Hi Nik   It's good to hear you are doing well. I am almost 4 weeks post surgery. I had a lot of high moments. I also had a lot of low moments. I see my Oncologist today. I've been looking forward to it, but I'm feeling quite anxious. Hoping for good news but not expecting it. Still I'd rather know than not.   I'll tell you what just picked me up this morning.  I had a song in my head. It's a beautiful day, by Queen. Give a try when you're feeling blue.   In the meantime,  stay strong and good luck with the Oncologist .   Phil  ... View more

Hi Nik   It's good to hear you are doing well. I am almost 4 weeks post surgery. I had a lot of high moments. I also had a lot of low moments. I see my Oncologist today. I've been looking forward to it, but I'm feeling quite anxious. Hoping for good news but not expecting it. Still I'd rather know than not.   I'll tell you what just picked me up this morning.  I had a song in my head. It's a beautiful day, by Queen. Give a try when you're feeling blue.   In the meantime,  stay strong and good luck with the Oncologist .   Phil  ... View more

Hi Claire,   I was hoping to offer some supportive words, but reading your replies so far, you've already got more than I can offer. In fact, the opposite has happened, I'm drawing the support from you and your responders.    I have recently had bowel surgery. Chemo is just around the corner. My cancer journey has only just began, but since I had surgery,  I am supposedly cancer free. However, I realised I will be a cancer patient for the rest of my life, regardless.   Things not being normal seems to be the new normal.  In the last few weeks I've been going through so much. Much of the same stuff you and others have been describing. Even writing on this forum at odd hours of the morning.    I guess, if there is something I can add, it is to find a reason to fight. I went through a lot before I discovered what my reason was. It wasn't for myself. It was for the people closest to me. They need me and I am not ready to let them down. I've discovered I have changed considerably. I've grown a lot as a person. It hasn't saved me from the ups and down on the rollercoaster. But it has me focussed on beating cancer.    Stay on the forum. I've drawn a lot of support from it so far. There was a very interesting post I read when I first joined. Someone called out for people who had beaten cancer to post details of their fight. There were so many amazing responses, from people with a wide variety of problems. I found this very reassuring.   All the best with your fight.   Phil ... View more

So tomorrow I meet the Oncologist for the first time. Almost 4 weeks post surgery. It seemed so far away and now it's upon us.    My wife and I have put together a big list of questions. I've been told many stories, some positive and some negative. Some positive, but told in a way that makes me think negatively, but I don't want to get into that. Needless to say, I probably won't get all the answers I want. I'll only find out as I travel down recovery road.   We were planning a cruise with a group of friends. That's been cancelled. We going on the Camp Quality Escarpade in October. I've just withdrawn from that. I've had to withdraw from competition in the ACT Rally Series for the rest of the year and probably will miss next year's series. I was invited to compete in the last WRC at Coffs Harbour this year. Also withdrawn from that.   Now I'm looking at the day to day things I need to give up. All the life style changes I have to deal with to get through chemo. Living with a stoma is already a major shake up. Most importantly,  I need to keep working. I don't know how my career will be negatively impacted. (I know! I have cancer! That doesn't mean I'm giving up my career. I'm intending to retire as an old man, with lots of living in the meantime.)   Some days I feel so beaten and I am yet to start chemo. I'm sure that part of the problem is having a lot of questions and no answers. Hopefully, after meeting the Oncologist,  we will have some answers. Even if I get bad news, I think I'll deal with it better than no news.         ... View more

Enough weirdness. Time for puppies.   This is my Charlie boy. He is a bit a farm dog mix, but most part Kelpie, if his bark and folded ears don't give it away. He is mostly albino, with black and white being his only pigments.   He is a cutie pie. Quite smart, but kind of too smart to the point of stupidity. I'm sure there are a few dog owners who know what I mean.   Anyhow, dogs are great therapy .     ... View more

