Tuesday 1 December 2009

No winners

The damp has a lot to do with pain don't you think?  Since my few days away at Stansted my body hasn't been the same, I was in that good feeling, now the body is back to that errr feeling.  The funny sick feeling has returned, my kidney is once again aching and my bones hurt.

I went to the physio on Monday and she worked on my neck, while I was there I mentioned my left shoulder hurting more and the fact that lifting it above my head was causing grief.  Sure enough it's all down to the funny angle of the ribs and the muscles that are stretching in awkward positions.  Not that I'm complaining really, after all here I am still with the land of the living and hopefully will continue to be for many a good year yet.  Its just that you do get down with the pains, then when its cold and damp it makes it worse.

Can you believe its the 1st of December, this time last year I was oblivious to what I was going to do and my only thoughts were how long I had left.  I spoke with a gentleman last night that has just been diagnosed, well maybe a couple of month ago, and he still hasn't made any decision on which way forward he wishes to go.  Again he was saying that some of the professionals didn't offer any good advice and it was Alimta or nothing or surgery and nothing.  If he is in early stages of the disease it makes the options harder, do you really want to make yourself so ill having surgery if you have only one or two tumours?  Should surgery be held back until your whole lung is covered then at least you have a reason to put yourself through a lot (and I mean a lot) of pain.  Do you take chemo now in the hope that it kills it all and gives you remission for lots of years to come.  I don't envy this gentleman the decision he has to make.  One thing is certain, with meso we have to make a decision, we can't just leave it and hope for the best.  We talked for quite a while and I said something like once you're on the treadmill you never get off, but isn't that true about everything we do.  The only difference is on our treadmill we are trying to outrun the meso and as long as we can keep doing that we all have a chance.

Many people with cancer have the same problems and worries but with meso and only a few other types of this nasty disease, our options aren't that great as we will die, other cancers these days are cured.  The feelings and worries are the same but many of the outcomes are so different and I have realised over the years that we can't compare our cancer with that of breast cancer or colan cancer.  If you catch breast cancer early your a winner, if you catch meso early you still loose!

Guidance for what to do isn't in black and white as no one can say for sure which way to go down the treatment line.  I know that my subconsciousness is worrying (because of my weird dreams)  what will I do when the damn stuff reappears, in the USA I would get cryo but what about here?  I have said I'd go cyberknife but never tried it makes me worry in case it doesn't work.

Let's hope that the New Year brings in a new line of treatment that someone somewhere has secretly being testing and blasts this nasty cancer to where it belongs .. hell

No comments: