I don't really want to do this, but I feel I should, not sure why, just a feeling.

I have to type, to get the thoughts out of my head.

They are going through my head so quickly it hurts, I am getting a headache.

I am crying as I type, my face is completely wet.

I feel strange, cold but slightly sweaty. I feel weak, low in my strength. My face is hot. My hands are shaking, I can't control them, they seem not to be mine. My head is bursting, with tears, with shouts.

Two hours ago;

“Any chance that you might take out the stitches today?” I asked.

“No, not today, you see, the results of the biopsy from the tumour are back” The surgeon had never called it a tumour before, it had always been called a lump. I did not say anything, I just looked at his face and waited for him to speak again.

“It is called a sarcoma, it was 7.5cm in diameter, that is very big for a sarcoma. It was poorly differentiated, which means it had begun to split. It is a particularly angry type of sarcoma”

Still, I sat there, I had no words. My wife was beside me, she was equally silent.

He continued speaking. “With your permission, I would like to operate on you again. We need to get in and take away all surrounding tissue and anything else that we can remove, after that we will be very aggressive with your treatment, we have a chance of beating this” .. ..

He paused, “you are both very quiet, I realise that this is a lot to take in. What I propose is that you both go home, take tomorrow to talk and think together, then come in to see me the following morning and we can go through all of this in more detail”

My body was there but my mind was about 2 feet above me, it was looking down on the situation. The thoughts of what he had just said were filtering through my head. What is a sarcoma? How was it angry? What does poorly differentiated mean?

I went to speak, but nothing came out, I opened my mouth but it bagan to quiver slightly, I could not say what it was I was trying to say. I tried again,

“Is it cancer?” I had to almost whisper it.

“Yes”

“Will I need chemo and radiation?”

“Lets get over the first part first. I took the liberty of booking you a bed in the hospital. I want to operate on you as soon as possible. When we have done that we will talk about the treatments. But right now, I want the two of you to go home. I am after giving you both the most terrible news and it will take some time for it to sink in.”

So I stood up, said thank you, shook his hand, walked towards the door. I managed to get through the door before I felt the ground start to pull me towards it. I saw a chair and almost fell into it. I began breathing in a sobbing cry. The doctor brought us into an office and let us sit there in peace. His secretary brought me in a cup of water. I drank it and felt a bit better, I got control of my emotions. Then someone asked me something, but again I could not speak. Every time I went to open my mouth I could feel my voice box close up and breathing became difficult.

The surgeon came back into us after a few minutes.

“You’re very upset, that is completely understandable, but try to understand, we have a good chance of beating this, you need to be positive, you need to stay strong”

What I wanted to say to him was that I clearly remembered my Mum going through the operations, the chemo, the radiotherapy, and within 18 months I finally watched her die. But when I opened my mouth what came out was more like

“blubber blubber”.

Myself and my wife walked out of the hospital. Got into the car. Began the drive home.

I am now home, sitting at my laptop, my wife has gone to collect our girls from her sisters.

I am 41 and I have a wonderful wife and two amazing daughters (10 & 13).

I am at a loss. I have no control. I have potentially no future. I might die much sooner than I thought.

But it is not like being hit by a train, it is much slower than that. I don't feel ill. I don't feel any different. Nothing has changed. Only the words of my doctor. .. .. I had a lump growing in my leg for about 5 months. It got bigger and bigger and I had it removed 2 weeks ago. Today I was to go and get my stitches removed, but I saw the surgeon first and he gave me the bad news.

So, I sit here typing these words about 2 hours after receiving the news that I have cancer. .. .. I have cancer. .. .. I have cancer. .. .. If I say it enough it does not sound so strange.

My wife and I are the best of friends. I feel so sorry for her, because it is as if she has cancer too. We are like two peas in a pod and what one has the other suffers from. So I feel really bad for her, she does not have cancer but her husband does and she is only 39.

My Mum died from cancer about 15 years ago, so my automatic thought of cancer was of death. But as the day passed I thought of my Aunt in Canada, she has been winning the cancer battle for nearly 30 years. I always think of this particular Aunt in a very special way, she is a genuine, kind and truly wonderful lady, but now I also understand that the word brave needs to be added to my thoughts when I think of her.

I am crying too much to type properly, the tears are stinging my eyes, my kids will be home from school soon and I do not want them to see that I have been crying, so I have to stop this and come back to it later tonight……… .. .. .. .. .. .. ……. The girls are in bed now. We could not tell them. There is a show that my eldest is performing in, we don't want to ruin it on her by telling her I have cancer. So we decide to wait until after the last show which is only 4 days away. To be honest, I physically could not use the words "I have cancer" to either of my little ladies. It would be too much, I know I would break down crying.

When my girls arrived home I had just washed my face to try and remove some of the red puffiness from crying. I smiled when I saw them, not a forced smile to cover up my true feelings, but a smile from the heart as I was emotionally thrilled to see them. Having them there made it so much easier to believe that things were the way they were that morning when they went off to school.

“did you get your stitches taken out?” asked one of my girls.

It had not dawned on me that they might ask that. It was the only reason I was at the hospital that day was to get the stitches out. “No, not yet” I said. “why not?” was the reply “because the doctor wants to look into the leg again in the next few days, he said there was no point taking out the stitches today as he will have to do it again in a few days” I said. “ok, whats for dinner?”

The thought of telling my family that I had cancer was just too much for me. My wife kindly told my sister and my father. It was not easy for her to do it, I know I should have been ‘more of a man’ and done it myself, but I just could not do it, physically I was unable. I don’t remember anything about the rest of that evening. I have no recollection of us all sitting down together for dinner, although I know we did. I have no memory of watching tv that evening, although I know I did. I don’t remember going to bed, but I know I did.

