes. I’ve been going over there since I was around six years old. The bairn was conceived up there funnily enough. Just after Brooklyn Beckham. We didn’t call her Plumbland though.

So three nights in an old cottage with no internet or even a phone signal. Just me the bairn and the dog. Magic. The National Trust spot at the south of Windermere between Newby Bridge and Bowness was deserted on Sunday evening. There was a tennis and a cricket match on in London. We saw the cricket due to two bars of 4G on my phone and the All4 app. At ten in the morning when I bobbed the little telly on in the cottage the bairn knew nothing about cricket. Not even what an over was. A few hours later sat beside the lake, between doggy swimming lessons we sat gripped by what unfolded down at Lords. The lone fisherman looked up when we yayed and fistpumped.

Then a crushing low on the way home. The despair from being a happy relaxed person on holiday to one about to be sat in a chemo ward hoping the potion was still magic. Plus being with the bairn brings it home how shit this whole thing is. I am very lucky to have the relationship I have. She described it as ‘chilled’. I don’t bang on with a million questions. I don’t tell her what she ‘needs to do’. Her mother has that market cornered. While being a good mother I should add. She is priority number one to her and I never needed a Batman suit on a rooftop. We don’t have to talk. I can see and feel she is happy in life. University is going well. The Air Force thing she is on is going extremely well. She is happy. Except when it comes to me. And this f***ing terminal illness. It pains me that I cause those closest to me hurt. It makes me cry truth be told. Yes there is other family and our lass of course. That pains me too but they are peers and elders so it’s not on the same same scale. I am the bairn’s safety net. I want to make her life as happy as possible or the least shit and it feels like I’m making a big shit sandwich sometimes.

But I have to plough on. I am 50 a week today. I’m not sure what to think about that. Yeah it’s great. A birthday. A significant one. But it’s a bit young to be dealing with all this shit. Yet there are others. Much younger and dealing with worse. My small group of fellow stage 4 Bowelies has people with really young kids. In some cases mothers terrified of leaving their babies.

In my case I have had the fortune to see mine reach 20. I may see 21 and even a graduation. And for that I should feel lucky.

So it’s time to enjoy my off weeks and plough on through my on weeks.

After this I have two weeks without chemo. Even us raging sicknotes get time off. I’m away to York for a couple of nights of normalty with our lass. And before that following 144 hours of nausea and fatigue I am off for a night of spoiling in a posh hotel to celebrate being here for 50 earth revolutions of the sun. It’s not all bad really.


All the best.
Click to expand...

Humbling and funny...enjoy your birthday fella
 
foggy said:
My chemo works on a week on week off shift pattern. On week on week I see the oncologist on a Monday, talk about the last treatment and what’s coming up and bloods taken. Tuesday is chemo proper. I bashed my chest port off the car door while trying to get out of a tight parking spot the other day and judging by the pain when I was connected up just there now I seem to have bruised the surroundings. A bite of the stiff upper lip and a, not quite true, it’s ok to the nurse.

A flush, a few anti sicks then the green bag delivers its poison before a burst of another sort, then a pressured bottle attached until disconnect on a Thursday. Followed by chronic fatigue for 3 days where even sitting still is not enough to feel any better and fending off nausea. Then in a moment my cells will fill up with energy again. Well not exactly fill up but I have an awareness I can get up and do things. And be interested in stuff.

The oncologist said ‘it does get harder’ so that’s that then. She also said if I didn’t respond to the chemo then there would be no point continuing. To hear that was a kick in the bollocks. Yes this is shit but it’s my ‘magic potion’ as the chemo nurse calls it. Without it I will rot away for want of a better expression. It’s been 2 years and 4 months since I went from being in the rat race, worrying about jobs and mortgages and thinking like most I would live forever, to having my world turned upside down and fighting the good fight against bits of me going wrong. In a fatal way.

I am well past the 12 month life expectancy of a stage four Bowel cancer sufferer. I live with pain. In my dreams I don’t have that pain so when I wake up I have probably less than a second until my first thought of every day is. Oh I have cancer. And then it’s a battle for the rest of it. We are all on death row. It’s just I can hear the keys jangling and footsteps up and down the corridor. I’m glad I’ve survived so long. I will die having fought a long battle against and not from a short illness. Meanwhile the trick is to make the most of things while I’m here. So I need to ignore those keys and footsteps.

