I really hope you have a better time of it than I did - like I said I don’t think my experience is representative & I’m grateful for whatever extra time it’s given me to see my son grow up. Good luck 🍀
And if you start getting tachycardia & shortness of breath please make sure they assess you for blood clots - mine were subacute (small & getting bigger over time so less obvious than an acute blood clot) and were missed for weeks if not months. 1 in 5 cancer patients get clots so it’s a known risk
And my last scans in December were clear so 🙌🏻 I’d say, make sure you’re honest with your oncologist about side effects because many of them can be mitigated, for me the steroids were as bad as the chemo but managed to halve those & that was a bit better.
Turns out it also caused blood clots and cardiotoxicity - I’ll be on anticoagulants for the foreseeable future & have just started on some new heart meds so hopefully that will start to recover soon. I don’t think my experience is representative of most people’s experience of FOLFOX though!!!
Well, my oncologist was a bit optimistic! I didn’t cope with it so well, limped through 9 rounds at 75% of the dose and had to stop because I was starting to get neuropathy in my hands and feet. I had to stop working after round 3 and lost about half of my hair
Got my 3 month surveillance CT scan results today, and other than a few enlarged lymph nodes in my lungs (which could be enlarged for a multitude of reasons & that they’re going to keep an eye on) it was clear 🎉 Next scan in December
1 year since I was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in my colon, and what a year it’s been. Grateful to be cancer-free at the moment, and for supportive family, friends and colleagues. P.S. There’s no such thing as “too young for bowel cancer”, check your 💩
It’s just extra stress that no-one needs, you know?! 🫂
Finn’s regular driver for the last 2 years has the exemption set up already, of course
*sigh*
No doubt the email I’ve just sent with up to date info about pick up & drop off times & asking for the details of the new provider will be seen as me overstepping like it was last time 🙃 Oh, and Finn’s school is in a School Street, so new driver will have to apply for an exemption, which takes weeks
Zero lessons learned, clearly. ND kids especially need notice of changes & parents can’t be expected to send their kids off to school in a random taxi with a random person!
Tagging @anyasizer.bsky.social and linking to this thread on X about when this happened last time: x.com/beckyd3rham/...
The council SEND Transport team have gone and done it again - changed transport providers over the summer and not informed parents!!! Luckily the co-ordinator at the taxi company we’ve used for the last 3.5 years is lovely & proactively called me herself to let me know - even though it’s NOT her job
Photo of the head and front paws of my tabby cat, Tiger. She is asleep on a beige sofa with one of her paws covering her eyes
Being this adorable is tiring work. Hope your hand feels better soon
The 10 year plan includes a wider roll-out of NMHCs so now’s a great time to find out more. Ping me a DM or email me on becky.derham@nhs.net & I’ll forward the invite 😊
The 24/7 Neighbourhood MH Centres team at NHSE will be hosting an online knowledge exchange event on 5th August, 12-1:30 - come & hear from the pilot sites, independent evaluators & the national team. Open to anyone who’s interested including service users & lived experience/peer workers
It’s great when people delete the post you’ve replied to and make it look like you’re wittering on to yourself, love that 🙃
But at the end of the day she had the same poison running through her veins and it’s not an experience I would wish on anyone
I’m not a royalist by any means, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t have to have the battles I had to get timely and appropriate care. And pretty much every other aspect of her life would have been taken care of, not something the rest of us have the luxury of …
Response and side effects will vary from person to person - what one person might sail through (relatively speaking) might leave another person incapacitated and/or with lifelong impairments. Yes, even just with adjuvant chemo!
I agree with your overall point, but think you might be guilty of a misconception here Jay - in no way is adjuvant chemotherapy “relatively mild”, it’s the same dose whether you have chemo after a successful surgery or before surgery (neoadjuvant)
Photo of Piccadilly in London taken through the downstairs window of an old Routemaster bus. There are lots of people waving rainbow streamers/ wearing rainbow patterned t-shirts etc
At Pride with former work colleagues. Look at that sea of rainbows! 🌈
Right now British MPs are essentially debating how many thousands of disabled people they are willing to sacrifice just so they can avoid taxing the rich just a tiny bit more. Later on they will vote. Whatever the outcome, we will not forget.
My post-chemo PET and CT scans were all clear 🎉 Next scans are in September. Until then, bring on the summer! ☀️ 😎 🍹 🏖️
Some people get worse side effects than others, and I think oncology teams do their best to minimise those, but yeah, in general for most people it’s a pretty grim experience & juices & enemas sound luxurious in comparison!
So heartbreaking for Paloma’s loved ones to see her going through that and being powerless to stop it when it was completely unnecessary 😢
I watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix when I was having a particularly bad chemo week & can totally see why people get suckered into e.g. Gerson when the evidence based option can be so horrific - there are times when I would have volunteered for 100 coffee enemas if I believed they could work!
New York Times puzzles connections grid. Words are Row 1: fight, quit, resolve, flight Row 2: tour, freeze, marionette, spirit Row 3: fawn, hotel, grit, mouse Row 4: timeout, elephant, glitch, car The words fight, flight, freeze and fawn are selected
NYT Connections really did us mental health people dirty on Tuesday! Apparently there’s no link between these 4 words 😂
Thank you x My partner lost his dad a couple of weeks ago too, so he was away looking after his mum until Sunday. I’d really like some boring normality for a bit!
The carers who visit my recently-widowed MIL who’s recovering from a broken hip usually arrive at ~6:15pm. She watches TV on her iPad in bed until it’s time to sleep. Imagine being a younger disabled person who works outside the house, you’d barely be home & already you’re expected to go to bed!