Hi Wegotthis, I think it's fair to say that everyone feels that their country is the best 🙂 There are a few Americans who are regulars on this forum. You are always welcome here. Just watch out for the dropbears ok? Best of luck with your treatment. -s   ... View more

Dear Maggie. i hope it’s alright that I just am average person am reaching out. But I want to listen I want to be there for you. I don’t know you but it doesn’t matter. I am 31 I have two kids and I lost my dad early this month to lung cancer and I am not going to pretend to understand what you are going through but I care! I don’t know you but I know I care and I want to hear your story and cry and laugh with you. I don’t know how to contact you other than this message and I pray it reaches you. Thinking of you Maggie.  sending all my strength and love to you. Xx  ... View more

Hi Glenys, Thank you for your reply. Firstly I must say that I am not scared, my step-dad died from bowel cancer 14 years ago so we have been through this already. Although no one wants to die from cancer we have to accept that cancer is becoming more prevalent in Australia and other Western countries, to the point that it is expected that one in two of us will have cancer of some kind by the time we are 85. Luckily for most people their cancers are curable, caught early enough bowel cancer has a very good cure rate. Mine however was not found until it was very advanced. We all will die, a fact no one can escape from, I see no purpose in being angry or scared, this is how things are. Making the best of the time I have left is a much better use of that small amount of time. Deb ... View more

Andrew, I hope you are sitting somewhere peaceful, round a fire pit and telling yarns. Rest in Peace Old Hippy. Sailor This be the verse you 'grave for me: Here he lies where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill. R L Stevenson ... View more

Oh dear...you must have missed each other! Oh well, hopefully next time with any luck! Have a good night anyway (lovely to "see" you in any case!) K ... View more

Thanks for the greetings. I've since found out a little more info after the CT and MRI. I will have a colonography the day after tomorrow as the CT images weren't very clear. At this stage the cancer is confined to the lower rectum and is in a few of the nodes. I'm scheduled for surgery on the 25th and will be having a lower rectal resection. I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of talking to others who have been in a similar position. Had a counseling session and I am doing ok. Just starting to get a little nervey about the surgery as the date gets closer. ... View more

Hi Richard, Mate, readed your bio - gosh, you've had this sorta crap hanging over you most of your life! And I hadnt seen that, the price you pay just WAITING....people like me and Deb, we know we are doomed, and probably real soon. Get pissed off with others, dont see them as but dilettantes, - so, your blog comment was good, (BTW tnks for the ref. Harker) and I readed to here, typing away in instinctive response... thank you for what you have given me. I wish you well, hope you get something from this group. I know I do, hope you do to. (sounds like a bad song title, right?) Andrew the oldhippy. PS - did the boat ever get finished? ... View more

Hello, No, you are not paranoid and no not everyone survives cancer and those that do like in my husbands case, get through each test every three months just to make sure it has not reared its ugly head again! I have seen how cancer takes away a loved one, not once but twicein my immediate family and it is as if that once they are no longer in your life, they are forgotten by everyone but those who mourn them the same date every year, after year, after year.... My sister Clare was 34 (35 in the November) when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer in October 1995. Clare had major surgery to remove a large cancerous part of her bowel. All was going well, with the cancer not progressing to any other organs but the Dr's did more follow up tests and found what they said was a lump on her liver...this they found out (or so they thought at the time) was old scar tissue. I remember my sister and my mother getting ready to go out for some christmas shopping when a call came through that a mistake had been made and what was thought to be scar tissue was in fact cancer of the liver and by that time, it had grown and had taken over pretty much both sides of the liver...surgery was ruled out and my sister refused treatment, instead opting for a more healthy way of living with meditation to try and prolong the death sentence she had been given. During the shock on the family at this time, another sister Teresa was diagnosed with lung cancer in early January of 1996. Pockets of tumors were also found in her brain. Being a pallative care nurse, Teresa opted not to have surgery but had treatment to try and shrink the cancer that we again knew was going to take yet another sisters life...this was the harsh reality. I guess the other real reality was, who was going to die first? On the 13th March 1996, after ten short weeks of trying to fit in a lifetime of 'grow old years'Teresa lost her battle...a month after she turned 34. With the loss and mourning of one, we then had to put all our thoughts onto the other who knew her time was going to be up, just a question of when....the life long dreams were no more....this was reality! Clare thought a courageous battle for 41/2 years but refused to give in....I think she chose the date that she was going to die. On the 13th March 2000, four years to the day of Teresa's death, Clare gave up and gave in... To this day, I miss them and I wonder with the technology today, would they have survived? Again Cancer does take..... I hope you don't mind me writing this down...in truth, I have never sat and wrote the words about my sisters in this length before. You are courageous but never paranoid. Even after so many years, I still hold onto the precious memories...a certain song that will make me cry, a son who looks so much like his mother...I hope that when your time does come, there will be those who will have, make and hold onto those special memories of you! ... View more

Fantastic news Chezza, Happy Healthy New Year Alison xxx ... View more

Karma? - do Bots have karma, since their just machines? - can they read your comments, consider them, change their operation? So the spam will proliferate, irrespective of what we have got to deal with as individuals, or feel strongly about. In return, we get the internet, places like this, in the breaks between irritations. Everyday crap will go on, even when we are not here to notice it. We are not that important. Andrew the oldhippy ... View more