Hi Anita,   Soup will become your best friend.  I tired quickly of eggs and avocados and now cannot face them at all.  I use a whole free range chicken to make my chicken soup with and just load it up with lots of fresh vegetables.  I can't handle anything too spicy or salty or containing lemon or lime juice but that's because I had a salivary gland removed and dry mouth is still a problem.  I have also started making a soup using a small piece of eye fillet and heaps of carrots and spinach - finely chopped.  It creates a beautifully sweet soup and nutritionally gives you a power boost.  Osso buck and ox tail also make amazing stocks for your soup.  Pho soup is also a wonderful one to make.  I find the soups really comforting and not so difficult to eat as ordinary food.   There are many things that will be a hit and miss because your digestive system may be a little more delicate as to what you eat.  Lots of trials ahead but become adventurous with your soups and you won't regret it because every nutrient in the vegetable will be in your broth.  Good luck. ... View more

Hi Jesseth,   As everyone has said before - perhaps wait.  Don't make really important decisions in the early days.  Your doctor may advise you to bank sperm with an IVF centre for later use.  There are options.  Get through this first and hopefully, the rest will turn out for you and your future hopes and dreams.  Good luck. ... View more

Thank you.  You sound wonderful and I am so glad you have found a way to fight and you have found support around you.  It can be a terrifying and lonely journey.  I can't tell you how happy I am by your post.  Thank you and best wishes to you.  Please keep me up to date on how you are doing. ... View more

Hi Peter, I'm really sorry that you are in this situation.  You asked how did we reach that decision in regards to quality over quantity.  I think it's a really personal decision.  I know I would take quality over quantity because it is an important differentiation.  The only example I can give you is the one about my mother.  She had a massive stroke that paralysed her left side.  In the first nursing home it was a complete nightmare.  She had 8 falls out of bed with horrendous injuries as she could not break her fall.  The staff could not keep a drink accessible to her and changed the water jug every day without anyone realising that no water had been used from it.  The food was disgusting.  The care was hostile.  Her buzzer would be tied up and out of her reach every morning when I came in.  She would be distressed and very thirsty.  One morning she had no voice and told me in whispers that she had fallen out of bed and had laid there until the morning staff arrived.  She called out for help all night.  I didn't believe her because I thought such a thing was impossible.  My mother was hallucinating because she wasn overdosed on a Norspan patch of 20mg.  Fevers, nightmares and really vivid hallucinations of flies and spiders crawling over her bed and over the ceiling.  So many times and so many stories.  Its was a terrible saga.  I learned something important.  There is nothing worse than seeing a parent in pain and you are unable to ease that pain.  It took us almost 2 years to move her to another nursing home amidst threats and blackmail from the nursing home.  There were many times I wanted her to die as I would have given up and died as quickly as possible.  She fought on every day.  The new nursing home was heavenly and she had 8 good years slowly deteriorating towards the end of her life.  Those 10 years put an incredible strain on me.  Enormous stress and financially took its toll with legal fees.  Personally, I would have wanted to be euthanised on day one after the stroke but my mother always wanted to live.  She never wanted to leave us and I understand that completely and I would never have made a decision against her wishes.     On the good side we had wonderful times and lots of laughter.  My mother told us many stories about her young life that we didn't know.  We loved her and wanted her to live always.  It was a very slow and long goodbye and when she died there were not many tears as I'd cried them over 10 years.  I was glad she was free of her earthly body and the pain it gave her.     One thing that helped was I had a gold heart on a long chain that was really expensive but sometimes I would leave it with my mum and tell her that I left my heart with her.  She would give it back to me the next time I visited and tell me to take her heart with me.  I put that necklace on every day and take my mother into the world with me.  Always with me.  It gave me great comfort.  I have two daughters so I could not leave just one of them that heart so I bought another one to always wear.  I love knowing that one day my girls will carry me with them into the world too, every day and think of me.  I will remember my mother through my children and grandchildren because they all share her DNA.     Everyone is different and we will make our own choices about our lives.  Traditions also help.  For 10 years my children and their children would o the nursing home every Christmas Eve (in the morning) and sing for my mother.  We would all go out to lunch together afterwards at the same place on the way home.  After my mother died, we still go there each year (not this Covid year) as my children wanted to maintain that tradition in honour of my mum.     Sorry for long post.  Traditions and memories are important ways to heal from loss so perhaps set up your family to help them deal with this in the future.  Fight if you can but know the limitations of your body.  You will know when to stop fighting or to fight to your last breath.  Only you will know when the time is right.  In the meantime, fight to leave your family with the best memories of you.  Tell them your stories and your memories of them as babies and children.  Play them your songs.  My mother and I would Walts in her blue princess chair to a song she loved.  It was German but translated to "I dance with you into heaven".  We played it as the first song at her funeral and many others that meant a great deal to her.  Every small thing makes the loss a little easier for those left behind and that's important.  It's a massive loss to lose a mother or a father and the world is a different place without them.     I wish you strength to get through what lays ahead but the last thing to give up would be hope.  We fight with hope every day that the next day will be better or the news will be better.  It's all we have so don't let go of it.  Good luck.     ... View more