Two weeks ago I had a 'lump' removed from my leg, everyone had said 'it is nothing to worry about', my GP said it when I saw him, my surgeon said it when he saw the lump. But by the time the lump was removed it had grown to 7.5 cm and it is my fault that I did not have it removed sooner, I delayed, I put off going to the doctors, I put off going to the specialist, I put off the operation to have it removed. Today I was to have the stitches removed after 2 weeks, I was not expecting to get any results of the biopsy, I was oblivious to the turmoil that the meeting would have. It is no longer called a lump, it is called a tumor.

First morning with cancer. .. .. I did not have a great nights sleep, it took me a while to fall asleep. I woke several times during the night, but it has been like that for the past two weeks due to the operation to remove the lump. .. .. So, I woke quite early, my wife was in the middle of getting dressed, my first thought was to ask her if she was alright, she looked sad. Then I began to remember yesterday. I can’t believe it was not my first thought.

When everyone had left the house I did not know what to do. I stood in the kitchen for a while. What to do, what to do, what to do. Then I remembered I had ordered a new oven to be delivered this morning. Work to do, so off I went doing the things that needed to be done.

Since then, my wife came home early. Collected girls from school. Finished wiring in the new oven.

My head is all over the place. I am going to be fine. I have cancer. I could die real soon. I could leave a wonderful wife and daughters behind. The thought of telling them I have cancer is awful, but we are going to have to tell them, soon. But the thought of seeing them loose their Dad really scares me. I have to keep brave, I have to stay strong, but I don’t feel brave or strong, in fact I feel weak. Sometimes I feel like I am going to faint because the thoughts going through my head are so fast that I cannot keep up with them.

As I sit here, it is late, everyone is in bed. I need to get some of the thoughts out. I am finding it difficult to keep focused right now. I keep thinking how my girls will be when I die. I am worried about my wife when I die. I have been so selfish in my thinking, I must not think of me, my cancer, I must think of my wife and two girls. The need me, I must fight this cancer. .. .. Today I was thinking of my Mum. It is hard to think of her without bringing up thoughts of her suffering from the chemo. I am not sure if I want to go through it. I remember so well how she looked, how sick she was, how her skin turned white, then grey, her hair falling out. Then I remembered the sores in her mouth, the pain she was in. Her groans from pain. What am I doing even thinking of taking chemo therapy. It will poison me to the point of almost death, to try and prevent my cancer spreading. The day my Mum died I swore I would never take chemo therapy. .. .. I want to live, but I want a quality to my life, if I am going to die from cancer then I want to die with some peace, not the tortured image of my Mum that I still hold to this day.

Second morning with cancer. A meeting in the hospital with my surgeon, his team, then a quick run through some practical steps with the cancer nurse. We were both more together than I thought we would be. We were able to ask some questions and we got the answers. As we had allowed for a whole day in the hospital but the reality was only 2 hours, we were able to be together and discuss the practical things.

Crazy, surreal, out-of-body experience. A million thoughts in mere seconds. Darting ideas, flashes of inspiration.

Some time ago I started to believe in some ideas that were inspired as a result of reading some personal development books. I believe in the power of positive speech, positive mind control. I believe in the need to accept people for who and what they are. I do not agree with dwelling on the negative. I do not agree with speaking negative words.

Its not a religious thing. I simply believe that we are capable of controlling our own happiness. This belief structure is something I have believed in for about a year and I think it will be to my benefit in the challenge that lies ahead of me.

My sister sent me a lovely letter, then an amazing e-mail which outlined the stages of emotion that myself and my wife will go through. I will see if I can remember them, 1)grieving 2)denial 3)anger 4) bargaining 5)depression 6)acceptance. Knowing this will help us to know where we are but more importantly it will explain some of the emotions we will go through because it can be confusing.

I know I am not dealing with it well. I know I am expected to be phoning my friends and family, or at the very least I should let them phone me. But I can’t bear the idea of talking to anyone about this. It is too fresh. I need time to get it straight in my head. I do not want to hear anyone crying because of me. I have always been a ‘side of stage’ type of person, I have no interest in the spotlight being on me.

When I was a child I clearly remember when someone got a cancer diagnosis their friends and family would appear at their house. Why? Is it not bad enough having to deal with it yourself without having to share it with everyone you know? For me, cancer is a private and personal challenge that I have to face, nobody can help me, nobody can make it any easier for me. I just want to be left alone.

Waking on the 3rd and 4th morning with cancer. A nice couple of days were planned with the family, but the hospital called to say they had a bed for me. So I was admitted for my second operation to remove all touching tissue/muscle to the lump site. I was told to ‘present’ myself to a ward in Tallaght Hospital by 7pm. I made it just in time. We had to get our girls minded by my wife’s parents. My wife drove me there, stayed with me while I filled in various admission forms. She helped me to fill my bedside locker with my bits and pieces. I was put on a ward with 4 beds. Met the nurses. Had various people come and look at my leg. Then it was time for my wife to go home. I walked her out of the hospital said my goodbyes went back to the ward, got into bed, took a sleeping tablet, slept until 6am. As it was the weekend, no work would have been done on my leg so I was allowed to go home for the day. I went home until 7pm. That night a new patient was moved in to the bed next to mine. He is a very young 61 year old, by which I mean he looks 50 at a push. We are both in for surgery due to cancer. So we chatted, told each other our stories to date, we had been diagnosed within a day of each other, so it was all very fresh in our minds. It was great chatting with him for the evening after the visitors had left. His name is Paddy and I think he will become a friend after cancer.

