An important message for you: it isn't the end.

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks 🙏 Yes, I will , I feel a song coming on by Frank Sinatra, I did it My Way 💜💜

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks 🙏 glad to have found you, look forward to reading more 💜

[CaptainAustrali]

I haven't been here at the Cancer Council forums for ... years now.

I graduated from the club nobody wants to join, I guess.

Since I'm back (answering a question), I thought I'd come here and share that I completed Captain Australia's BIG WALK, raised $165,000 for paediatric cancer research, and healed the existential crisis I suffered subsequent to treatment.

I dealt with a great deal of unprocessed grief, fear, anger, sorrow, and am profoundly better for it.

I just wanted to tie that back to a simple fact - in 2016, I was given six months to live.

If you're reading this, found this thread because you're grappling for hope - and it feels like exactly that .. a thread ... thin and fragile .. take it.  Take it.  Grow it.  It will help get you through.

Cancer may take your life.

But not today.

PS:  I'm going to set out on Captain Australia's BIG LAP in July.  The walk was so important, it helped people, I've felt it's my calling to do something bigger, bolder and bonkers (the essential vitamin Bs), if you want to learn about it:
www.captainaustralia.online

All the best.

[Rowan]

Thankyou for your words, I have just come from the Hospital thinking there was little hope and any luck I had had long gone.

[Janine3220]

Hi Rowan,

Cancer is NOT a death sentence.  Cancer is an opportunity for so many things to unfold for you now. Some will challenge you, others will enrich you ...  We know how you feel.    Remember this:  cancer is the result of something gone wrong. Find out what this is. If your GP has no time for your questions switch GPs.  Check with a nutritionist or hospital dietitian as to what you should eat and drink and when and how much. Clean your environment from food to the air you breathe, any constipation (add fibre rich veg and fruits). Ensure you rest and get good sleep and if stress or relationship issues etc are a problem then see a counsellor/psychologist/therapist.  Stress affects the body, changing chemical and hormonal reactions. I am a psychotherapist and a nutritionist. I had my cancer scare. Open yourself to all the support out there. You WILL come through this. You WILL come through this. : ))

[CaptainAustrali]

You'll hear from clinicians that you stand a fighting chance, and in your heart, you'll doubt.  

You'll hear from friends, family and well wishing strangers "you got this", and you'll want to believe .. but doubt.

The thing is, the absolute thing is - nobody knows, but you are STILL ALIVE.

Every day that remains to you is yours to spend, and you get a chance, and you need to take it, to breathe life into the days that remain, not give them away to this insidious fucking disease.

Hope.

It's all about Hope.

If you sustain yours, hang onto the possibility that you may yet survive and thrive ... the days that remain to you will be richer and stronger.

The outcome may be something that we have to learn to accept.

But frame that acceptance in Hope.

I gave four years away to hopelessness, that doubt, that insidious creep.  The worry that every cough subsequent to treatment was a recurrence.

Then I did that Captain Australia's BIG WALK thing (you can look at www.captainaustralia.online

if youre curious).  I restored my hope.  I healed depression and existential crisis.

And more than six YEARS ago now, I was given six MONTHS to live.

But still here.

That outcome is possible for you too.

Don't give up hope.  Be strong in your mind.  If it feels like self-trickery, WHO CARES, take that optimism anyway.  You need to approach your cancer on the basis that it's a Dragon that you are perfectly capable of slaying.  It'll be tough, but you can come through, and you might even come through stronger and wiser, armed with hidden treasures found along the way...