In my latest week off l managed this mostly. First off was a trip to Bristol to pick up the bairn. The 20 year old bairn. I used to live driving up and down motorways. Now it was all a bit odd. There’s been some dooey ups of roads and services but it’s still much the same.

Except I’m not heading to a prison to talk HQ stuff to staff who mostly don’t want to hear it. Instead I arrive in Bristol and we head out for pizza. Gluten free in my case. I’ve found if I manage my diet like I have IBS then I don’t need the amount of painkillers I lived on for over a year. And subsequently I can go for a shit unaided by packets and packets of Laxido. The trip to A&E with a blockage was my last try of steak.

Then on Friday a trip up to the Lakes. Unusually for me the south Lakes. I’ve been going over there since I was around six years old. The bairn was conceived up there funnily enough. Just after Brooklyn Beckham. We didn’t call her Plumbland though.

So three nights in an old cottage with no internet or even a phone signal. Just me the bairn and the dog. Magic. The National Trust spot at the south of Windermere between Newby Bridge and Bowness was deserted on Sunday evening. There was a tennis and a cricket match on in London. We saw the cricket due to two bars of 4G on my phone and the All4 app. At ten in the morning when I bobbed the little telly on in the cottage the bairn knew nothing about cricket. Not even what an over was. A few hours later sat beside the lake, between doggy swimming lessons we sat gripped by what unfolded down at Lords. The lone fisherman looked up when we yayed and fistpumped.

Then a crushing low on the way home. The despair from being a happy relaxed person on holiday to one about to be sat in a chemo ward hoping the potion was still magic. Plus being with the bairn brings it home how shit this whole thing is. I am very lucky to have the relationship I have. She described it as ‘chilled’. I don’t bang on with a million questions. I don’t tell her what she ‘needs to do’. Her mother has that market cornered. While being a good mother I should add. She is priority number one to her and I never needed a Batman suit on a rooftop. We don’t have to talk. I can see and feel she is happy in life. University is going well. The Air Force thing she is on is going extremely well. She is happy. Except when it comes to me. And this f***ing terminal illness. It pains me that I cause those closest to me hurt. It makes me cry truth be told. Yes there is other family and our lass of course. That pains me too but they are peers and elders so it’s not on the same same scale. I am the bairn’s safety net. I want to make her life as happy as possible or the least shit and it feels like I’m making a big shit sandwich sometimes.

But I have to plough on. I am 50 a week today. I’m not sure what to think about that. Yeah it’s great. A birthday. A significant one. But it’s a bit young to be dealing with all this shit. Yet there are others. Much younger and dealing with worse. My small group of fellow stage 4 Bowelies has people with really young kids. In some cases mothers terrified of leaving their babies.

In my case I have had the fortune to see mine reach 20. I may see 21 and even a graduation. And for that I should feel lucky.

So it’s time to enjoy my off weeks and plough on through my on weeks.

After this I have two weeks without chemo. Even us raging sicknotes get time off. I’m away to York for a couple of nights of normalty with our lass. And before that following 144 hours of nausea and fatigue I am off for a night of spoiling in a posh hotel to celebrate being here for 50 earth revolutions of the sun. It’s not all bad really.


All the best.
Click to expand...

God bless you, mate.
 
foggy said:
My chemo works on a week on week off shift pattern. On week on week I see the oncologist on a Monday, talk about the last treatment and what’s coming up and bloods taken. Tuesday is chemo proper. I bashed my chest port off the car door while trying to get out of a tight parking spot the other day and judging by the pain when I was connected up just there now I seem to have bruised the surroundings. A bite of the stiff upper lip and a, not quite true, it’s ok to the nurse.

A flush, a few anti sicks then the green bag delivers its poison before a burst of another sort, then a pressured bottle attached until disconnect on a Thursday. Followed by chronic fatigue for 3 days where even sitting still is not enough to feel any better and fending off nausea. Then in a moment my cells will fill up with energy again. Well not exactly fill up but I have an awareness I can get up and do things. And be interested in stuff.

The oncologist said ‘it does get harder’ so that’s that then. She also said if I didn’t respond to the chemo then there would be no point continuing. To hear that was a kick in the bollocks. Yes this is shit but it’s my ‘magic potion’ as the chemo nurse calls it. Without it I will rot away for want of a better expression. It’s been 2 years and 4 months since I went from being in the rat race, worrying about jobs and mortgages and thinking like most I would live forever, to having my world turned upside down and fighting the good fight against bits of me going wrong. In a fatal way.