Waking on the 5th morning with cancer. Awoken early to prepare for operation. I hate being in hospital in the mornings when you are not allowed to eat. The smell of toast, mmmmmmmm. The day dragged on, I was to be operated on at 9am, then possibly 10 or 11, at 12 I was brought off to pre-op, I was the only one there. There must have been room for 20 surgery beds, but it was just me, lying there in my operating gown, with a nurse to keep me company, chatting about everything other than cancer and operations. finally at 2.30 I was rolled into the little room to be knocked out. I was so happy to be finally getting into the theatre that I was all smiles with everyone. Then I was given the injection and a mask put on my face, asked to count down from 10 to 0 but I was told I would not make it past 5, so I started at 5 and said “4,3,2,1, Ha Ha I made it to zeeeerrrrooo” zzzzzzzz ……… …….. hours later I was brought back to the waking life in post-op. I was in no pain. I gently moved my left hand down towards my leg. I could not feel anything. My first thought was that I had lost my leg. I tried to lift my head but it was too heavy. I moved my hand up towards my stomach to a point where I could feel, then I moved it down towards the leg until I could feel nothing. The nurse grabbed my hand and told me to stop moving my hand onto my leg. So I pulled the mask off my face enougth to speak “du I zill av mii lefd eg?” She looked confused, so I tried again “doooo IIIIII stilllll have my left leeeeeg?” She smiled and said “you still have both legs”. From that moment on I completely relaxed. The modern use of painkillers is amazing. I was given a morphine control switch to use every time I felt I needed it, truly wonderful use of modern technology. My wife came in to visit me at some stage, time was not a feature in that day. When I saw her face, looking so worried, so sad, I just wanted to hug her and tell her everything was going to be alright. But the morphine would blank my memory in a few minutes and I would forget that I had seen her, so I would try and reassure here again, and again and again. Through the night I was in pain, masked by morphine, I was alert, under 15 minute checks from nurses, so I got to talk my way through most of the night. I did not sleep a wink. When the early morning light came into the sky I asked the nurses to remove the morphine drip. I felt much better, had some tea and toast, chatted with Paddy. I was very aware of the fact that he was going for his operation that morning so I did not want to say anything that might freak him out. .. .. As the morphine ran out of my system the nurses started to give me other painkillers. My leg had the strangest sensation. There were pains in parts of it but most of it I could feel nothing, it was so strange to touch a part of your body and it not recognised being touched. This was due to the fact that I had a lot of nerve end damage done to the surface of my leg.

As the day went on I was concentrating on my leg. The pain, the feelings. I decided to get up and walk as quickly as possible, I thought I would make use of the additional painkillers still in my system. So I asked the nurses and they said “no way!”. So when my surgeon came in to see me I ask him and he said “if you feel up to it” so up I got. .. .. The first few steps were a bit shaky but once I got my balance right, I was able to walk, slowly, but walk. The best bit for me was that I was able to move slowly and not limp. During the day my physio therapist came to see me and took me for a walk. She helped me learn how to get back to normal and with as little limp as possible. She trained me on stairs, up and down, up and down. I was slow, there was always a queue behind me on the stairs. .. ..

Morning of the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th awoken in hospital. The general recovery after an operation went on, building up some strength in the muscles that where reduced, physio, tests, bone scan, MRI, CT scan. Each day had some level of work done to me, with me, for me. .. .. Paddy had his operation, but was not as quick to recover as me. His operation was on his intestine which causes completely different problems. We chatted a lot, when he was awake, but he slept a lot. Once he got out of bed for the first time he began his recovery. He was very slow to eat. He seemed to have a mental block about taking food. Our recoveries were very different.

I have been trying to get Paddy to eat, so far he as only pushed ice cream and jelly around the bowl in small circles but he has not managed to actually eat it. I keep telling him he needs to kick start his body with food. “Paddy, it is the first real sign of recovery when you eat food” I shout at him, I am not angry, he has a slight hearing problem. “ok, I will try”, so he picks up the spoon and slides in the smallest piece of jelly I have ever seen. He tasted it for a moment and then dipped his spoon in again for more. He did not eat much but it is a start.

Each day I ask can I go home. I know the time is getting nearer, I am feeling great, the pain in my leg is just pain, I do not feel sick, so I am fine. Paddy is eating a lot more, but still not enough to kick start his body back to full normality. I know he will be in here longer than me, he is doing great in his recovery, he just needs to eat a little more and he will get home soon.

The day finally came when they let me go home. I was asking every doctor that came to visit me “can I go home?” and each one in turn said “not yet”. I still had a drain in my leg, it was still draining a lot of yellow yucky stuff. They said I could go home when it stopped. But it did not stop. I agreed with them that if I could go home I would come back every 2 days to have my leg drained.

Home, home sweet home, home is where the heart is.

Waking on the 11th morning with cancer. Lying in my own bed again. My wife beside me, my children asleep in their bedrooms. The world is perfect. Even if it is just for today, I will have a lovely time. I have been told that my chemotherapy will begin on the second week of January, so I have about 5 weeks to get rest.

I have a very positive attitude right now, I hope it will last. I am being much more positive about the chemo therapy. I have fully decided to take it and also to take radiotherapy. Coming home made me realise why I needed to get chemo and radiation, I need every possible change to beat this thing. There are only two treatments available in the world recognised by medical professionals, chemo and radiation. There are lots of different little things that may or may not help cure cancer but none of them have ever been proven. If I am going to get cancer again in another part of my body I want to know that I did everything I could to stop it. My only reasons for doing this are my wife and my two girls. If I lived alone I think I would not do them.

I now know that I have to do the chemo and I have to be strong about it. I am not doing it for me, I am doing it for my wife and girls, so that makes it easier for me. I do not think I would have the motivation to do it for myself. I know they will visit me regularly in hospital, I will be able to take the strength I need from seeing their faces.

