My Cancer, My Pain

My readers know that I have not written very much about my cancer or my situation, merely alluding to it once in a while but today I want to write a little bit more.

A little over two years ago I received the shock of my life when I was told that I had Stage Four Cancer, “that I was terminal”. With true Scandinavian phlegm I held the strap tight and carried on. I have taken all the various treatments they have advocated and have managed to survive the side effects (thankfully they have for the most part been fairly mild, barring the neuropathy). I haven’t complained and have been rather stoic about what is happening inside my body. I even managed to be heroic when they performed the ileostomy and within a few days I was handling the change of the bag myself because I took the philosophy that I had to do it sooner or later. My sisters were staggered but proud of me because they know that of the three of us I have had the reputation of being the “medical wimp”. I don’t like to know, hear or see anything horrid but now I was having it happen to me and I took it like a man. (here you are supposed to laugh since we all know what babies men are when it comes to a splinter much less an illness).

Yes, I have taken it all “with a grain of salt”. I have been tough, resilient and not terribly modest about it (evidently).

Last September I started to get a pain in my side and I was told that the tumour had grown and was pushing on my pelvis. I have not had my CT scan yet (another couple of weeks) but the pain I am now experiencing is becoming progressively worse and I very much fear that it could be the tumour. My blood work has shown that my cancer marker has gone down in my body and I have been so hopeful that the medicine has been working and that maybe, miracle of miracles, I could even be in remission. But last night I was close to tears and terribly distraught because even lying down I was feeling such pain along my back and leg that I had doubts I could carry on.

Today the sun is shining and while sitting here in my big leather chair typing away I feel pretty good, pain free even. What a difference a few hours make. I am back to feeling optimistic and thinking that the pain is really just a pinched nerve in my back and that maybe I should see the chiropractor and have an adjustment.

“One can always hope.”