Weird dream.   Before I delve into this, I am going to talk about the hallucinations while in recovery, post surgery. It was my first surgery so I didn't know what to expect. For me it was kind of like having a different reality. I kept getting all these problems which I needed to solve, which seemed realistic and real world issues. However, I tried to work out what the purpose was, what business benefit could be achieved, what was the practical application. This made it all seem irrational and I'd wake up, but it didn't feel like waking from a dream. It felt like switching into an alternative reality, where I was in hospital. When I'd drift off again, I went back to that alternative reality and start trying to solve more problems.   The pattern continued and I was getting really frustrated with having to work on frivolous problems which had no bearing on real life. It frustrated me to the point where I realised I was in a dream state, even though it seemed so real. I was able to force myself awake on demand while still dreaming. Even stranger, while I was awake, I could close my eyes and reenter the dream reality at the same point I left off. But it was so amazing, it didn't feel like my imagination or a dream, it was like switching realities.   The other weird thing was the people who's faces morphed into monstrous, demonic faces. Some of them, their whole faces and others only parts of their faces. When I spoke to my ex-wife on the phone, she asked me about my hallucinations and I mentioned the faces. I obviously said something that resonated with her. I asked another friend about his experience after surgery and he said he was on a white endless plane, while there were shiny silver spikes rising up out of the plane. The hallucinations are so weird.   Anyhow, the dream last night was weird. One of the faces that morphed during my hallucinations, was in my dream. He was my surgeon. I was happily just going along with the process of getting prepared for surgery, when the surgeon showed me some human organs. He told me they were my new liver and stomach to be transplanted. After a little while I thought to question why I was having organ transplants. Had my cancer spread to my liver? I thought I was having my bowel operated on? Since when do they transplant stomachs? My friend recently had his stomach removed and he is doing fine without it. Things were really starting to seem wrong and I started protesting but the medical staff didn't care. I told them I didn't want to proceed but they said I had already signed the paperwork so I couldn't back out. They put me under and I woke up from the dream.    Freaked me out. Kind of like Monty Python. They came for my liver because I'd signed the donor card. What strikes me as interesting was the similarities between the hallucination and last night's dream. I was going along with it until things just didn't make sense and I started to question what was going on. I knew things weren't right. It led to waking up in protest because things seemed absurd. ... View more

Hi StayPositive    I'm now 2 weeks post op. Movement is getting easier, but so is over-doing it too. Still 2 weeks before I meet the oncologist.    Now I'm dealing with ostomy fails. At the appointment with the stoma support nurse this morning, she pointed out that the two week mark, things are settling down from surgery and things will start getting better, but at the moment, I am really struggling. I have a lot of irritation on my peristomal skin, which is only getting worse and breaking down adhesion. So I'm prone to leakage, despite the number of remedies they have to prevent it. The stoma nurse has provided some alternative products to get me past the issues and thinks it won't be an issue in weeks to come.   In the meantime, I'm fighting off depression and anger. My grand plan is to resume normal life as much as possible and don't let it beat me. The plan seems to be coming undone so quickly. It's knocked me for a six.   Good luck with the urologists. Keep fighting the good fight.   Cheers   Phil ... View more

So today, I am riding the stoma rollercoaster. Yesterday I had a visit with the community stoma nurse. She was helping me address an issue where I have some irritation on my skin.   If you don't know how this works, I'll fill in some blanks and resist the urge to post a photo. I had an ileostomy while means my small intestine protrudes from my abdomen, known as a stoma. Stick a bag on the end to catch the crap. As the waste is highly acidic, it irritates normal skin.   In a perfect world,  a stoma is nicely rounded or round-ish and easy to cut to fit the sealing products around. My stoma is more like a figure eight shape, so a little more difficult to shape for and it's been shrinking since surgery day.   So with the nurse making some recommendations for how to handle the preparation better, it went well through the night, but failed the next morning. By failure, I mean the bag started leaking. First time, so a natural panic.   I spent some time assessing where and why it failed. I tried doing everything carefully to get it right. Took me ages. I was happy with the result, but 1/2 hour later, I sprung another leak.    This is shaking my confidence. I may have this for the next 12 months. I don't know how I would handle this if it happened at work.   I have managed to get a non-leak bag fitted this afternoon,  but back to square one. I can feel pain at the base of my stoma, meaning the irritated indent of my figure eight has suffered some leakage and is being eaten away by my highly acidic poo. Talk about a crappy situation. ... View more

My chemo is still a few weeks away, but I'm continuously looking the other people's experiences to find out what to expect.   It seems everyone has some similar experiences but at many different levels. As a guide, it's pretty useless. I guess I’ll find out when I get there, but it is so frustrating. It's not even two since surgery. It's still a little way off so I should over-worry, but I've got all that time for anxiety to build, which is a bit depressing.   I went fishing this morning. Wasn't trying hard to catch fish. It was just nice in the sun with fresh breeze. I strolled the walking track for some. Rejuvenated me a little. It's a beautiful mid winter's day. ... View more

Hi Albundy,   I have also just had my bowel cancer surgery. Chemo is my next step.   I am waiting to see my Oncologist at the end of the month. I've being talking to some cancer veterans and reading through various sites to find info , trying to get an idea of what is to come. Like yourself, I've heard plenty of horror stories, but also ways to deal with them. I think the process I'm going through is similar to what I do at work. I look for risks and work out a way to manage them, so I can keep the project on track. It seems to be coming easily to me.   It takes me back a bit when I consider that this project is my health and longevity, but nonetheless, I'm able to draw on the practicality of this approach .   I'd like to follow your progress . It seems we are on a similar path. I am in the ACT. Where abouts are you located.   Cheers   Phil ... View more