The last couple of days at home have been filled with pain. The swelling is getting pretty bad in my leg. The pain is growing by the day. The stitches look like they are about to rip open. I had a visit from the local health nurse. What a waste of time. I do not know why she insisted on calling on me, she did not have any of the right dressings so when she took off my old dressing she had nothing to re-cover it with. She ended up putting 6 different dressings on it, she even managed to get the sticky bit of the dressing to run over my stitches which caused a lot of pain when it was removed. I do not want her to visit me again, from now on, if I need help I will go back to the hospital. I can get from room to room, it is a lot of pain, but once I get lying down I get pretty comfortable. After an hour or so I get stiff, so I have to move around a bit, do my daily physiotherapy, make myself a cup of coffee. It is only a bit of pain once I am comfortable, so I am enjoying watching TV alone, all of the things that my girls think as ‘boring’, discovery, national geographic. .. .. The days are passing quickly, I am in and out of hospital regularly enough with my leg problems. It seems like I have an appointment every day or two, each one takes up to 2 or 4 hours. The painkillers are working well, I am very comfortable most of the time. .. .. These will be the most amazing 5 weeks as they fall during Christmas which every Irish person knows is that all of Ireland shuts down for days and days.

An exception family time for me. Every few days I seem to need to have my leg drained. It is not nice, the biggest syringe I have ever seen, with the largest needle I have ever seen is pushed directly through the area of the incision, on the line of the cut, it goes about 3 inches into my leg, the surgeon then draws the fluid out. He repeats this 4 or 5 times until the leg is less swollen, as he does it I can feel the pressure reduce on my leg. The pain goes away. The stitches look less likely to rip through with the reduced pressure. It is quite amazing, I limp into the hospital in pain and I walk out with almost no pain. My leg keeps draining into a dressing which needs to have a very thick pad on the outside as it drains for quite a while. Then back home for 2 or 3 more days and then into the hospital again for more draining. Each time I go in they drain a little less each time.

I am really looking forward to Christmas day. Obviously it is a special time for kids, but as a parent it is even more special watching their eyes light up with their ‘I always wanted this’ gifts. We probably spent a bit more on them this year, but they deserve it, they have had a rough couple of months.

Christmas and New Years. Five weeks have passed, I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. My life seems to be infast forward right now. I want to take every aspect of this time into my headbut it is going by so quickly that I am not remembering anything. I seemed to blink and it was over. The time was special, I am sure it was, but Ican remember nothing. It was just a blur. My mind spent so much time in ‘cancerworld’ that I did not notice the time passing. The past few weeks have been a turmoil of thoughts about thechemo therapy. I am not looking forward to it for so many reasons. Every aspectof it is bad. There are so many aspects to it as well. It can cause so much damage to other organs. The nausea. The vomiting. The hair loss. Being weak. Staying away from home for so long. Coming home sick for 2 weeks and then having to go back. I am scared of it. I am scared of what it might do to me. I don’t want to go back into hospital. This is hurting much more than I thought it would. I thought when the time came I would be ready, but the time has gone, I have to face it, I have to be strong.

Tomorrow I am going in to have a Hickman Catheter fitted into my chest. I am not too sure what it is going to be like, something about putting a rubber tube into my chest which will stay there for the next few months. The oncology nurse said it would make the chemo treatments easier for me. I have to fast again for it, I am tired of the journey to the hospital early in the mornings with an empty stomach, I always feel sick.

Hickman Catheter. I arrive in the hospital, fasting, at 8am. Blood tests ordered. X-ray’s done. Then I am given a gown and asked to get into a bed. I am on an oncology day ward where there are 13 comfortable chairs and two beds. The beds are for patients who are getting a small procedure. It is a bit like being in a bed in the middle of a waiting room. Then I am brought off to the x-raydepartment where they put me on a bed with a very large xray machine attached to it. The room is busy with about 8 people moving around doing their thing. Various people introduce themselves to me, telling me what they do, then they give me an injection, wait a few minutes, and then begin the procedure of putting a tube from my chest to my neck and into a main vein into the heart.There were stabbing pains which made me say ‘oouuccchhhhh’ then another injection and I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up back on the dayward, in a bed in a waiting room. The nurses were chatting to me as I woke up, it was all very confusing, I appeared to have been having a chat with them when I woke up. I am holding a piece of toast and I have a cup of tea in front of me, but I thought I was asleep. It is like having a dream that you are awake,but then you wake up and you were asleep!

I was sore and stiff,but not too bad. My head felt strange, sort of a drunk feeling. My wife arrived to take me home and they said I would not be able to walk, I thought the were speaking of my leg, but they said my balance would not be right yet. So I tried to get out of bed and boy were they right, the world was like the sea, waves,the floor moved in waves. So I was put in a wheelchair and brought to my wife’scar. It was raining very heavily and Jill, the nursing assistant pushing the chair, began to move quicker and quicker. Waaahhhoooooo went my brain, it was like being on Thunder Mountain rollercoaster. My clothes felt strange, my hair was hard. I had blood all over me, dried blood congealed in my hair, my top was covered in blood. It was so confusing, was I in a fight? Had I been in an accident? Why was I in hospital again? There are three rubber tubes hanging out of my chest, each one with a different coloured plastic end with a cap on each one. I can see where the tube goes into my chest and I can follow the white line under my skin up to my neck were there are more stitches.

When I got home I lay down. Eat some dinner. Went to bed. It is nice to not fast, I like to have water to drink during the night. It’s the littlethings.