It's ok not to be strong all the time.  It's hard as a mother because you want to protect your children.  I worried more about the reaction of my husband and children than the actual diagnosis.  We all feel incredibly strange, stupid, tired, unwell and very frightened.  It's perfectly normal.  I think you need to have a good talk to a GP about your needs to get you through this diagnosis.  Perhaps he can recommend some medication to help you sleep and ease your anxiety.  This is not the time to be strong yet struggling inwardly.  You need help right now.  You need to be resilient to fight this and that's really hard if you're not sleeping.  Sleeping is the most perfect thing to have right now.  Your body desperately needs it to recover and face the next day.     You're not stupid.  Ask your doctor to write things down if you're having trouble understanding them.  That way you can go over the note, research things yourself and be informed enough to discuss your options.  My surgeon told me not to research the diagnosis.  Of course I did.  I was more frightened of not knowing what it was than actually knowing a great deal about it.  It's a very important time for making decisions so you need to have good information from reliable sources.     The most frightening time is when you don't know what's going to happen but once you do you will be able to face it and fight.  Trust in the experts as they want to give you the very best advice and care that they can.  It is scary but you will get through it.  I hope everything turns out well for you.  Don't be too quiet.  Ask for what you need.  It's a terribly hard thing to do but it's really important. ... View more

Hi Lauren,   I'm so terribly sorry for your situation.  It must be a terrible shock for you both.  Victorian lock downs have been hard.  I'm in Melbourne too.  Can you check with your hospital if you can visit your husband?  Some hospitals are allowing 1 visitor per patient for a limit of 2 hours - temperature checked and in PPE gear.  No children under 18 years of age.  It's the most terrible time to get news like this.     You can always write in here and find support.  You could also ring the Cancer Council and find out what type of support you may need and where to find it.     I wish you and your husband the very best care, treatment and help available.   ... View more

Hi Nicola,   That must be incredibly rare.  I've never heard of it at all.  Thank you for sharing your story and I'm so terribly sorry this happened to you.  Hopefully, with treatment you will be able to get the all clear and live a happy and long life.  I wish you well.  Good luck. ... View more

Hi tomexe36,   I am so sorry for your diagnosis.  I don't have any advice to give you because I'm not an expert.  As you have conflicting recommendations perhaps it would be a good idea to get a second opinion.  This is a really important decision so you should get as much information as you can.  Surgeons and oncologists can have differing opinions.  Doesn't mean that either is wrong as they're probably basing their advice on their experiences.  This is an incredibly difficult decision.   I wish you well and that you get the best treatment available.  I hope you find someone who gives you the confidence you need to get through this journey.   ... View more

Hi Sandrina, Simon and Sch have already written you beautiful replies to your message.  They know what they're talking about and who knew we would all become experts in how to beat cancer, recover from it and continue to survive.  Critical life skills.     I'm really sorry that your family is unable to support you through this.  That's really hard but yes, if you have to isolate yourself from them to get through this then do what you need to survive.  Just on your daughter's inability to cope - be gentle.  Not everyone is the same.   My mother was in a nursing home for 10 years after a massive stroke that paralysed her down her left side.  I was the SUPER child!  As the nursing home was nearby I would visit her two to three times a day because the first home was a nightmare and they could not keep her provided with a drink.  8 falls out of bed.  4 lockdowns for gastro.  2 emergency blood transfusions and overdosed for a year on morphine cause nightmares and hallucinations.  We were able to move her from this BUPA hell hole to Dutch Care and the change in care was magnificent.  I am one of six children but I had to take on the care of our mother.  I'm not a saint but I did learn that the most painful thing in the world is to see a parent suffering or in pain.  It's bone crushingly painful and I have shed many tears over the callous indifference to human suffering that goes on in some of these places.  My brothers and sisters retreated from the situation because it was too painful.  I couldn't retreat because I just couldn't let my mother down in her time of greatest need.  I wondered if my children would be strong enough to go through what I had.  Probably not.  I still love my children and they are wonderfully supportive but with work, children and time pressures I couldn't imagine them having the time to be helpful.  Hopefully, things will get better with your daughter but for now, focus on getting yourself as well as you can and I hope your journey through this is manageable and that you can get through this.   ... View more

Hi Bea89.  It's a really hard time to be confused and unsure, especially pregnant during a pandemic.  Teleconferences are not suitable for everything but unfortunately, it's all we have right now.  I think your needle biopsy is not conclusive.  They did not find cancer cells but they did find atypical cells and therefore they have to go to a cone biopsy.  Once you have the results of that you should know one way or the other, hopefully.  It's a really hard time to get through but try to keep yourself busy and make sure you're really tired when you go to sleep so you sleep deeply.  Nothing can take away the anxiety until you actually know what is going to happen next so take each day as it comes.  Wishing you the very best of outcomes.   ... View more