fuck cancer

Best of luck, man

Pleased it's gone well Onimo, have a good rest! As Karl says, we'll be here.

Just saw onimo's link in another thread, and what a rollercoaster to go through catching up! Heal well dude, and put together a revised, energised Nick Cave ballot to express rage & joy whenever you're able, just for folks to listen to.

<3<3<3

sic otm

cheers onimo

Thanks for popping in to reassure us before your hiatus. Have a good rest.

Morning all. Feeling better a week or so out from surgery. Still having difficulty with the written word and concentration.

The news wasn't great on my biopsy so I've got a bit of a fight ahead if me. A couple of quiet weeks with the family then a busy program of chemo and radiotherapy in the new year.

I'll post updates on and off and I'm around on Facebook for those that know me there.

Give it hell

we're all rooting for you!

✊

Thanks for the update! Have a lovely Christmas with the fam. xx

Give it hell

― spruce springclean (darraghmac), Monday, 21 December 2020 10:19 bookmarkflaglink

^ otm

Have a good Xmas, Onimo.

Great to see you back Onimo <3

all the best to you during your treatment and recovery Onimo, and it is really good to see you posting again.

Hi Onimo. Glad to hear you are feeling reasonably well.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of my diagnosis, so I've been thinking a out it a lot.

I just want to say that if you ever want to commiserate or have questions about chemo and radiation, obv our cancers and bodies are different, but I'm happy to talk about those things with you in any way I can. My webmail works

In the meantime, sending you and yours lots of good feeling!

Good to have you back Onimo! <3

Hope you enjoy your Christmas, onimo, good to see you posting again and hope all goes well in the New Year.

onimo <3

welcome back onimo, great to hear from you - hope you manage to rest up and have some family time over xmas

<3

best wishes, onimo. enjoy the time with family and get ready to kick ass.

Great having you back, onimo. Now let’s throw everything at the wall that’ll keep you around.

Thanks for the update onimo, I hope you have a nice festive season ahead of the further treatment.

<3 onimo

great news onimo, here's to more ahead

Fuck em up O!

I'm glad to see you again.

Thanks everyone.

I just want to say that if you ever want to commiserate or have questions about chemo and radiation, obv our cancers and bodies are different, but I'm happy to talk about those things with you in any way I can. My webmail works

TTITT that's much appreciated and I might be in touch in a few weeks when things start moving again.

I'm still reeling from my diagnosis and absorbing too much info with a brain that isn't coping well with too much info.

I've also just stopped taking dexamethazone so I'm expecting my energy and my mood to take a hit in the coming days.

Good luck, man!

all the best, omino

and also one day I will learn how to spell your name correctly

All the best with your recovery and treatment, onimo

good luck, onimo.

love to you & your family onimo <3

Best wishes, onimo - good to hear an update from you. Hope you have a relaxing Christmas; sending much love & strength for what comes after.

I'm ever here, onimo.

Sending my best to you and your family.

All the best, Onimo

I've been noting some of my weird symptoms and side effects since I got sick. I can't sleep so I thought I'd share...

I'm still not sure from all of this which is caused by the cancer, the surgery, the resultant paste swelling/damage to my brain, seizures, or various medications for all of the above. I also don't know what's permanent and what might get better or worse with time.

- writing: I keep picking the wrong words/letters. It's taken ages to type this lot up and I've no confidence in it. Sometimes I stare at my screen for minutes at a time convinced some letters are missing. I can never find the 'R'. I *think* it's getting slightly better with time.

- reading: I can't concentrate on long form text. I feel like I'll never read another book. That breaks my heart. I also have a weird vision issue where my brain doesn't want to read the right-hand side of pages and I have to force my eyes to track across the page. If I'm tired or stressed I just don't bother trying. I am expecting to have this diagnosed as a permanent visual impairment.

- seizures plus visual impairment means I've had to give up driving, probably permanently. This adds to the huge burden my wife is already carrying. Not being able to drive makes me feel older and sicker than the massive scar on my head.

- seizures - these are hard to describe. It's not like debilitating fits, more like lots of short, strange, overwhelming feelings that my brain is working really hard on something that I am only vaguely conscious of. Sometimes I get visual flash things at the same time so I've taken to calling it The Sparkles.

- jaggy left foot - like wearing a sock full of hot pins.

- insomnia

- bumping into walls/misjudging where things are

- broken internal clock. I used to be able to guess the time to within minutes, now I'm hours out

- Not My Foot! This is an odd one... sometimes I'll be showering or sitting on the loo and I'll decide my left leg is not really a part of me but just a big lump of flesh and bone. This feeling passes in minutes but if you'd amputated the leg at the time I wouldn't complain.

- when I wake up in the night I feel as if I'm wearing glasses

- sometimes the world on my right keeps moving when I stop. It's a bit like drunken teenage spins

Also I'm not exactly depressed but everything is mostly bad and it's beginning to take its toll.

onimo I’m sorry to hear all your struggles if it’s any consolation your post is free of aphasias

the brain is a very plastic thing, I hope some of your faculties improve as your noodle rewires itself.

Thanks silby

I was misdiagnosed with transient aphasia from seizures before they found the tumour. My symptoms then were scary but didn't have the big C attached.

oh, onimo. <3

and yes you still write well

Hey onimo, that sounds like a lot to deal with. From my understanding there is a lot of weird shit to be expected while the brain recovers from surgery, even small changes in the shape of the tissue, how fluid circulates, etc., alter the fine details of activity. Disowning a body part is a well described thing which happens to a lot of people - of course that doesn't make it feel less weird. Same for it being an effort to attend to part of the visual world, I could almost guess which parts of the brain got disturbed from your description.
If you're able to tolerate an audiobook, Villanur Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee wrote a good one about how our sense of ourselves as physical beings ties in to brain functions, it might be enlightening or reassuring. Audiobooks have it and they claim you can listen for free during a 30 day trial:
https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/phantoms-in-the-brain-probing-the-mysteries-of-the-human-mind/242959

Thanks, I've been toying with taking up audiobooks for a few weeks so I might look at a trial. I was thinking about the Oliver Sacks book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" the other day while contemplating my unnecessary leg.

FWIW onimo, based on your posts tonight, i would be extremely hard pressed to guess you were having any cognitive difficulties at all!

xp the Ramachandran/Blakeslee has a similar pitch to Hat (although less humanist it must be said), but deals with pertinent stuff like body image, phantom limbs, etc., throughout.

It's good to see you back here anyway, and yeah with no outward sign (other than, you know, your contribution on this thread) that anything's up.

Sorry to hear you are having a rough time Onimo. My partner has some similar symptoms you described above, caused by brain lesions/myelin damage from the MS and it sure can be rough at times. But like others have said your posting is always spot on. That old audiobookbay dot nl is my fave audiobook resource fwiw

this sounds like a hell of a lot onimo, i'm sorry and it sucks, and i sincerely hope 2021 is a year of recovery, tho it might take a stupid amount of time and emotional fuckery, you can beat this fucker