Hi Everyone, firstly. Thank you to everyone that reached out this week. Friends and family alike. I know that I have been pretty much silent on social media, I haven’t blogged and I haven’t replied to text messages too.
Thanks for bearing with me. This past week has been so painful. I ended last weeks blog with a pain level of 6/10. This week, I have peaked at 10/10 pain whilst trying to pass my bowels. Then for the next few hours, agony. Like the worst throbbing and zap’s of pure agony completely unannounced.
So, don’t really have an appetite right now, food makes poop, poop makes Cam sad.
I read an interesting Reddit thread on /r/cancer the other day:-
https://www.reddit.com/r/cancer/comments/fbfpmd/something_cancer_patients_enjoy_more_than_muggles/
I used to enjoy having a poop. Sunday’s the best. Watch the Grand Prix, finish the dishes from Sunday’s lunch and then sit on the throne till your legs go numb.
Well, NOT ANYMORE!
Now, I actually hate going to the bathroom. I know it’s going to wreck me. There’s just so much blood and Christ… If it were in public… I don’t even know.
I know that I cry out in pain a lot. It’s just all searing agony now.
I am sure I heard my neighbour Sara shout ‘Are you alright Cam?’ through the walls earlier in the week. I think I managed to whimper ‘Yeeeeaaaah’ even though I wasn’t.
Dr Pedley prescribed to me a new medication called Prednisolone. Basically, it’s a foam. It comes with an applicator… Yep. You can tell where this is going. Then you shake the container like a maraca attach the nozzle and give it a squirt.
You know expandable foam builders and plumbers use? Yeah… Basically. It’s that but with Steroids in it. A lot of people on reddit recommended it as it helped them. I have only managed to use it 3 times so far. (It’s a once or twice a day thing)
It’s not pleasant in the slightest. It’s a very odd sensation and like I said, getting the applicator in there is hard enough.
So we will give it a try, but when I went in for my review meeting on Friday. Although they wanted to give me a quick examination, I politely declined and told them I just wanted to go home. When pushed for a second request to examine me I got quite cross and firmly explained that they had already made me wait an hour for this meeting (that could be a phone call) and that I wanted nothing more than to lay on my side at home. We then discussed the pain levels and sadly, I am right on the cusp of being put onto heavier medication. They want to put me on slow releasing morphine, gabapentin, pregabalin, naproxin etc
I have explained before to them that those types of pain killer are too strong and I have no life. I just feel out of body on them and I will not entertain them again. The Tramadol, paracetamol and oral morphine will do for now.
It’s Sunday right now, all I can think of is that I have 10 more doses of Chemotherapy. 5 more radiotherapy treatments and I get to ring the bell.
It’s becoming like a repeated mantra, 10 more doses, 7 more days, 5 more treatments.
I’ll take a video or rather, I’ll ask Kerry to take a video of me ringing it at the NCCC at the Freeman Hospital.
I have been asked what the next steps are from a lot of people. I’ll cover them now.
CT Scan pretty soon. See how my lungs and other organs have been doing.
MRI Scan in about 6 weeks, give my insides time to recover and see about surgery next.
Surgery – Complete removal or Sectional Surgery – We just won’t know until the scans.
I’m going to cut this one short for now.
Mood: Really downbeat. I just want the light at the end of the tunnel.
Pain: 6-7/10 just constant pain. Breakthrough pain almost 9-10/10
Appetite: I don’t want to eat because then I will need to use the bathroom.
Weight: 95KG, dropped a couple of KG’s but I’ll live.
An honest blog about a guy's journey through cancer and chemotherapy 