Today I had my second dose of radiotherapy, prescribed to address the back pain I have been experiencing lately. I thought I ought to describe what happened, as it was all new to me. This was meant to be palliative therapy rather than curative therapy, so it may well differ in detail from others’ experiences, […]
By Gillian If Christopher’s back pain continues for much longer, we’re going to buy one of the foam wedge pillows that several people have recommended. In the mean time he’s propping himself up in bed on a pile of pillows. I thought it might be worth sharing the method my (nearly 90-year-old) Gran learned as […]
This week has been dominated by pain and its management, but it’s not all bad news. On Monday and Tuesday this week my parents in law came to visit. It’s a bit difficult to put them up here at the moment, as Gillian and I are sleeping in separate rooms so that my disturbed nights […]
By Gillian Chris was meant to go into Cheltenham yesterday to start cycle 5 of the chemotherapy. However, when he phoned the hospital at 8:30 in the morning, there wasn’t a bed available. That was frustrating for him, but actually suited me as it meant I was able to go to an all-day work meeting […]
When I first went to the GP complaining about difficulty swallowing, I was (mis-)diagnosed with acid reflux, and was eventually prescribed Omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor, to try to reduce the excess acid I was supposedly producing. Actually, my stomach was causing me some pain, and the Omeprazole did help, so I suppose the tumour […]
It has been a relatively quiet week this week, with not much to report. I’ve been feeling somewhat low for most of the week — including today — and as a result haven’t done very much. At least I got the results of my two scans, even though they weren’t terribly conclusive. Fortunately it hasn’t […]
I normally like to go to the theatre in the evenings, as it makes it more of an occasion. These days, however, it’s too tiring to stay up so late; I’m normally in bed by 10pm, if I can even last that long. It seems a shame to give up on theatre trips, though, when […]
Just a quick post tonight to let you know the results of the recent bone and MRI scans. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures yet, but as soon as I get the CD I’ll post some of the key shots. But I do have a verbal report. The bone scan showed two hot spots on […]
I’ve mentioned giving myself a severe talking to recently, and I wanted to write a bit more about that. Last week I had a few days when I was feeling ill and sorry for myself. In fact, it was the worst I had felt since just before the chemotherapy started in January. I had stopped […]
By Gillian I’ve had comments that this blog seems to be nearly as much about food as it is about living with cancer. I’ve looked back over some of our posts, and I take the point – but I’m not going to apologise! Food has always been important to us both, and being able to […]
