How to cope with cancer, some friendly advice from a fellow sufferer

Through a couple of conversations I have had with various people, I have started thinking about how someone is meant to cope with having cancer.  I have it and people say I cope very well, and I keep being asked “how do you cope with it?” and I never really know what to say.  Apart from saying, “well if I didn’t cope with it, I’d go mad”, you don’t want to analyse how you do it, for fear of discovering the secret, but here I am going to try and unpick it and divulge some tips for people who might be in a similiar position.  I am not a trained psychologist, so see this advice as not medical advice but advice from you would a friend or acquaintance.

My past history is quite long, but it has come back enough times to know the sensation of being told that whatever it is that has grown or appeared is cancerous.  It’s like being kicked in the shins and winded at the same time, and after the usual anger and shock, you will feel scared.  At this point, is the time to rely on people you are closest to, and whatever you do, do not push them away.  Sounds silly doesn’t it?  But many people distance themselves from those around them, either because they don’t want to ‘drag them down’ too, or because that is how they cope with  bad news.
It’s important to make them feel like they are helping too, as often news like this is as bad for your nearest and dearest, as it would be for you.  I found I often handled it better then my wife, but then if you switch on the empathy I would feel so much worse if she had something horrid.

Everyone finds their own perspective on life after finding out they have the ‘C’ word.  I found my ‘zen middle ground’ as I like to call it, quite quickly.  You realise that despite the ground breaking, earth shattering news, life doesn’t stop.  The milkman doesn’t stop delivering, the bills don’t stop billing and although you are walking around with this doubt sat at the back of your head, life still continues.

I found distractions helped, things that occupied my mind would often help me pass periods of uncertainty.  Take up a hobby, throw yourself in to a part of your life that might already distract you, but balance that with the time and attention your loved ones might want from you, knowing the unknown lurks around the corner means they’ll want you more!

But most importantly, there is only one way to cope with cancer and that is your way.  Everyone is different, and advice people give will often, like this post, be their own experience.  Sometimes you have to cope with it in a certain way, and if that makes you happy and if you think it will help you cope, then go for it.

London Musings

The following was done on my PDA over the course of the day I went up for a scan in the Royal Marsden.  It’s unedited, raw and full of typos.

LondonHow do you pass the time in London? The answer is simple, sit in a cafe and read, or, visit the V&A. I have just tried to visit the V&A but gave up after I realised that I would easily need the best part of an afternoon to really focus on the immense volume of the content that they have. Multiple galleries are spread through a vast complex of halls, corridors and crannies. Everything needs to be savoured, unless one is willing to risk mental indigestion.
Laura wants to visit too, so I feel it’s a bit cheeky to just go in and start roaming around without her being there.

I have decided to break in tradition and leave the Marsden for lunch, finding a small cafe (name escapes me), I am tucking in to a panini and a nice cup of coffee.

Everytime I come to London, I play a game. Spot the famous person. This includes people who are either famous or who bear uncanny resemblance to a famous person. So far…

Margaret Beckett
Jeffery Archer
Doctor off This Morning (who got discraced for plagerism).
Gillian McKeith

The journey was, as ever, ardous. Making any sort of long journey on an empty stomach is hard enough. Thankfully the chap I was sat next to, although a giant of a man, did not insist on cuddling up to me like the other guy I sat next to last time I came up. OK, so he wasn’t in his arms embracing me, but it was all a bit too comfy for my liking. A modern phenomenon that I noticed is the tendency for people to turn whole sections of the train in to mobile offices. Ridiculous as it is, everyone seems to have a laptop which they just have to get out and tap away at. Please note, this is a PDA with a keyboard, and when I find the drivers it’ll have wifi too. But for now I use my phone which has wifi.
The train was on time, which left 25 minutes to sprint across London, down tubes and up escalators. I was 5 minutes late but that’s only because I had to stop to ask a suspicious looking Spanish chap where CT Scanning was. By the way, he wasn’t suspicious because he was Spanish, but the hair was just too slick for my liking.

Right, back to the hospital.

1:26pm

I’m back, the hospital cafe was full so I have decamped to a nice comfy sofa, somewhere in the Marsden wing. The thing that really sucks about this process is the waiting. I know my appointment will come and go, it might be an hour or two hours before I am seen.
I am hoping that the trend will continue, and that I’ll be told there has been nochange. I can’t say that this is going to happen, but one can dream. If anything did happen, I wouldn’t know about it as the nodules in my lungs are tiny.

So what if something happens? They say that there has been movement, and I have to have radiotherapy. Oh well, if it is to be then it is to be. I would be thankful that I would be treated as to now, they have decided that the nodules are too small to be treated. One must remain philisophical about things like this.

The thing I hate about London is the way people look at you. A sideways glance, shifty and suspecting. Yes, I know its London and “thats what people do”, but it seems to be nearly everyone who makes eye contact…

To Outpatients… 2:26pm

The waiting was like death itself. A painful sentence, tension made more by the hubbub of the giant waiting room. I really did expect them to say that there was no change, however in my naiviety i guess I was asking for trouble.
Although the doctors have said it’s nothing to worry about, 2mm of growth in a year is really something to worry about. In time, I’ll get used to it and learn to cope with it, but at the moment it’s crap. Something else to worry about. I will read back at this one day and realise I was either overreacting or I’ll wonder why I was so blind to what might happen yet. So…

Appointment was an hour late anyway, but I left the hospital and just decided that the point in hiking up to Oxford Circus.

