The Cancer Journey of a Normal Bloke: To Infinity and Beyond....

Tuesday 10 February 2009

To Infinity and Beyond....

Time to write the news that I guess most of you will either already know or will be expecting.......

Dave died yesterday (Monday 9th February) at 9.15 a.m. in the hospice after what had been a very difficult few days. His death at the very end was, however, very peaceful and a wonderful energy was present in the room.

The support from the nursing staff in the hospice was wonderful and my "bestest friends" Tricia and Claire supported me in a way which was absolutely extraordinary. I truly do not know how I would have got through the whole thing without them. Emma once again surpassed herself and was absolutely amazing and our relationship is now at a whole new level. There is a unique bond between us which will never be broken as a result of this shared experience.

At the moment, Emma and I are going through a huge range of emotions, which seem to come in waves and which are probably to be expected. The predominant ones being a mixture of shock and numbness. Although we have all known for a long while that Dave's illness was terminal, when his death actually came it has had a very unreal quality. I think we both keep expecting him to walk through the door with a big smile on his face and his big booming laugh and say that the whole thing was all a silly joke or dream.

I went to the Registry Office with Tricia to register his death today and simply could not believe that at the age of 47 my wonderful husband was dead and my daughter had lost her father and that we have been robbed of the 30 or so years we should still have had together. Cancer is a very terrible illness and even though we have given it our best shot, it feels a bit like Dave never really stood a chance. The die was already cast. But that's life for you, totally random!

I am in the process of organising the funeral and will post details on the blog as soon as they are finalised.

As for the blog, a substantial number of people have told me that they have got so much out of reading it and have asked me whether I would continue with it as I go through the grieving process. At the moment, I am not sure if I am brave enough to share my feelings as I embark on the next rollercoaster, but it is something I will seriously consider and will certainly do if I feel I am up to the task!

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MacMillan Cancer Support

I have decided to use this blog as means of playing a mind diverting game of raising a few quid for the wonderful people at MacMillan, who provide invaluable support for people at all stages of cancer. If you have found the blog interesting, useful or moving, please click on the "donate" button below, and you can be a part of this game. The current target is £10,000, but if just 5 people gave £1, and then enrolled five others to do the same, after just 6 rounds, we'd raise well over £100,000! Please consider donating, and if you can't do that, please share this address with at least five other people. Many thanks!
David

Background Information

I'm a forty seven year old husband and father of one daughter, living in York, and it's about a year this November since I was told I had between one and three years to live.
Having been diagnosed in 2006 with bowel cancer, operated upon and being told thereafter that the cancer had all been removed, I thought I had made it through a relatively tough period in my life.
Then in 2007, when I was on holiday in Portugal with my wife and daughter, I began to experience some pains in the pelvis, and brought forward my planned October review to September. After a few tests, it turned out that the cancer had already been on the move before it was removed, and was now in my lungs (two small tumours in the right lung), on the prostate (as opposed to inside the prostate which is what happens with prostate cancer), and also in my lymph system (which is the means by which it had travelled elsewhere).
So, I have decided to publish this blog with a view to updating all those who are interested on the latest developments, and, perhaps, to provide some information that might help other people who have bowel cancer in whatever stages.
I hope that it's useful, and maybe (as some people have told me that I have been "inspiring" in my approach) give people some increased sense of hope.
Feel free to comment on anything you see here, and use it to get in touch with me if you want to do so.

Brief History

October 2008: Get given a wheelchair - just in case!
September 2008: Buy a walking stick! This is to prevent me falling over when I give myself a boost of the drugs into my spine, as the local anaesthetic makes my legs go numb.
August 2008: have a catheter inserted into my spinal fluid which is fixed to a pump containg morphine and a local anaesthetic
May 2008: by now, taking a few hundred milligrams of morphine per day to manage the pain
April 2008: Chemo stops early due to side effects. No further treatment recommended at this stage, and referred to the Palliative Care Team for pain and symptom management
March 2008: stop the Oxiloplatin part of chemo due to loss of feeling in the fingers
December 2007: Chemotherapy recommences with forthightly treatments into a Hickman line (tube into the chest that runs up to the veins in my neck to put chemicals directly to the heart
December 2007: doctors tell me it's incurable, but that with treatment I have probably two to three years of life left in me
November 2007: PET scan and lymph node biopsy confirm cancer in the lymph nodes in the pelvis
October 2007: CT and MRI show tumours on the lung, and possible tumour on prostate
September 2007: Bring forwaard October's review, and the hospital sets up new CT and MRI scans to check out the pains
August 2007: Pains in the pelvis begin to make sitting uncomfortable, but a couple of nurofen seem to do the trick
April 2007: First review meeting declares all is well
January 2007: start to work again after miraculous speed of recovery!
November 2006: Operation to remove rectum and Sigmoid colon (the bend just before the rectum
October 2006: Consultants confirm tumour is operable, and that permanent colostomy is probable
September 2006: Chemo-Radiotherapy starts
August 2006: first visit to Cookridge to meet the Chemo-radiotherapy team
July 2006: Results confirm tumour in the rectum
June 2006: Colonoscopy and MRI scan
June 2006: Visit to the Colo - Rectal Clinic
May 2006: first examination by the GP

About Attitude

Because part of the purpose of this site is to serve as a useful source for other people with cancer, and because I believe attitude is vital when facing cancer and the possibility of death because of it, I am including a precis of an earlier post about the attitude I have adopted to having cancer. The earlier post in full can be accessed by going to the bottom of this page and clicking "Older Posts".
1. Be responsible: if you are not responsible for the fact you have cancer, you are a victim of it and looking to blame your having it on something or someone else. Responsible does not mean you blame your self, just that you have the power to respond to the fact you have cancer.
2. Behaviour in the present is being given by the future you can see for yourself. If you can see surviving as a future, your behaviour will be consistent with that future.
3. You always have a choice. You can choose every second of every day the response you have to your cancer. You can choose to live powerfully with it, or not.
4. Choice can only truly occur if you have considered all the possible outcomes. A person who is scared of dying is not choosing to live, but trying not to die. This would be fine if it were not for the fact that to be this way is to continually bring the thought of dying along with you. Choosing to live once you are not afraid of death does not bring the thought of death along with it.
5. Every emotional response is valid: trying not to feel sad, or trying not to cry, or forcing oneself to try to be positive all the time is to deny your humanity. Allow yourself to feel exactly how you feel, and the feeling can then pass freely on its way without being supressed and adding more emotional pressure onto an already emotionally charged situation.

The Cancer Journey of a Normal Bloke

Tuesday 10 February 2009

To Infinity and Beyond....

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Emma

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About Attitude

Summer 08

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