I am well past the 12 month life expectancy of a stage four Bowel cancer sufferer. I live with pain. In my dreams I don’t have that pain so when I wake up I have probably less than a second until my first thought of every day is. Oh I have cancer. And then it’s a battle for the rest of it. We are all on death row. It’s just I can hear the keys jangling and footsteps up and down the corridor. I’m glad I’ve survived so long. I will die having fought a long battle against and not from a short illness. Meanwhile the trick is to make the most of things while I’m here. So I need to ignore those keys and footsteps.

In my latest week off l managed this mostly. First off was a trip to Bristol to pick up the bairn. The 20 year old bairn. I used to live driving up and down motorways. Now it was all a bit odd. There’s been some dooey ups of roads and services but it’s still much the same.

Except I’m not heading to a prison to talk HQ stuff to staff who mostly don’t want to hear it. Instead I arrive in Bristol and we head out for pizza. Gluten free in my case. I’ve found if I manage my diet like I have IBS then I don’t need the amount of painkillers I lived on for over a year. And subsequently I can go for a shit unaided by packets and packets of Laxido. The trip to A&E with a blockage was my last try of steak.

Then on Friday a trip up to the Lakes. Unusually for me the south Lakes. I’ve been going over there since I was around six years old. The bairn was conceived up there funnily enough. Just after Brooklyn Beckham. We didn’t call her Plumbland though.

So three nights in an old cottage with no internet or even a phone signal. Just me the bairn and the dog. Magic. The National Trust spot at the south of Windermere between Newby Bridge and Bowness was deserted on Sunday evening. There was a tennis and a cricket match on in London. We saw the cricket due to two bars of 4G on my phone and the All4 app. At ten in the morning when I bobbed the little telly on in the cottage the bairn knew nothing about cricket. Not even what an over was. A few hours later sat beside the lake, between doggy swimming lessons we sat gripped by what unfolded down at Lords. The lone fisherman looked up when we yayed and fistpumped.

Then a crushing low on the way home. The despair from being a happy relaxed person on holiday to one about to be sat in a chemo ward hoping the potion was still magic. Plus being with the bairn brings it home how shit this whole thing is. I am very lucky to have the relationship I have. She described it as ‘chilled’. I don’t bang on with a million questions. I don’t tell her what she ‘needs to do’. Her mother has that market cornered. While being a good mother I should add. She is priority number one to her and I never needed a Batman suit on a rooftop. We don’t have to talk. I can see and feel she is happy in life. University is going well. The Air Force thing she is on is going extremely well. She is happy. Except when it comes to me. And this f***ing terminal illness. It pains me that I cause those closest to me hurt. It makes me cry truth be told. Yes there is other family and our lass of course. That pains me too but they are peers and elders so it’s not on the same same scale. I am the bairn’s safety net. I want to make her life as happy as possible or the least shit and it feels like I’m making a big shit sandwich sometimes.

But I have to plough on. I am 50 a week today. I’m not sure what to think about that. Yeah it’s great. A birthday. A significant one. But it’s a bit young to be dealing with all this shit. Yet there are others. Much younger and dealing with worse. My small group of fellow stage 4 Bowelies has people with really young kids. In some cases mothers terrified of leaving their babies.

In my case I have had the fortune to see mine reach 20. I may see 21 and even a graduation. And for that I should feel lucky.

So it’s time to enjoy my off weeks and plough on through my on weeks.

After this I have two weeks without chemo. Even us raging sicknotes get time off. I’m away to York for a couple of nights of normalty with our lass. And before that following 144 hours of nausea and fatigue I am off for a night of spoiling in a posh hotel to celebrate being here for 50 earth revolutions of the sun. It’s not all bad really.


All the best.
Click to expand...


You write in such a brilliant way and are an inspiration
Hope you enjoy your next trips away
 
So you'll be alright for the Herenveen game. Canny. You can buy @Ginger John a pint and pork scratchings in the Deaf Club.

My da had bowel cancer. An ex-marine and tough as teak. The docs said it was weeks or at most 3 months. 9 months later he went to the annual marines reunion and church service in Plymouth. Then again the following year. Then again the ..... you get my drift.

There's a million great memories. Not behind you but ahead of you. The human spirit made sure my da had that and so will you.
 
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