Cancer SUCKS

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  • Yay!
    It was lovely.
    I slept till 7.30 am.

    Though I did worry as I woke up at 2 am from a dream that had my dream-self making polite conversation with no less a personage than the Rev Ian Paisley (now there's a name I had not thought of in decades) and I thought "How can I tell my lovely GP that I need the Guardian-readers' formula, not the more commonly prescribed one?" I went back to sleep after a wee think and woke up all calm and serene. No wonder this pill became a "fad" and public health crisis in Hong Kong in the 1980's and 90's
  • O well - at least it was polite conversation (albeit something of an oxymoron when thought of alongside Dr. Paisley RIPARIG).
  • My wife is in pain. She is suffering. There is nothing I can do except be here.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    I am sorry, GG. I am praying for you and Mrs GG, that she gets relief from the pain.

    I spent the afternoon with a friend who lost her sister in law to cancer recently, the funeral was on Monday. She was, understandably, all over the place.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    Oh, GG, I am sorry. (Has she tried medical marijuana? I have found it helpful for pain.)
  • Not available here as far as I know unless you get special permission. There's been a bit of a tussle here to get it prescribed recently. Some news coverage a few months ago for a landmark case.

    We're hoping the pain and discomfort will pass to some extent once the fluid from some recent drips drains away. Hitherto, she's not had a great deal of pain, but tiredness and initial hair loss etc. That all went bar the tiredness and susceptibility to bugs when she was on some wondrous chemo tablets which exceeded medical expectations and kept the cancer dormant for 10 or 11 months. They were great and weren't even available when she was diagnosed 2.5 years ago. The pace of medical development is swift. Will it keep pace with the growth of the cancer?

    The average life expectancy for someone with her form of cancer is between 2 and 5 years but she knows someone who has had it for 7. So, technically speaking we are around the half way mark. Of course, they won't speculate. There are other treatments they can try yet.

    We have noticed a difference in the demeanour of the consultant and the specialist nurses though. They are still upbeat but it doesn't feel quite so spontaneous. We feel we've crossed the threshold to a new phase.

    :(
  • Oh ... poor you both
    Praying
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    ((GG and wife))
  • Some of you guys have got it worse. (((All of you)))
  • Not available here as far as I know unless you get special permission. There's been a bit of a tussle here to get it prescribed recently. Some news coverage a few months ago for a landmark case.


    Holland and Barrett sell CBD oil. I have no idea how good it is. IANAD and have not used it, but I have noticed that this is available in shops.
  • Just prayers...For all of you.
  • The H & B CBD oil is useless, IMHO - far too weak.

    Mr eBay is your friend, as 1000mg capsules are (legally!) available, though in all fairness they don't do much for me, and my non-cancer related leg pains. Worth a try, though, and not priced at silly £££.
  • Praying for you both, Gamma Gamaliel.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    We keep kicking the can down the road.

    The current sort-of-good news: My oncologist thinks it's worthwhile for me to spend a huge chunk of money on a stairlift, so that I can get to and from the lower level of my house. Short of running into Jesus and scoring a healing miracle, I'm going to be in this damned chair - but he thinks I can live in a reasonable manner for another couple of years. I'll take it.

  • Good on you. It's no consolation but my wife's ancient grandfather used to like letting my kids ride up and down the stairs in his chair lift thingy. They thought it was great and so did he. Ok, he didn't have cancer but was just unfeasibly old, but I liked the way he turned it into an adventure for our girls when we visited him.

    Good to hear you're likely to be still with us and, from what they've told you, have a 'reasonable' life.

    On the healing miracle aside does anyone know anyone who has had one of those in relation to cancer? I don't.

    I'm not saying it doesn't or can't happen but I've not heard of anything.
  • I've heard of one, from an RC priest I trust (who was involved). The downside is that the healed party was a nominal Catholic who showed no sign of interest in religion before or after the event (although one presumes that during, he was at worst a reluctant bystander).
    My friend the priest gets involved in regular healing masses, and wonders 'why this guy?'. Talk about 'through a glass, darkly', all of us.

  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    We keep kicking the can down the road.

    - but he thinks I can live in a reasonable manner for another couple of years. I'll take it.

    That sounds like fabulous news and well worth getting the chair lift -- or else putting a "bedroom" of sorts downstairs. Or is there no bathroom downstairs? Darn logistics.

    Some youngish, healthy couple I know just bought a new house. The main bedrooms are upstairs, but the "guest room" is downstairs with it's own bath ( handicapped bars in the step in shower and by the toilet,) wide doorways and a door to the outside with a ramp built around to the driveway. I thought, why aren't all houses built this way? Modifications that would cost a fortune down the road are negligible upgrades in a new build.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    My house has two levels. I moved here because everything I have to have is on the main level: kitchen, bedroom, living room, dining room, laundry, master bath, powder room. Downstairs are things I would like to have access to: my office, the guest room (formerly my daughter's room), the television room, most of the storage - which includes the wine racks.

