Hey Mike, I was hoping you would chime in here. I, too, am very grateful that the cost of treatment isn't an issue. In fact, from time to time I express my eternal gratitude to Tommy Douglas (you will know who he was) for pushing hard back in the 70s. I can live with the 13%. Toronto for a PET, eh? ...
CR Guy, I should have been more specific. First, I had spent the previous three weeks on anticoagulants (Fragmin and Warfarin). My family doctor had only suspended their use that morning upon reading the CT result. This was all in my chart, as were the results of the four previous negative venous ul...
Thanks, everyone, for your responses. Darkness: the nice thing about my present set-up is that the ID specialist, who I haven’t met yet but has been consulting since I started treatment, correctly prescribed exactly the anti-biotic I appear to need: Sulfatrim. Infection is slowly diminishing. It wil...
Thanks, everyone, for your support and concern. I don’t think it’s quite the right time for a second opinion. There are three aspects to my present predicament: - the cancer, obviously - the infection, and healing the original wound - getting my leg back to something resembling a normal size. The ca...
Hi, everyone, My cancer is back and so am I. A weird tale. Colonoscopies and scans after my 2012 bout with the Beast declared me NED. My CEAs (hi there, Muskoka Mike) over three years were all within acceptable norms. A colonoscopy last fall was clear. But … I walked into a dehumidifier in the middl...
... rule one: there are no rules to surviving cancer. You do what you have to do to get by. Sometimes that means being sad, being happy or even being angry ... we are all in a delicate emotional state no matter how grounded we think we are. Nicely put. Another take from Viktor Frankl, who developed...
Ho boy. My partner took a picture of me on the sofa around Christmas, with a hat, a scarf and the rest of me covered in a huge duvet. I froze all the way through chemo. Not the worst aspect by any means; it just added to the general fun.
Let your medical team know ASAP. I let my BM pains go on too long and ended up on heavy narcotics. In the long run that wasn't a big problem, but better to avoid it if you can. There may also be the possibility of changing your surgery options, i.e. doing the ileo as a separate operation (that which...
I can't imagine having to deal with cancer and snow. We just had our first big snowfall. It's gorgeous. Yeah, later this morning I'm going to have to get out there and shovel it. It was a wet snow so it will be heavy. But until then I'm just going to drink my coffee and look at the glistening fores...
HIS take = NG tube was the worst PICC line was a close second I don't get it. Compared to learning how to deal with a colostomy - pooping out the front, changing gear in unusual places, caring for peristomal skin, etc. - having a PICC in my arm for four months was a walk in the park. Compared to de...
I was wondering if anyone had 4 months of chemo through a picc line. Is that possible? Yes. I had it. No problems at all. I don't know about Québec, but Ontario simply won't do ports for "short-term" chemo (less than, say, 6 months). What Ontario did pay for was visiting nurses to unhook ...