Day one on chemo. The day began, I sat in one of the 13 comfortable chairs,they did more blood tests. Then a nurse came over to me and said the words “we are ready to begin your treatment now”. She sat on a stool in front of me. She set up a stand beside me and hooked on the various bits, the pump, a clear bag of liquid, plugged it into my Hickman tube. Then she took out a large syringefilled with a red liquid, plugged it into another tube on my chest and slowly began to push the red liquid into me. I asked her various questions about what she was doing, how long it would take, stuff like that. After a few minutes I had asked all I needed to ask so we started chatting about any old thing. It took about 30 minutes for her to slowly inject the red chemo. I felt fine. Then she went off and got a large bag covered in a purple sleeve, she hung this on my stand and connected it to my chest. She turned the tap on and within 5minutes I began to feel its effects. I gradually I went down hill, until I was so low I was not functioning.

Every aspect of my body stopped doing what it would normally do. My legs got heavy, my arms weighted a ton, to move took effort. But the worst bit was the feeling of nausea creeping its way up through my body.

There were no hospital beds available, so I asked if I could go home. Not a chance. I can’t go home with chemo plugged into me. I will have to receive this chemo 24 hours a day for 3 days, then I get a thing called Mezna (or something like that) foranother 12 hours. Then I have to wait 12 more hours to receive some injection before I go home. But I don’t have a bed, can I not sleep in the day ward? No,it is closed at night. Where do I go? To A&E (accident and emergency) or ER for those on the other side of the pond. But they told me to never go to a and e because of the possible infection..... .. .. Then the nurse came over to me and said the words I had been waiting to hear. “we have a bed for you”. Fantastic, I have a bed to sleep in! But my body is feeling so awful, I don’t really care about the bed. I just want the feelings to go away. The nurse tells me that I will be given more anti nausea pills when I get to the ward. I have to wait for the room to be cleaned and sterilised. So the nurse brings me to the waiting room on the ward. I am feeling pretty awful. The waiting room is also a visiting room so there are patients and visitors sitting together chatting, there are also people watching TV. I want to be sick, but I can’t be sick in here. I want to be on my own, not in public. The other patients can’t resist talking to a nurse so they all start chatting together. One of them starts asking me what is wrong with me. I can’t say “I have cancer”. What I want to say is ‘LEAVE ME ALONE’ but instead I say “I am in getting some extravitamins, you can’t get enough vitamins, the purple bag is blackcurrant flavour, what are you in for?” He then began talking about his sore foot. I felt weak listening to him. Then a nurse came in and started filling out more forms for my asmission. “how are you feeling with the chemo” she said at the top of her voice. The room went quiet. Everyone of them stared at me. That was the beginning of the stares.

I was brought to aprivate room. I am glad it was private, I do not generally like to vomit in public. I also want to be alone right now. I feel awful. I feel weak. I have arrived in hell. When I talk to people I am usually quite happy, when I can manage a smile, I smile. I am trying to be positive. I just want to go to sleep. One of the nurses told me that I will be given a sleeping tablet, I look forward to sleep because I hope to sleep for hours.

Day two on chemo. Woke up feeling unwell, went to the bathroom, thought I might have needed to use the toilet, so I sat down. I felt week, then cold,then I was sick, from both ends, at the one time. Slowly made it back to bed. Awoke again feeling sick, made it to the sink. Nurses and doctors came into my room in large numbers as I was throwing up, the doctors started asking me a million questions, I felt weak, so weak, I wanted to stop talking but they kept asking questions. Nurses came in and out with various meds that the doctors were prescribing as they spoke to me. I was given about 20 different tablets, some of them I got 4 of each. Thankfully after about 20minutes I began to feel well enough to want to stay alive. I had reached the bottom of a pit and I wanted it to fill in and take me away from this feeling. After that, my life began to improve, a slow but sure improvement of the feeling of being human. I never felt well, I always felt horrible, but it was bearable. I could live with it. The nausea stayed low enough to eat some dry crackers and drink some water, but that was about it. .. .. I am spending too much time on my own, the clock is slow, very slow. I am able to write things on my phone, this helps pass some time. But I think it is making me feel sicker,it is hard to tell, the nausea comes in waves. I am typing this on the phone right now, if you saw how slowly I am able to get the letters into the phone you would laugh. I think it is taking me about 15 minutes to type one line. This is crazy, time is so slow. I want it to go quickly but nothing makes it speed up. My thoughts take longer, my movements are so slow, everything causes nausea. I want it to stop.

Day two, three and four in hospital. .. .. I do not have the literary ability to describe how time went past during the 5 days. Every moment is like an hour. Every hour is like a day.Every day is like a week. Time stands still. There are endless portions of time. If a clock goes ‘tick,tock’ then in chemo world it goes‘tttttttttiiiiiiccccckkkkk,tttttttoooooccckkkk. They were not too happy about my wanting to wander around the hospital. They kept asking where I was going, when I would be back. They did not like me leaving my room. But I needed to see people, even just to see people was enough, I would walk to the central part of the hospital and sit down as if I was waiting for someone or something to happen. I would watch people coming and going. I would think about why there were in hospital, who were they visiting. .. .. I am typing this on my phone. I am sitting in a sunny area of one of the hospital corridors. It is the main walkway to the canteen. My nurse from the first day walks past and stops to say hello, her name is Sarah,she is a very kind person. Then Jill, the girl who pushed my wheelchair out to my wife’s car when I got the Hickman fitted, stopped to say Hi. Then some of my doctors saw me and sat down to ask me some questions. Then the nurses from my ward arrived. It was crazy. I came down here to get to see some normality and for almost an hour I have had constant conversations with nurses and doctors.Then an elderly lady, slowly, comes down the corridor, she is so frail, I would guess she is in her 80’s. She sits down beside me and starts telling me that she is on chemo. She talks slowly, but with a passion, about her life before cancer, her family, her great grandchildren. She shuffles off into the distance, slowly, after about 10 minutes.

