Hi CaptainAustralia   For me, the only answer winds back to that Manly Stereotype. Find your inner strength. Adapt and carry the weight of it yourself. Until you can't.   It's interesting that you should say this. I think, often as adults, there are things we feel that we just need to get on and deal with it. I've sought counselling or assistance from a therapist/psychologist on three occasions in my life. Two of them were around the time that my father died. The first one I saw was a therapist. He asked, and I told him why I was seeing him and what had happened proceeding this.  The look on his face was priceless. The next sentence was "I think given what you've been through you are doing amazingly well, but what can I do to help?". I didn't bother going back. The next one was a clinical psychologist, but after two sessions, she conceded given everything that had happened there wasn't much she could do. Righto. Next. I think you're right. I'll just carry on. Until I can't.   -sch ... View more

Pass on the drainofly @CaptainAustrali  😂   And yep, dragonfly! That one was easy. You're up for the next word 😊 ... View more

Hey Mate   These days you can visit any of these suburban 'GP factories', you just need to take control, sit down with a new doctor (or push your existing one) and say you want to have a colonoscopy and need them to provide a referral.  Then you go and get the test done.   Blood in the poo - well, it can be cancer, sure.  It can also be tears in the rectum from constipation - so if you've ever suffered constipation and strained to poo, don't immediately start thinking BIG C.  Until you know what it is, you don't know what it is .. second guessing isn't helpful.  Be diligent and aggressive in getting it investigated.   I had a tear down there (as a result of constipation from chemo medicine), and I would bleed consistently, gushes of blood, into the toilet - every time, for months.  It's a bit slow healing, and if a tear is serious, you can re-open it pretty easily.   Lastly - let's say it's some kind of bowel cancer - as I understand it, this profile of cancer is one of the more successfully treatable, and also slow-acting.  There are other forms of cancer that can kill you rapidly - a woman can be diagnosed with breast cancer and be dead 2 weeks later, some cancer types are just more volatile and unpredictable than others, I guess .. but bowel cancer (at least by reputation for a layman) is supposed to be one of the better kinds to get (if you have to get cancer).   But you don't know what it is .. until you know.  Push for a colonoscopy, I think for rectal bleeding that's the "go-to" diagnostic procedure. ... View more

The word obturator felt familiar, but I couldn't place it - was guessing at a nerve in the lower back - but when I went to search it ....   ahhh, sweet weepin' Jesus, terrible stuff.   I don't have any practical advice (except that soup is the best mate of anybody who's had head & neck cancer treatment), I just felt that it's such a ghastly thing to suffer with - not just the practicalities of eating, but also just having your overall self esteem rattled (assuming you can look through the face and see the inner workings).   I feel such a deep sympathy for someone dealing with that.   It's strange, I carry pain and daily problems, but to the outside world I just get judgemental looks due to the obesity (radiation destroyed my thyroid and weight piled on after treatment).  It's not a self-consciousness or a paranoia, people do genuinely look at you and judge you ever day.  Having an exposed sinus cavity and an obturator sounds cosmetically awful.   But also functionally tough too.   Maybe try luke-warm to warm soups / broth, easy to eat stuff, and consume it via the spoonful (or even a straw) ?     We all have to eat, but we don't all have to eat in the SAME way - it would be ideal to find some kind of enjoyment from food / mealtime, or at a minimum to make it as convenient and functional as possible.   Soup is the friend of the head & neck cancer patient, beyond that, sorry, I wish I could give some helpful advice.   If he's demoralised by the cosmetics as well, I'd say find ways to rebuild fun - ie what "fun" actaully means.  Considering stuff like:   - if he's reluctant to go out into the world, but never really been a computer guy, if you're cashed up, get a VR kit and some VR story games - it truly immerses you in a 3D video like story experience that can bring fun into your home - (or expand on existing hobbies or find a new one - I started learning the guitar) - if reluctant to go out into the world, but willing to try, think of some kind of mask or cosmetic prosthesis if you don't already have one, and activities that minimise (the ignorant or the unkind) people from staring and making him feel bad about the missing nose .. stuff like the movies, you know .. it gives normalcy but no staring as youre in a dark room   Hey maybe he still has my schnozz and I've misinterpretted the condition, if so, sorry !   I know the cosmetics are secondary to functionality and survival, but I reckon morale still plays an important part in a cancer patient's life.  We have to have (and protect) a sense of hope. ... View more

