I agree - you have to do what you need to do. I've got a double whammy as I have a lap band too. Not that that makes eating difficult but there is no way I want to sit and eat a meal the size most people eat. I am not super skinny or wasting away - I eat plenty - but I don't eat a whole hamburger in...

Blows your mind, doesnt it? My first symptoms (and in hindsight they were very clear symptoms) were at least seven years prior to my diagnosis. Because I was a female in her mid 30's docs felt confident chalking it up to menstrual issues and never ever suggested a colonoscopy or FOBT or even just re...

If you've had a slow bleed, your body will have been using up all its stored iron to maintain normal hemaglobin levels. So you may not be "anaemic" but can have very low ferritin. It takes several months to build it up again with supplementation. The fact that you've bounced back to 14 is ...

I have read in a few alternative health care books, that excessive excercise can actually suppress the immune system, specifically marathon running or multi hour spinning classes. So moderation may be the key. Interesting. Having once been a mad keen runner, sadly, since chemo, the minute I push my...

Totally agree. If there's on element of my treatment that I find hard to let go, put behind me etc, its the way I was made to wait two and a half years for this test. I didnt have typical LAR syndrome, quite the opposite. I was almost completely obstructed and had to use enemas, laxatives an various...

Occasionally adhesions have to be treated surgically because they are causing an obstruction but most often, more adhesions form as a result of the adhesion surgery. Hopefully though, they won't form an obstruction the second time. Some people are more prone than others. Rectal tenesmus is indeed th...

I have a colostomy but very bowel movement i have is somewhat painful. I know I have adhesions in there which occasionally cause quite severe pain if I have a particularly large or solid bm, but most of the time i have half an hour or so of cramping before I go. I also tend to still get a lot of ten...

Doing cancer full time was a big mistake for me. I would have felt way happier and more normal if I had continued to work. I let everyone else tell me what to do and took the year off for treatment. In the end I found a one/two day a week gig that at least gave me something fulfilling to do. Working...

Oh yep alcohol! I cannot drink anymore. Occasionally I really want a glass of wine (all I ever really drank) but I feel nauseous half way through it. If I have two, I have a whopper hangover the next day without even getting tipsy. But I usually can't battle through the nauseous feeling to get more ...

My wife was in good shape to begin with. Her surgeon wished all his patients were in as good of shape. She recovered pretty quickly from her robotic assisted laparoscopic resection. When she was feeling up to it she started walking and worked up to 5 miles. Then she started running, gradually addin...

I was fine jogging - not running- within 3 weeks, just for 3kms or so. I gradually built up but by 2 months I was back fully running. I've never had an issue from that.

If either of you are on Dexamethasone it could be affecting your mental state, I had to come of it because it literally left me suicidal, check it out with your onc. Regards Macpudd yep, roid rage! I didn't have that stuff so I cant comment specifically, nor was I angry but sheesh, emotional change...

And here I thought naively that one of the main reasons for having a port was to easily get blood as well as administer treatment. Keep well hydrated too. One time I went in for chemo and they simply could not get blood out of my arm. When they finally did it was literally like black jelly, I freake...

Just that if you can get some large capacity drainable pouches it'll be much easier. I really struggled with the smaller closed ones I use - I could barely get another on before I'd be spouting again. Our system in Australia is really good in that it costs $50 a year to an ostomy society and your su...

Positive story here - I found it really quite easy. It did cause me to have a couple of bowel obstructions but that was it. I didnt get overly nauseous, I got a bit of diarrhoea and felt crap the next day but nothing terrible. When I had the pump for the continuous 6 week infusion I had no side effe...