My days are filled with time. Lots and lots of time. I cannot concentrate on reading, I feel ‘car sick’ after a couple of minutes. I cannot bear the sound of the TV. My only break during the day is when a nurse comes in to check on me. So I walk around the hospital, until I am exhausted, then I go back to the ward and sleep. My wife brings in my girls each evening. I love to see the three of them, but I feel terrible, I try to be happy when they are there. I try not to show how I feel, but I fear it slips out, or pours out. I sit up straight, I try to listen and reply to each of their conversations. I do love to hear about their day. I want to absorb everything about them so when they are going I can think of them. My mind is constantly wandering, I can’t keep an idea in my head for long, it is constantly interrupted by strange feelings in my body. .. .. I am so tired. I keep fighting with myself, why am I doing this poison, why did I agree to treatment, because it might make me betterthat’s why. But it is awful, I want to stop. I want to stop now. No way, you are fighting this, not for you, for your wife, for your children. It is to give you a better chance of survival. But is it worth it? Is there any quality of life left? Eventually.

My mind struggled with it every day, every second of everyday. I knew I would not stop, but I wanted to. I wanted to go home. I wanted to feel well again. .. .. FINALLY, I was returned to my lovely home, with all of my favourite things. My wife, my girls, my everything. I was on a high just for making it home. The car journey was not easy, but I wanted to get home so I was able to put up with the feelings. Every mile that passed was a mile closer to home.Then I got there, finally I walked through my front door. My dog wagging his tail, if I had one I would have been wagging it too.

My wife set me up in a comfortable position. I got comfortable. I was so happy. I smiled and smiled and did some more smiling. My face was actually sore from smiling, it brought back memories of my wedding day. Even when I was in a room on my own I would suddenly smile. .. .. Days have been up and down since then, some bits good, some bits not so good. I have managed a couple of short walks, but not much else. I am exhausted within a few minutes, not much good for anything. I was walking much more in the hospital.

I have been home 5 days, had to go back in to the hospital yesterday to have some stitches removed (from the Hickman), had my bloods taken and waited for the result. The wonderful nurses, keep telling me things about my blood levels, I don’t understand any of it. “your suffering from acuteneutropenia” said one nurse to me. “how bad can it be when you say it is cute?”was all I could think of.

Had to back into the hospital again today to have the Hickman flushed and cleaned. It took about 3 hours in total, plus car time there and back. Not much, but I was flattened by the end of the day.

My sister came out to visit me, it was lovely to see her and chat with her, when it is just the two of us we seem more capable of chatting, there are no other interruptions, as she is a nurse I can ask her many of the questions that have been going through my mind. After she went home I got very tired, I slowly came to a stop. I had to lay down for a while. When I felt more able to move I got up and began to cook the dinner. I love to cook, for a variety of reasons, I look the actual act of cooking, I enjoy playing with flavours, I take great pleasure in feeding people food that makes the recipients ask for more. I possibly should be taking it easier, my wife says I am trying to do too much, but providing a good dinner for the family at the end of a day is a big thing. I feel a sense of independence when I have completed it, so I am going to try and continue doing that.

I have nothing but 'take it easy' marked into my diary for the next six days, then I have another quick visit to my oncology day ward. Ishould mention at this point, that the staff (of all levels) working on the dayoncology ward in Tallaght hospital are the most amazing human beings I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Working in nursing is a very hard job, in every department, to be blessed with such wonderful people in Tallaght has made mytime so much easier. The day I left hospital after chemo. On that morning I was given some seriously expensive injection, I was told it was something to do with preventing my white blood cells from going to low, I think, it is all a bit blurry. The doctory who gave the injection went on about some possible side effects,which were very rare, something like 1,000:1 ratio, so I just went 'yada yadayada' in my head and I did not listen to a single word he said. Three days later I woke up with stiff shoulders, which truned to sore back,which turned to sore spine. When I say sore, it was not sore to touch, it wasnot sore to move, it just came and went every 15 or 20 mins lasting only 2mins. So it was not so bad, I could deal with that. But then as the day wore onmy spine began to spasm, leaving me unable to move, walk, breath, and thespasams came more frequently and with more strength.

My wife arrived home, took one look at me and rang the hospital, because Iam a chemo patient we are supposed to ring them to let them know we are coming,I have to be kept away from the general public (infection, yada yada yada)particuarly when at A&E (Accident & Emergency). The oncology ward saidto bring me straight in and an oncology doctor will be awaiting my arrival. So we got into the car for the drive to the hospital, my back was in suchspasms by this stage it was pushing my whole body up into the air with a rigidspine, naturally the seat belt was holding my body back so the result was the most horrendous pain I have ever experienced in my life. Now it should be noted that a dog took a chunk of meat out of my arm when I was 10, and that same dog also took a good enough bite into my head. Those dog bites did not even compare to the pain in my spine. The car journey took forever, my poor wife having to listen to me whine like a sick dog, when the pain was bad, but when the pain got really bad she had to listen to me do virtual re-enactments of scenes from The Exorcist. When we finally arrived at the hospital, my wife drove straight up to the door, she ran in to get someone or a wheelchair, we eventually made our way into the hospital, via triage, to an oncology doctor, one that has been on my team since my chemo bagan. I was so relieved, he asked all the right questions,told me that he thought it was the 1,000:1 chance that my marrow would be agrivated in my spine 'remember I told you last Saturday when I gave youthe injection'. So basically I needed some painkillers. He injected morphine straight into my Hickman port, waited about 30 seconds, then injected some more, waited about 1 minute then injected more. As the Hickman is straight into my heart the effects are pretty much immediate, the pain went, almost instantly, my spine was still going into spasm, but the pain was gone, then he injected something to stop the spasms. I was falling asleep within 2 minutes of the final injection. So we went home for the night as it is not good for me to be in A&E for too long. Then first thing next morning I was back on the oncology day ward,the bloods taken the night before had shown up some problems, so the wanted to do some more tests. We have had a nice weekend since the spine incident, spent most of Friday in the hospital, but Sat and Sun were spent at home, just taking it easy, not that I can do that much anyway. If I move in anyway quickly I feel like I am going to be sick, but if I move slowly I feel great, so guess what, I move slowly. My Hickman port is not working correctly, they can inject, but it is not drawing blood like it should. So I have to back in on Monday (tomorrow) to have some procedure to clear the line under x-ray.

