Hi Amanda,  One of my friend is suffering from cancer and he completed his first chemotherapy treatment. After chemo he is feeling pain in his shoulders. I just want to know that can he get Melbourne remedial massage? Please share your experience about it. ... View more

Dearest Steve... I also had no support during chemo and after. I've lost nearly all my friends. Not one has asked how I am and how I'm doing. Not only did my friends desert me my parents also did. Kicked me out of the apartment they had for me while going through chemo...they said I complained to much and  shunned me even more for taking pain pills. I had become a junkie to them. Why can people not understand this horrible disease? I am 6 months out of chemo and still feel i haven't gotten a clear answer if is gone. every time i went to dr. It was everything looks great only to go into the hospital for SOB and be told there were three lymph nodes they were still looking at. My symptoms have started again. I feel abandoned from every corner. Dealing with cancer i thought would be the worst..no..now i have neuropathy and absolutley miserable. I'm scared and fed up that i may never get back to normal.  ... View more

deejjay I can understand having just gone thru cancer myself and talking to my doctor having this illness has really changed my life and he agreed that it does. I look at it are some so called friendship really worth it. You really need supportive people around although some people can start being supportive they change and I think that is the time we need to change as I have recently. See my comments above I seem to being going thru the same thing like you are. ... View more

Hi Jules2, I'm new here & am 8wks post pelvic chemoradiotherapy treatment for T4 anal cancer. Am still doing small dressings on a few stubborn spots in my 'crevices' & applying pure sorbelline cream to the newly healed skin as this is all I've been 'prescribed' by the radiotherapy nurses. I am intrigued to know whether you used the Manuka honey throughout your entire treatment & recovery, & if you used anything else like MooGoo? Thanks. 🙂 ... View more

Yes I swam with the dolphin and one kept pushing on my left side with its beak. I later found out I had cancer in my left kidney. ... 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

Hi Julibean. Thanks for your post, I found it quite encouraging as next week will be starting chemo with the same drugs that you had. I have had a bowel resection for stage 3 bowel cancer 6 weeks ago. How are you now? hope you are in wonderfully good health these days. Kind regards 🙂 Jane ... View more

I had tongue cancer as a primary and a tumour in the thoart ,i finished my treatment i mid april 2016 , in total was off work for 12 months have just gone back to work 1st feb ,feeling it and finding musles i haven't used in a while . but happy i'm back at work . it will take a while till i'm back up to full strength. ,but it is good to have my independance back , it take tme , but don't go back until you feel ready . all the best   ... View more

I've been in remission from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for the last ten monhs. I work in child care and it has been challenging to deal with the physical part of my job. Emotionally I find it very rewarding, that's what keeps me coming back. I'm enjoying being part of a dynamic team and I like working with the other girls. My specialist told me the neuropathy in my feet will eventually subside so I deal with the stiffness and tingling in my feet.   The stiffness in my right leg is mostly from falling twice during my chemo treatment and my leg is still not quite right but the doctor said that will also get better. I'm nowhere near 100% but I feel lucky to get another shot at life and to get back to the job I didn't get a chance to enjoy when I was diagnosed in October last year. I work on a permanent part time basis for the moment and have asked that I do no more than 4 shifts a week until I am better.    It's also great for my family to have me back after all those health problems, I have two children in their late teens and their lives were turned upside down when I got sick. All in all I am happy and look forward to the future, I still fear the lymphoma coming back but I try not to focus on it as it will detract from the quality of my life now that I am trying to get on with things.  ... View more

I just finished reading this wonderful book. Two days it took - says it all. Thank you Harker for so eloquently telling the world how it was/is for you and while each of our experiences is different, the similarities are there for each of us. My experience has not been nearly as fraught as yours but for all of us the common threads are there. The line "I sensed for the first time that I am changed" resonated completely with me. For me it was the day I had my picc line put in and then asked directions to the oncology unit. I had no-one with me, and as I walked towards the sign I realised that I was no longer someone who had only had major surgery - I was now a cancer patient. Nothing is ever quite the same again, is it? Once again, thank you. ... View more