    I would welcome a healing miracle, but from what I've head, they tend to involve the disappearance of things like tumors. In my case, the left side of the pelvis is riddled with lesions, and in pieces. It's tedious.

  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    One of the healings for Padre Pio Sainthood was of cancer. The woman is still alive at 90 and attending mass. Oh, and the prayer was made by an Anglo-Catholic vicar. Should add this morning I would have said none but that snippet of information came from a PCC Away Day.
  • There was also the John Henry Cardinal Newman guy in the USA
  • Twilight wrote: »
    ... I thought, why aren't all houses built this way? Modifications that would cost a fortune down the road are negligible upgrades in a new build.
    Because the construction industry objects. Vociferously. They get their way because they buy politicians and most voters don't think of building codes as a political issue. Caprica City passed a bylaw requiring all new homes to have levers instead of doorknobs and people completely lost their minds ... screaming Nanny State affordability choice freedom shit. And that was a tiny modification that is helpful for everyone - you can open the door even if your hands are full.

  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    edited November 2018
    One of my father's uncles allegedly had a malignant melanoma charmed off by the seventh son of a seventh son. The family story is that a doctor who had seen him before and after wrote the case up, but as it happened prior to the Second World War, the family story was fairly vague by the time I heard it.
  • My questions would include whether these were cases of primary or secondary cancer.

    I'm also still sufficiently Protestant to wonder why Cardinal Newman would apparently intercede effectively for someone's cancer in the USA after his death when he didn't apparently do anything like that while he was alive.

    Perhaps I'm asking the wrong questions.
  • Well, yes.
    That said, if it was good enough for H.H. the P, B-XVI ...
  • Hell in our house yesterday. Better today. We're still a way off from Gethsemane though. The Macmillan nurse is visiting first thing in the morning and I'm sure she'll be able to do something to help.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    {{{Gamma, Mrs. Gamaliel and all of you}}}
  • Yes, we do have "days like that" ... I try and forgive myself for "outbursts" and hope my Significant Other does and notices that I am trying to be extra-nice the next day
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    <votive> For the Gamaliel family

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    It is sometimes possible to buy stairlifts second hand or rent them, dunno if that helps.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Our Bishop's wife, J., died last night after what seemed like a very short battle with pancreatic cancer - we heard about her diagnosis at the end of October.

    Bloody cancer. :rage: :cry: :rage:
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    edited November 2018
    It is sometimes possible to buy stairlifts second hand or rent them, dunno if that helps.
    I looked into that. My staircase needs one that curves if it's going to be usable as my condition continues to deteriorate, and nobody around here seems to rent them. Unfortunately, the curving ones are hideously expensive.
    Piglet wrote: »
    Our Bishop's wife, J., died last night after what seemed like a very short battle with pancreatic cancer - we heard about her diagnosis at the end of October.

    Bloody cancer. ...
    <votive> For J, and those who love her.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    God speed, Dillan David Dick.
  • We've got the low-down. Current treatment not working. Back to intravenous chemo, hair loss and so on. They'll know whether it's worth continuing with it within the next 9 weeks. The longest they can deploy this chemo is 18 weeks, otherwise there's a risk of heart attack.

    Once that chemo treatment is exhausted then there's one more they can try. Then that's it.

    The inner ward has fallen. We are now inside the keep. The battering rams are at the door. The chemo should hold them a wee while why we retreat to a solar and bar that door. Once the cancer has battered that one down we are at its mercy. It will show no quarter.

    We are entering the penultimate phase. Soon it will be our last stand.
  • So sorry to learn this, GG. Prayers for you both and your family, in this journey into the shadow of death.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Fuck.
  • Rats!
  • RooK wrote: »
    Fuck.

    Need the :notworthy: emoticon. You put it so much better than I did.
  • I have no words.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Gamma Gamaliel, and Mrs. Gamaliel, I admire your fighting spirits. Praying and hoping for the fort to be held.
  • Rook said it eloquently.

    The fort will fall, Jedijudy.
    There is no relief column.

    Barring some miracle I fully expect it to do so within months, up to a year if there's a chance the meds will hold longer.

    We are preparing for the end. May it come with as much dignity as possible.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    GG, I'm so sorry
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I am so sorry, Gamma. I keep praying for you both.
  • ... May it come with as much dignity as possible.
    Amen

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    ...We are preparing for the end. May it come with as much dignity as possible.
    That's the hard part, isn't it? Most states won't let us choose for ourselves when enough is enough. People are condemned to suffer, to lose themselves in a very real sense, at enormous financial, emotional, and physical costs to themselves and those who care for and love them. I do see the slippery slope; still, I resent the fact that I can spare my cats from such agony but not myself.

    You are in my daily prayers. I have adopted the Mater's custom of praying for healing, while letting God choose the form that healing should take, but may the meds work.

  • I'm so sorry, GG.
  • As am I too, GG.
  • Bloody cancer!
    God hold you all, Gamaliel
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Praying and swearing.
  • Thanks for the prayers, thanks for the swears.
  • SusanDorisSusanDoris Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Gamma Gamaliel

    Oh dear, I am so very sorry.

    Edited to remove typo
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