Hey Hey   In my opinion, this is one for the scientists, and whoever offers a point of view on it does not definitively KNOW.   Immunology is a major research area in cancer treatment, and is providing improved (and less damaging) treatment options for some types of cancer.  Great.   But that doesn't necessarily translate to immunity/metabolism preventing you from getting cancer in the first place.   From what I read, there's some kind of programmed death gene in all of us, some kind of marker that tells the body to start shutting down.  It's like that old saw about every cell in our body replacing itself over a 7 year period .. we're designed to rebuild and heal, but also eventually shut down.   Cancer is a mutation of healthy cells, that (just from a bit of reading) apparently is triggered by this programmed death process - and a lot of the immunology drugs geared toward treating cancer are designed toward over-riding this process (so that your healthy immune system can identify and fight the cancer).   Look, this is all just me as a layman interpreting science that is over my head .... BUT ....   That leads to the logical extrapolation that a healthy immune system doesn't necessarily specifically fight cancer.  The immunology meds are about MAKING THE CANCER VISIBLE to your immune system (and yeah I think also super charging the immune system).   So basically, this programmed death process, this mutation into cancer cells, is triggered (in my case apparently by HPV+), and it's a signal from the head honcho that it's time to pull the switches and go on vacation.   In my thinking, it leads that an otherwise healthy person with a supercharged immune system is just at risk of cancer as someone not (an oncologist said this to me, actually, when I was diagnosed).   BUT - eating all that healthy stuff and being healthy still FEELS great.   I just think anybody who asserts that they KNOW it will help you prevent cancer should be looked at suspiciously - likewise if they even assert it will help you FIGHT cancer (beyond how being and feeling healthier will help you).   I think it's all about that programmed death process, that trigger point where a cell starts thinking "ohh right, Im not meant to be here any more".  They kill those cells with radiation and hopefully they stay away.  But will immuno- medicine, hawaiian seaweed and all that stuff help ?   I guess the answer is probably a very definite maybe.   Our medical establishment isn't great in terms of being a source of knowledge - I've met with scientists to discuss things like autism, and for extremely intelligent people with a very rigorous protocol, they're like everyone else - flawed humans who don't like hearing that they don't know everything, or hearing viewpoints alternative to the narrative they've invested so much into.   So yeah - on the flipside, if the secret to preventing cancer is in some kind of SUPERIMMUNO stuff, the orthodox medical establishment probably will poo-poo it for as long as possible, until the evidence is just plain undeniable.   I reckon gene therapy is probably what we'll see in 25 years - where at risk persons are identified at birth and given a preventative innoculation of sorts.  As long as the zombie apocalypse doesn't happen in the interim. ... View more

The penis is a funny thing.   Dangling between the legs like some kind of primitive war club.   Someone who loses any part of themselves has to find ways to adjust, and it must be hard.  I'd argue that alongside the physical, tangible parts of ourselves, like our arms, limbs, doodle - cancer can extract important spiritual pieces as well - things like sense-of-place, hope, connectedness.   Living without a former piece of yourself .. pretty hard thing to face.   But the penis - it's especially weird, I reckon.   We as a society almost NEVER talk about our penises.  I feel already that I've said penis maybe 5 times too many in this post.  Penis.  Penis.  Penis.   But we almost NEVER talk about them on a day-to-day level.   YET .. at a big picture society level, we obsessively acknowledge them - we design cars and buildings with unconscious or subconscious phallic influence, when we talk to a lady we look from her eyes to her mouth to her boobs, when we talk to a man we look from his face to his tackle-box and back.  When we stand at a urinal we take a moment to focus our gaze intently FORWARD because we don't want to accidentally glance sideways and look at someone else's dick.   Penises are supremely weird and powerful things.  (To be fair, so also is the amazing, mystical Vagina).   To have lost yours ... in my mind ... it's like a back-handed gift from God, mate.   Consider all the effort, time, energy, lies and misdirection, games and falsehoods that orbit around the ole pork sausage.  If I showed you a photo of two piles of mashed potato and a pork sausage down the middle, you'd have to struggle not to roll your eyes (or supress an adolescent giggle).   I think being without a penis, it's a chance to redefine a new, monastic you.     I know that might read as cold comfort, but I genuinely believe that in some ways being without a penis would actually be a liberating thing.  Mine has led me bad places most of my life.  In fact, my tonsil cancer was HPV+, and I think that the ultimate root cause (pun intended) might have been from .. well, as ACDC said it .. 'dirty deeds done dirt cheep'   I'm sorry for your loss, I truly sympathise.  It's good you're still alive.  I hope that being penis-less isn't as bad and as hard as I imagine it probably would be.  And I hope that, in some ways, there are unexpected positives.   My personal favourite penis-less character in popular fiction is that bald chap in Game of Thrones, I can't remember exactly, his name is something like Varys, the Master of Whispers (a kinda royal spy-master).  Very conniving but ultimately altruistic type of person.  Actually come to think of it, he may also have echoed that sentiment that being without a penis has helped him to engage the world in ways he never would have discovered otherwise.   Anyway sorry for randomly remarking on your life, best of luck, be well. ... View more

Another Survivor Shout-Out (from Oklahoma, USA)   The disase really stinks. But I am now 19 years and 3 months cancer free. I was stage 2+ tonsil cancer.  I won't lie. It hasn't been easy. But I'm still going strong, feeling good, just dealing with long-term effects of the radiation.  I just retired at age 64 and I'm enjoying my life with my best friend of 43 years, our 3 kids and 9 grandkids and still doing ministry (I was a pastor for 34 years). If I can help encourage anyone, don't hesitate to reach out. Blessings friends!  ... View more