8:44pm

I’m on the train going home. Thank God, or whoever rules this joint.
I got to Waterloo and then had to walk around trying to find somewhere to sit. Waterloo, like most of London is devoid of bins. Rubbish has to be either quietly hidden away or stashed in a bag and then quietly hidden. Or put in a bin if you ever find one. After deciding that Costa was the best place to sit down, I bough a new notebook in Paperchase and a coffee from Costas. Time passed and soon I had to board the train, however, I read the wrong time on the ticket (I read 0642) and forgot about the 24hr clock, got totally confused and ended up confusing the lady on the information desk. I saw the ticket inspector and he pointed out to me that I did in fact have the right tickets. Confused but happy I got on the train, found my seat and put my stuff on the rack, then along comes a nice chap who sits next to me until Sherborne.

So I am nearly home, I miss my wife and my cats and now I know that things are now a little different.
Something that did cheer me up was the worlds chavviest girl that got on at Basingstoke, she had a full on conversation about weed and sleeping pills with some guy, very loudly so that the whole train could hear. I’m glad she did as it made me chuckle to myself. I also scraped together enough change to buy a cuppa so that was also good.

Head update…

Well, my head is still on my shoulders.  It’s a positive thing when you wake up in the morning to the pleasing sensation of a cranium, bobbing up and down on your neck.  Seriously, I have stopped taking paracetemol, which normally means most of the skin is starting to heal.  I do have to take Ibuprofen now and again as the skin is very tight around the staples.  Sleeping is still a bit weird, as my body clock is still all over the shop.

So, off to see my GP on Monday with some idea about when I can go back to work.  Am I really desparate to get back?  Kind of.  I enjoy staying at home and playing poker/wasting time, but at the same time I feel pretty useless.  When I came back to work after my last operation, I ended up feeling constantly lethargic which ended up making me worse as I was at work and stressing about stuff.

So this time I am going back part-time for a bit, and will hopefully find it easier to get back in to the swing of things.  Not that I swing, dancing or any other sort of shinanigans.

All clear for another few months

Well, at the beginning of Feb I had another scan and after a few weeks of waiting with nervousness and anticipation, my prayers have been answered and there has been no change. Life continues as normal again

I have neglected my blog for a while as I have been quite busy with work and life, launching an online shop and work has taken up most of my time. Strange how I come to write something in here and my mind goes totally blank!

Love you all

Back to normality, possibly?

So, no progression of the disease, without a doubt the most positive result of them all.

The journey is always stressful, a long and draining voyage in to the big smoke with little positively memories apart from getting home and feeling safe.  I decided that after this trip we would go up on the coach as it is cheaper and it seems a lot more straight forward then going up on the train.  I know I like trains and all that, but I cannot justify spending all that money for an experience similar to going on a coach.  When we finally arrived we found that the tube services had been suspended so we had to get taxi’s too the hospital and back again.  The RMT strikes again

The scan was routine, and then the long painfully stressful game of waiting around to be told that it is either good or bad.

The appointment was an hour late, waiting for the results to be produced and then we saw a nice Doctor called Anna Montes who had a very French accent which was comforting to listen to.  On the crest of positivity we sailed out of the hospital, well, we got lost and then worked out where the exit was and escaped.

We got back to Paddington, through Hyde Park and via the interesting one way systems, and after a short wait back on the train.  First Great Western have refurbished most of their rolling stock which is good, but after replacing the comfy squashy seats for new airline style, hard, nasty, plastic ones I felt very uncomfortable with my pounding headache and no legroom.

Anyway, I am home.  I went to work and felt frustrated that I didn’t have a better job (as usual) and got on with normality and concentrating on being normal

Scan

So tomorrow, its the scan and what a cocophony of emotions and feelings.  Mainly anxiety over what might be, or what they might say.  Praying for no change, although either it’s win/win as they’ll treat me if it has grown and if it hasn’t grown I can carry on regardless.
I am looking forward to the journey up there, maybe not the journey back but the whole thing is really quite stressful.  Once treatment starts I am going to have to come up with some solution of how to get up and back every week for three weeks, financially I can claim assistance with travel but the stress of the whole situation is not something that I am happy with.
Next time we go up, beit sooner of later depending on the results, we’re going by coach.  It’s an option to explore and even if it ends up being worse then the train, it is going to be significantly cheaper.

My other option is to have treatment in Exeter, using simple tried and tested treatments that are relatively effective but with side effects.  Less stress but really not what I want, I want to know that the treatment that I am getting is the best that I can receive and if that means going up and down to and from London then so be it.  Nothing against the staff down here at Yeo and Cherrybrook wards, but its a personal decision.

I will stop caring eventually, I will stop moaning and worrying and caring about such trivialities and soon realise the most important thing is to be happy with whatever decisions I have made. That is the most important thing.  Being happy is the most important thing.