That's just great news! Hope you can enjoy life again, and remeber: one life live it! 'per aspera ad astra'

I echo everyone else comments with positive thoughts to you and your wife also to you Yorky Bob, I have lost too many very close members of my family to this curse of a disease, it shows no favour and takes too many good folk. Long may you all enjoy life, fingers crossed for you all. 2014 Freelander 2 XS TD4
Firenze Red

Lightwater wrote:

Do not forget to look after the carer!

In 2016 while Gill was battling breast cancer for the first time I let myself get a little run down, OK more than a little, One heart attack and a quintuple heart bypass later. I was obviously already suffering from years of chips and stress, but the worry was enough to push me over. The biggest stress is saying nowt, Keep a jolly exterior, and a comforting manner while trying to help out.

I'm an engineer for gods sake, sympathy, keeping my opinions to myself, and tact are not my strong points

Trying to do better this time, but suspect failing miserably, at least the meds should keep the ticker going  Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Outstanding and I hope the good news keeps coming. I know the rollercoaster ride of cancer well having been through it with my dad in 2016-2017.

My auntie is now in a similar boat and there’s just a glimmer of hope on the horizon. The family will cling on to any hope. LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

I looked after my Mum for two years, then my Dad followed a few years after. It was only after I realised just how exhausted I was. At the time I thought I was managing the workload easily & I could afford to work part time to pay my bills. Took about two years to gradually recover from being run down.

Only after I learnt that you cannot do it all & you have to pace yourself & you really do need little holidays & breaks here & there. Complete breaks otherwise you are the next problem!

18 months after my Dad died, out of the blue l got a call from the government, we have got a help package for you for some home care but he had been in a high care nursing home for two months supplemented by the government!

We were lucky when my Mum died we paid for our own home 24 hour care for the last few weeks at au$7000 a week, 15 years ago, & that was not even nursing level qualifications as there were none available, but the workers did more than they were qualified for. The carer was awake all night then in the morning went off to their next job! The entire system is so stressed!

Lounge set up with hospital bed, oxygen pump, anti bed sore mattress & a garden built on the balcony which turned out to be the most valuable aid!

Click image to enlarge

There is life after cancer.


My wife is now 20 years on after breast cancer.

Thats amazing news. I lost my mum last year after a brave battle with lung cancer and she was being lined up for the immunotherapy treatment but sadly it didn't happen.
Hope she goes from strength to strength and you get to spend many more happy years together.

Excellent news give her all my best OP.

That's very good news, I am pleased to hear of another success story where immunotherapy is concerned.

My father in law, who has retired to the south of France was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in December 2016, and we thought that he would be gone within weeks. France and Italy take cancer incredibly seriously, and within a month he had started immunotherapy. The tumours shrunk to the point that he is still with us, albeit painfully thin, but the prognosis is incredible - we have already had an additional two years that we never thought that we would have with him, and he is still driving himself to Perigeaux every three weeks for further rounds.

My own GP stated that had he been living here, he would have been offered palliative care at the end of 2016 and nothing more.

Immunotherapy is amazing, and needs to be funded in the UK at whatever cost, rather than wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds a week on vanity projects.

I hope that she continues to recover, all the best.

Strangely enough it's a French drug company that is funding the trial.
The trails are being done in a several hospitals in several countries - just in case diet, life style or ethnicity skew the results Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

So very sorry to hear what your wife and you are and have been through, new medicines are wonderful, hope your wife and you continue your recovery, our thoughts and prayers are with you both.

So we are down to the last big life choice as of last Friday apart from just do nothing. More surgery is not an option and they could not grow a culture from my removed tumour to make me a personalised treatment dose of any possible drug fighting agent.

I have not been told yet there is nothing more that can be done but what can be done may only keep me on this Earth for a shortish while as survival rates for the one treatment are hard to find in UK but I think its not that high with skin melanoma never mind internal melanoma being the primary source. So here is the treatment summary description off the net

Immunotherapy, also called biologic therapy, is a type of cancer treatment that boosts the body's natural defenses to fight cancer. It uses substances made by the body or in a laboratory to improve or restore immune system function. Immunotherapymay work by: Stopping or slowing the growth of cancer cells.

Here in my region the treatment is on offer and they can dose me with 2 agents together that give more initial fight but 50% end up in hospital with complications or just one agent of the 2 that only puts 10% of patients in hospital with complications but it is less effective (nor sure of the rates).
The choice it seems comes down to me and its a hard one and has to be made by Friday, either way I would be having a single drug permanently (double is only given up to 4 times in around 4 months) and could be subject to side effects at any time and the list is enormous.

I have always had an opinion that quality of death is as important as quality of life and if I can keep out of long stays in hospital I am not banned from eating well or having beers or even going to places on holiday like Canada were they work with all of the above treatments (Insurance may be a problem).

In my case the treatment is to turn up the immune function into finding the cancer (as it hides), it works by slowing growths and attacks it but will not kill it dead. I have always been a fatalist but often I have had to choose one of 2 choices and this is the biggest health choice anyone can make.

Not sure if I can add anymore to this missive so get on doing.

Bob FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Best wishes to all suffering or caring for someone with this vile disease.
RogB have you a sponsor address for the walk?
YB wish you all the best the decisions you are faced with.


Lost my dad with this and still get angry when I see the research folk struggling for funds and then watch different government's wasting money on pointless excercises  If it wasn't so bad it'd be funny.

🐑
Freelander 2 HSE auto 2014 ( Florrie ) ..... Try again.
Freelander 2 GS 2012...... Gone.

Wish I could help Bob.

I am nipping to Canada in a couple of weeks, Gill is coming with me, insurance is not an option - have tried four different cancer specialist insurance brokers.

Sad bit is we are installing a machine that extracts the cannabinoids to use in pharmaceutical products/research. They came to us with a problem, we gave them a solution. But as they paid for it the patent is theirs.

First set of clinical trials will be on neurological diseases (because there is empirical proof that it works). Get the patents sorted, sell the drugs, that funds the next set of trials into cancer. Long term it's a winner for the Canadians and hopefully some cancer patients. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner