Time Fly's

Back in August 2004 I never thought I would see 2010, after Alimta and a year down the line my oncologist Dr Storey gave me some hope in saying I would still be here the way my meso was.  Then it grew like no-one's business and in 2008 I thought my time had come.  For my 45th I threw a party to say 'thank you' to my family, friends, colleagues, doc's etc as even then it was unsure how long Alimta could buy you, they said on average an additional 13 months.

It has been tough reaching 50, the acknowledgement to cancer, the stress it puts on everyone around, the pain, the treatments, the unexpected and untried and lastly the operation that saved my life, or bought me time.  But grateful I am, not only to the specialists that have helped me reach this age but to my own body, it has endured and surpassed everything thrown at it.

I met an older lady a few months back (she's in her middle 80's) and she told me her secret to being healthy was to thank her body everyday for keeping her well.  I have taken up trying to remember to do the same.  My GP rang me Friday to say that Dr Abbasi had been looking over my notes etc and that he and the Senior Radiologist agreed there had been some growth but it has stopped of its own accord.  My heart problem at the moment is counteracting the air-leak and I am good to fly.  I did manage to put my scan back to August so that after this flight we can check to see if anything happens to this pocket of air that doesn't want to settle down.  So Friday night I thanked my body lots!

I am still concerned that one of my brother's may have this cancer, his scan was Friday gone, a mix up as it was suppose to be over a month ago but the request was lost and blah blah.  He has been told he does have scarring in the lung which they can tell from his x-rays and there is also a chance he has asbestosis he didn't comment on it being meso but either way I hope it isn't.  He already suffers from MS and has being fighting a good fight with that for the last 20 years.  I look up to my brothers and respect them, having worked all there lives and really grafted is probably what drove me on too.  How could I possibly take time off work to recover from surgery or chemo when they both worked 6 days a week.

Our little (Big) Bear has managed to damage his back right knee and what a week we have had with him, both of us have eyes resting on our chins because he would not sit down, he paced back and forth for hours and hours.  The effort of sitting to lie down or pushing himself up was extremely painful so being a dog he though I will just stay on my legs. He was worn out by night time and the only thing we can do is put force behind his back legs to bring him to the floor, which made him cry out.  But he couldn't be allowed to pace 24 hours, he was doing spells of 6 to 7 hours on his feet.  Problem then during the night because he would want a drink and then trying to rise he would cry out so we were both down those stairs in a flash.  Bear then would refuse to lie back down so from 3am onwards one of us had to stay up with him.  Thankfully hubby took on the task from the second night onwards with me coming down at 6 to relieve him for some sleep.  All this and the build still going on.

Hubby isn't very happy with me either as he hasn't had a chance to go shopping for a birthday present for me, I said I don't need anything as I have everything I could possibly want.  I am still here, we are still in love and have two fantastic dogs, plus we are spending my birthday in Jersey with my two best friends and one of my brothers and his wife.  This is a birthday that I want to cherish with memories not gifts.  Ok as a woman I will probably be a little upset if I have nothing at all to open as we all like surprises, but he has spent the last 5 months overseeing the builders and building a kitchen he didn't really want.

I have no news on how anyone is doing at the moment, I have hardly turned the computer on this week so apologies.  I do hope that Danny is doing better, anyone back on Alimta deserves a medal but we know that life is so important to us.

I try to stay away from politics on the blog but my blood boils when I read that people are given expensive houses on benefit and not even born in this country, or paid towards the heavy tax duties yet that same spend can not be allocated to saving someones life on an expensive chemo, even when that person was born in this country and probably paid a fortune in taxes over the years.  It's about time we started looking after British people first, we haven't asked others to come and live here its of their choosing so why should we be expected to keep them.  We know for a fact that if we moved to a Muslim country (say) we wouldn't be given hand outs and kept above what we would normally be use to, so why do we do it.  Don't start me on socialist crap either, one of my Uncle's is a left winger yet owns his own house - how does that work then?

Maybe Cameron should start looking at all the wasted money that pours out of the system.  They closed mental health hospital's down for favour of 5 or 6 people in a home, great, but then the homes are owned privately and the only winner is the Company who runs them.  Yet old aged pensions are shoved in nursing homes with little rooms, no privacy and mainly have to pay for themselves with no help from the government.  Why can't they build 6 bedroom houses for the elderly with staff to look after them?  Don't they have rights and even more so as they have probably worked their entire lives and some of them fought for this country.

A friend of mine works for one of these agency's and has been placed with a family who's son is physically and mentally disabled.  The parents used a belt to protect him from falling out of bed during the night, it doesn't restrain him from moving in anyway and was provided by social services originally.  Now they say his rights have been ignored and two people have to be in attendance during the night to ensure he doesn't fall out of bed, this has gone on for 9 months.  What about the parent's rights to privacy, they love their son, have looked after him at home for 20 years and then because some jobsworth wants to make a name for his\her self it costs about 10,000 a month for this agency to have staff  sit up all night and what strain is that putting on the parents having strangers sitting upstairs next to their bedroom.  A total waste of money and as for the son's rights, it makes no difference to him apart from now if he did fall they would have to let it happen, whereas the belt would have jerked him back from the edge!  Britain has gone mad. 

That's just one case, how many more in the country, how much chemo could that buy or be invested in new research, how many nurse's a year could it pay for or more doctors to reduce long hours sitting in waiting rooms, more radiologists or Scanning equipment, the list is endless for better use of money. 

This is why I stay away from politics on the blog!!!

Last weekend I went crazy and blitzed upstairs, I worked flat out and ended up making myself ill and missed a day at work.   The sooner this house is back to normal!!!

I hope anyone out there that is new to this disease doesn't feel like their life has come to an end, take it on as a challenge, don't let it rule you you rule it and as my elderly lady said, thank your body.  Stay positive, it can't always work because of the nature of the beast but if we give up mentally we might as well order the gravestone today.  I look forward to still writing this blog at 60 let alone 50.