fuck cancer

waiting is a massive part of the world of evil lumps.

your life becomes a series of waiting experiences.
it's quite literally life draining.
never have i felt so useless/helpless as during those periods of 'waiting'.
even now, years on, i feel a mass of guilt about the time wasted while 'waiting', but when in that place, you are not really in the mood to do anything else but wait as so much depends on the outcome that you cannot really partake in any day to day pretence.
as said above, it is truly hideous.

hang on in there enbb .. despite a minimal connection through the wire, my thoughts are with you and yours.

My friend had his surgery today. His wife was just rung by the surgeon to say it went brilliantly... phew!

brilliant news suzy ..

Oh that's great, S.

Good luck enbb. Thoughts with your family.

<3 ENBB. Hope all turns out well.

thinking good thoughts for u, e <3

Thanks all. So I guess because of insurance and billing stuff she has to be discharged and readmitted for the procedure so I don't really get it but they're going home and it'll be done in a couple days. I guess they're doing this

http://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/pulmonary/procedures/Pages/endobronchial.aspx

Which gives real time results so I guess that's good.

rooting for your mom, E

Fingers crossed!

I shouldn't really be posting personal stuff here but my cousin was diagnosed earlier this year with skin cancer. They removed moles from her back but luckily she hasn't needed further treatment tho she has 5 years of tests but hopefully it wont come back and need chemo or anything. Fingers crossed.

hope everything turns out okay for her, enbb.

Fingers crossed for you ENBB. And glad to hear your friend's surgery went well, suzy.

I've been dealing with a tough one here. One of my good friends was diagnosed last fall with stage IV melanoma, has had multiple surgeries, a month of five day a week chemo, and then self-administered interferon 3 days a week. His recent PET came back positive. It's in his blood. They took him off the interferon for now, and he's got a stress and lung test as well as an MRI tomorrow. His spirits are great, and he's doing things he planned like releasing an album and setting off on tour the end of the month. But he knows what the odds are. This all just sucks..

oh shit - for some reason I thought this was on 77. Can a mod scrub the last sentence for me? It's more info than I want on a public post.

oh EZ,even if the post is removed, : ~ hugzz ~

thats some heavy shit.

skin cancer is one of the more terrifying. i had a friend who had a small mark on her thigh, she didn't think much of it, finally (after six months or so) she realized it had been growing and went to the doctor. turns out she had a melanoma. a year later she was dead. she was in her 30s. it all seemed to happen in a flash.

Thanks Mark. It sucks, but he's a real inspiration. He'd get chemo in the morning and spend the afternoon on the skate ramp he decided to build in his back yard. Iron will.

that's amazing! sorry about your friend, ez.

Thanks again, everyone. We'll see. She's 75 and smoked for prob over 30 years in total so I'm not too optimistic but who knows.

EZ that really sucks about your friend but he sounds like an amazing person.

He's a real peach of a young man.

Mod gotcha

Thanks!

hoping the best for all

I just realized that I never posted here after the results but it is lung cancer. She's opting for radiation instead of surgery and we'll see. I don't really know much right now except that it's slow growing and they don't think it's anywhere other than her lungs. TBH I think she'd convinced herself for absolute worst case scenario news so she seems to be taking it fairly well all things considered.

E :(

I'm so sorry to hear that ENBB. I hope the radiation succeeds.

You know how to reach me if you ever want to vent or talk.

Aw, thanks both. My dad's going to send me copies of all the records and images and I'm going to have one of the doctors here (recommended by my boss) take a look just so I know if they agree with the diagnoses and what exactly it is because my dad doesn't really remember the technical terms and stuff so I feel pretty in the dark now. I sort of knew this was coming so I'm OK but it's still worrying, obv.

i was just going to ask. hope you're okay too, such a powerless place to be. stuck for platitudes, just wishing you all positive outcomes for you.

through the medium of shitty grammar, obv

Found out yesterday that mother in-law likely has pancreatic cancer.

So this just happened over here. Mother-in-law's doctor was speaking based on a CT Scan and observable symptoms, but said she thinks it is stage 4. MRI and biopsy tomorrow will confirm for sure. I kind of feel like no doctor would say this preliminarily unless it was already semi-definitive (the dr was speaking to my wife's sister, not my mother-in-law herself, to be clear).

Obv wife and I will be heading to Boston within the next couple of days.

WTF.

damn Jon

seriously
i'm sorry
hang in there, friend -- all hojo all the time

Good idea. Will endeavor to not crack up, see both sides, bend brain and throw off mental chains. May have to go against brief and try to live life in one day though.

That's heavy, Jon. I'm so sorry.

All the best to you Jon and to EZ & ENBB too. This shit is fucked up.

I could use some extra strength but only so I can pass it on to my wife and her sister tbrr

don't forget to keep some for yourself -- you're a person too!

otm

damn Jon, wishing you the best

xpost i am naturally selfish to a sufficient extent that I will do that, believe me.

At least Boston area is pretty top notch for this kind of thing. I guess it is not crazy to predict that treatment goals will be palliative more than anything else :(

ugh, sorry to hear that Jon.

xpost yeah stage 4 is rough

you've still got a long road aheead but I will float this suggestion early, just to put it out there for later on; if you can get your hands on a w33d vaporiser it can really help with appetite, nausea, and associated side effects when things get rough

my husband's uncle was pretty far along, and well into his 80's and even though he didn't use the w33d a ton it at least got him to eat and just kinda mentally relax a bit more.

My mother inlaw was definitely down with it, she had awful trouble with indigestion and lost her appetite almost entirely and the w33d helped her so much -- she would even crank up the Pink Floyd :)

just something for you to keep under your hat til you need it

Good tip. Even though it would be uncharacteristic for her to roll w that (she doesn't even drink or smoke) she has already uncharacteristically agreed to low dose Vicodin so maybe that will be the narrow end of a wedge called drugz.

This whole thing just really isn't filtering through to all parts of my brain yet. Likewise with wife.

it'll take a while

fuck cancer

i am naturally selfish to a sufficient extent that I will do that, believe me.

ok, but i am compelled to note that i don't believe it's selfish to take care of yourself! it's a necessity, like food and sleep :)

hey guys I'm hoping someone has had some experience with this: mother-in-law (yes it is advanced pancreatic cancer, possible liver involvement) is taking oxycodone for the pain, and last night she got paranoid/irrational. My wife is there taking care of her by herself; she said she was talking in circles about this one thing that had annoyed her the day before and couldn't stop. I see that paranoia is one of side effects of oxycodone in the "rare" subheading. The oncologist had prescribed her ativan along with it and I'm guessing that would be indicated at this point, since the pain meds are a must?

My mom died of pancreatic cancer and she was prescribed liquid (oral) morphine and ativan. I spent the last month of her life with her - she was occasionally delusional. She did not spend the whole day in that state however and would snap out of it. The visiting nurse gave us a pamphlet on what to expect and it was all there, laid out the course of everything. My mom read the pamphlet too and when she put it down... man that was rough.

Good luck, Jon

My mom read the pamphlet too and when she put it down... man that was rough.

;_;

Yeah this lasted I guess a few hours and this morning she is her usual self. But she will need a lot of oxys today so I hope the freakout can be avoided. Wife has a call in to the oncologist re meds and is waiting to hear back.

Yeah, no harm in looking at new meds as long as helps the pain.

One time my mom bolted upright in bed and said "I need put in an obituary!" Then slunk back down and was normal again. Kinda lol mostly sad.