Hi Teacher Mum, It doesn't go away, it just becomes less dominant. Many years ago a colleague emailed me to say that, the shadow is always there, but it becomes confined to a small room in your mind - the rest is there for the sun. Another acquaintance, fourteen years after his diagnosis still goes and has an annual blood test. He does it just before Christmas, and when it comes back as all OK, he calls it his Christmas present. We all develop ways of managing the shadow, some of them more inventive than others. I am still on three monthly tests and for a few weeks before hand I get difficult to live with, so if you are only getting into a tiz a day or two beforehand then you are doing well. Cheers Sailor ... View more

Congratulations Triplets - wow, that's one more than my daughter presented me with six months ago and they are such fun. Lot of hard work, but it means we get to see a lot more of them as we help our daughter and son-in-law. Cheers Sailor ... View more

Hi All I only wish it was related to weight loss! cheers Sailor The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. William Arthur Ward
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Hi Everyone Yes I have had the 'forgetting in mid sentence', but not the stuttering - yet! There are times, particularly when I get tired that I have difficulty getting words out - I know the word, I just can't get it out. Circulation doesn't appear to be a problem, I just feel the cold more. As for hot flushes being power surges - no, I actually find them quite debilitating. It really is rather good to find that side effects that you think you have other people have as well. Makes you feel a bit less weird. Cheers Sailor I think the sea has thrown itself upon me and been answered, at least in part, and I believe I am a little changed - not essentially, but changed and transubstantiated as anyone is who has asked a question and been answered. Hart Crane ... View more

Hi Ruby I don't think feeling the cold is an 'official side effect' of radiotherapy. I was just interested if others had a similar observation. As you say, we are forever putting ther heater on when everyone else is in T-shirts, except for me who has hot flushes, strips off layers to cool down, then puts them all back on again as I'm feeling the cold. Intermittent hormone therapy = going through the symptoms of menopause - yes all of them - everytime!! Six times so far! Screws your memory as well. cheers sailor But, blind or lame or sick or sound We follow that which flies before: We know the merry world is round, And we may sail for evermore. Tennyson, The Voyage ... View more

Hi Jules2 Hang in there. Hope it all goes well and that the side effects arre not too awful. cheers Sailor As we sail thru life, don't avoid rough waters, sail on because calm waters won't make a skillful sailor. Anonymous ... View more

Hi Samex, Harker and Reindeer. Thanks Samex for the information re your Father. It would be interesting to do some quick research on feeling cold after radiotherapy. Re depression - As one of my friends who is a psychologist points out the side effects of cancer treatment are very similar to the clinical symptoms of depression: SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION Alteration in mood (anxiety/depression) Fatigue Low energy Loss of appetite Loss of sleep Psychomotor retardation SYMPTOMS OF CANCER TREATMENT Pain and other symptoms Fatigue Low energy Loss of appetite Loss of sleep Psychomotor retardation Then if you are on a hormone related treatment, then alteration of mood is a side effect of treatment as well! My experience was that once I was good at making good decisions quickly. Following treatment for cancer I lost that ability for a while and had to compensate for that loss. I did that by not making rapid decisions, by building up an informal referent group whom I could bounce things off first and by using decision aids. I think I recovered my skills, but in retrospect I would not have liked to be making any major financial decisions at that time. Regards Sailor I think the sea has thrown itself upon me and been answered, at least in part, and I believe I am a little changed - not essentially, but changed and transubstantiated as anyone is who has asked a question and been answered. Hart Crane ... View more

Hi Reindeer Welcome to "Chemo Brain". That's the "Technical" term given to it by survivors. The only problem is that is is not just due to chemo. People who have had radiotherapy only also experience the same thing, and men with advanced prostate cancer on hormone therapy also have the same experience. At one stage I was in a job where I needed to make critical decisions and I can remember that I spent about six months unmaking some of the decisions I made following my second round of radiotherapy. People like us who have had cancer treatment have been talking about this for years, it is only now that some of the medical researchers have taken us seriously and people are looking at the effect of treatment on cognitive functioning. My own question to those who have had radiotherapy - do you feel the cold more? My wife and I were sitting in a waiting room at a major treatment centre and a chap sitting with his wife leant across and asked if I had had radiotherapy, I answered yes. He then asked if I felt the cold more, before I could answer my wife leant across and said 'yes, he does!' Cheers Sailor He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all. William Osler ... View more

Ah Ruby, you take me back a few years to my first day of radiotherapy. similar routine except that I had a pigeon hole for my gown - mine for the next few weeks. It was incredibly important to me as suddenly I changed from being the nameless person in the white backless gown to actually existing with my name on a pigeon hole. You also take me to my future. I've already had some radiotherapy that is palliative - great care was taken to ensure that I realised that this might slow down the progression but it would not stop things. So in a few years time I may well be that man, telling people in the waiting room about my children and grandchildren, trying to keep up a front, keep wearing the happy mask. I had a similar experience of being in the general waiting room and an elderly lady wearing an ill fitting wig, that kept slipping backwards, talking, talking , talking about her experience. All I could do was be polite and try to make polite noises. I feel as if I let her down. I was actually quite lucky when I had my first session of radiotherapy - I met the same people most of the time and we talked to each other - not about much or anything important. We also shared in doing the jigsaw puzzles that they used to have in the waiting rooms. Over one of those, putting pieces of jigsaw together a young lady, more than young enough to be my daughter, talked to me about her grandfather. She came in with him each day, brought him in for his treatment. She told me all about him, what he had done through his life, about his family and through it just how important he was to her. I felt privileged to be the person that she chose to tell this to. I often think of her and hope that my relationship with my grandchildren might be as rich as hers was with her grandfather. It then bring me on to one of my pet hates - waiting rooms. They seem designed deliberately to isolate us, to hinder us having any relationship with our fellow human beings who are in a similar situation. If any of you get a chance Google "Maggies Centres" and have a look at the philosophy of these centres in the UK, that arose from an architect getting cancer. There the waiting rooms are designed to look like a lounge room in a home, with a kitchen off them where you can make yourself a cup of teas and chat to other people. That in turn brings me on to one of my passions - the importance of us telling each other our stories. Our stories are the way we make meaning of what has happened to us, how we project our identity and how we learn from each other. It is through stories and the telling of stories that the ways of understanding our world become possible. So thank you Ruby for sharing with us this part of your story. Cheers Sailor The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea. Anne Morrow Lindbergh ... View more

Or three!! ... View more