Second session ofchemo. I went into hospital on the Monday as planned for a new Hickman to be fitted to my chest. ...................... I have just typed and then deleted the worst day ofmy chemo.............. I deleted it because it looked like a session of'he said' 'she said' ..................I can see no point ingoing through it, word by word, fact by fact..................... what you need to know is that the Irish hospital administration is being run with various levels of ineffeciency and the result is the patient suffers, nobody else, just the patient, actually the staff do as well, they are expected to pick up the pieces...................so from your part, be grateful, I deleted pages of acomplaint. So anyway, I had the Hickman fitted on Monday, but on Tuesday morning,whilst brushing my teeth, it fell out of my chest and onto the floor, chemo dripping out of it onto the floor, blood filled my white Tshirt like someone had shot me. I opened the door to the bathroom and stepped out into the ward, a nurse walking towards me shouted “oh my God, oh my God” she ran towards me,like a scene from a movie, nurses came running with her, the appeared out of various doors and ran towards me. I tried to explain how the tube seemed to just slip out of my chest, but they were too concerned by the amount of bloodthat was coming out of my chest. What was a bullet hole sized blob of blood wasnow the size of a plate. They grabbed a chair and sat me down and started applying pressure to my chest to stop the bleeding, but every time they movedslightly blood came pouring out, my white t-shirt was now completely red and dripping over onto the floor. With that some scary looking people arrived in full one piece suits, masks, to do the chemo clean up. Doctors arrived within a couple of minutes and I was brought straight down to have a third Hickman fitted. This time, after the hickman was fitted I was put straight back onto chemo. The nurses in general are the most amazing angels on this planet, we are lucky to have them, we are lucky they are the way they are, their type of personality is what gets a lot of patients through their day. I have now christened them my 'blue angels' obviously due to the colour of their uniforms being blue. I say thank you on every occasion I can, but it is not enough, they deserve more, so much more. They are not paid enough, they are not listened to enough, they are not given enough thanks. (if you are a nurse, or have ever been a nurse, thank you, thank you, thank you)

The week in hospital was hard enough, I did not reach the same low levels in the nausia due to the predetermined medications from the first session. I still feel pretty low once the chemo is plugged in, pretty much until they unplug me.I am sure it is subconscious. Met a few more people this time as I was in a public ward this time. We were pretty much all cancer patients so the conversation was easy. When you share a ward with 5 other men, there are no secrets, every doctors word is heard by everyone, every nurses word is heard, even the ones that lower their voice can be clearly heard, the result is everyone knows what everyone is going through. My sister kindly gave me an injection that allowed me come home from hospital 12 hours early, it probably does not sound like much but it is a lotto me right now. Been home a week now, so I have about another week to go before my 3rd session, I had the same spinal reaction to the neulasta injection, but this time I was armed with painkillers strong enough to deal with the pain and medication to stop the spasms.

I am feeling a bit more like I am 'living with cancer', every week that goes by I get mentally stronger, even though I feel physically weaker each week. I think spending so much time in the hospital has helped me to realise the situation I am in. I have met so many people with cancer, with different types of cancer, with different treatments. Each one has their own story. I am humbled by the doctors and nurses. I know some people say things like “that’s their job”, but for me the are heroes. At every level, consultants, doctors, nurses, assistants, radiologists, porters, catering staff. Each and every one of them does an amazing job. I know I might be mentioning them more than you would expect but it is impossible not to honour their work. So many of them work extra hours with no extra pay. Too many of them are asked to give their hearts and souls to their careers without proper reward. I grew up with a sister who always wanted to be a nurse. She became a nurse. Quite a few of my childhood friends became nurses, a couple became doctors. Although I thought I knew how hard their jobs were, I had no idea. I did not comprehend what they were giving in their job. When I spent many hours on wards thinking, I would often think of my friends who became nurses or doctors. I could see a different side of their personalities. For so many years they had been my friends, but not once did I value what they meant by “I am tired”. They work harder than I have seen in any profession.

I have received a lovely letter from my Aunt and Uncle in England I know they love me like a son, I know I love them like my parents. Their simple words of concern touched my heart. It is wonderful knowing that they are there for me, that they are always there for me. We have a strange relationship because they have lived in a different country to me, all of my life. But they have made big efforts to keep in contact, to visit, to send cards. Every time I meet them it is as if I only saw them the week before. Our relationship is like a friendship that never fades. They have been at every important event of my life, wedding, funerals, birthdays, Christmas. Now I have cancer, they have sent me this letter, just to let me know that they are thinking of me. I know they would love to phone me, but I can’t take phone calls without tears and right now I don’t want to cry any more. It hurts me that I have not wanted to see any friends or family, I do want to see them, but I know what the conversation will be. I don’t want to talk about ‘c’. I know everyone is looking at me like I am the walking dead, but I am not the walking dead, I am alive!

Third session of chemoI spent most of the first day waiting to be hooked up to the chemo, but they took their time doing the things that need to be done, my hickman blocked up again needed a bit more work with blood thinners to get it working. But as the nurses are working on it I just keep saying to myself, this will flow, because if it does not they will want to take it out and put in another. When I have to go to a different department or ward, staff say 'oh your the one who has had three Hickmans, can I have a look'. So eventually blood flowed through my Hickman and I was ready for the chemo, then a nurse walked past me and said 'now, we just need to get a chest x-ray for you', ahhhhhhh, I was thinking 'this is going to drag on', but within a few minutes a nurses-aid took me to the x-ray department, where I was brought to the top of the que, x-rayed and sent back to the day ward. Within about an hour, I was told I had a hospital bed, chemotherapy was plugged into me and then I was off to my ward. This time I got a private room. I am not sure if I like private rooms. Each time I get a private room I think to myself 'ah now thats nice, I will have some privacy, my own wc/whb and shower' but the reality is that I will be on my own for the next 5 days other than the nurses who breeze in and out in an almost jogging run. My wife and two girls visit me each evening, but it is a long day waiting for that visit and when you are in a room on your own, the clock ticks a lots lower. There are obviously irritations within the public or semi private wards because you have to share stories, become a part of the ward, know each others names, but you can lean on each other, help each other, or call for a nurse for each other. The days of chemo are hard, really hard, much harder than the first two sessions, a lot more nausea, but it is still not as bad as I though it would be. It is not easy, but is it hard? Yes. The nausea is very real, it is eating me from the inside. I can feel every part of my body is being drained. I am draining away. I feel like a battery on its last few moments of strength. Walking is slow, my leg is a bit sore, but the movement brings on nausea. I have to go slow. I want to be sick most of the time, but I know I wont be. It is strange feeling so bad and being able to sit in a public area. My various trips to x-ray have me in a wheelchair with full chemo drip stand and pump.

I typed this on my phone over 2 days.

I am not feeling well.
I want to be sick, but I
know I won't be sick.
The time is so slow, I want to go
home, bring me home
I miss my home
my wife my girls
How long till they let me go home
2 more days
I can't imagine 2 more hours
Why can't I go home
I'll come back if I need to
This poison is eating me up
slowly, eating
It is consuming my every breath
it is shrinking things
my mind, my lungs, my heart
I feel like I am dying
I feel like I am almost dead
I think dead would be good
If there was a choice of dead
I would choose it
If it were a switch
I would flick it right now
Then regret it later
I have been doing
this for two days
I say two and not the number
because because I can't find the
numbers, where are the numbers.
Oh my head, its full
I need peace
help me please
I need help
please

(This took me 2 days to write, I was only able to type for a few minutes at a time, it gives you a slight insight into where my mind was for days.)

I know there are some that completely disagree with my decision to take the chemotherapy and radiotherapy, I understand how their mind is working and I can even see the logic to their ideas. Here is how I see it, I can stop a car from rolling from a stationary position on a slight hill, but once it gets moving I do not stand a chance. The cancer is like that, there may be ways of not getting cancer, but once it is there, you need to get rid of it and anything connected with it. I know what the chemo is doing to my body, I feel it everyday, I feel the life being drained, but I know there is a point where once I reach I shall come back, (in typical Six Million Dollar Man style) better,stronger, faster...... Ha ha.

I am home now for the next two weeks, a very welcome and needed break, I shall rest, get some fresh air, relax and enjoy my time at home with my family. I am feeling really bad. The movement is making me feel nausea. Walking is not on, all I can do is type for 10 minutes or watch TV for hours. I can’t even read a book, I have tried so many times to read but even my favourite authorsare not able to keep my concentration, this is backed up with car sickness feelings. I am eating well. Probably too well, but it is one thing that I missed a lot was the taste of good food. I am able to spend some time in the morning prepping vegetables, then in the afternoon I throw the ingredients together and put it in the oven. It looks like I did a lot of work but it is very easy. I am enjoying my evenings at home with my wife, watching our favourite programmes together. There is a peace that I feel at home. It makes me smile, its good to be home.

Fourth session ofchemo – final stage.... This is so hard. I feel so unwell. I know I will not besick, but the pit of my stomach is saying that I will. The only food I can eat is breakfast, brown bread and tea, lunch arrives and I run off the ward, the smell is making me gag. I feel horrible. I am so low, my energy is low, my smiles are low, low, I want to finish this, finish for good, I only have a few more days, then I am finished. I do not want to be here. Let me go home even for a day. I plan a trip home in my head, sneak out of the hospital, into awaiting car, drive home and be there for a few hours. But my battery pack won’t last long enough to get home, the chemo needs the battery to keep pumping it through. How can I get a better battery? So I begin a search for a higher volt battery in the store room on the oncology day ward. Everyone knows me by name and they let me wander around anywhere, so I find the batteries, but they are all the same voltage. Eventually I see a pump which is different to the others,the voltage is the same, but the battery pack is bigger, then I realise I need two pumps, I have two pumps that push through the two different bags of fluid.I find a second large pump, put the two pumps onto my drip stand and go find anurse to ask them to swop my pumps. The first nurse who passed me was more than willing to swop them over for me. So there I was all prepared to get out of the hospital, with my bigger battery packs on my pumps, when it went ‘bleep, bleep’and flashed ‘low battery’, so I needed to recharge them. I went out to the main hallway and found a chair near a power point and plugged in. As I sat there waiting for a full charge I started to feel unwell. All this planning and searching for pumps with a bigger battery had me exhausted, the exhaustion ledto nausea. So when I had enough battery charged I went back to the ward, lay on my bed and slept for hours. I was asleep so long that two patients moved out of the ward and two new ones were in place by the time I woke up.

After the final chemo. It has been a week since my final chemo session. I have not had the energy to type.

There have been days where I have not moved all day. I have been feeling pretty awful at some stages but always exhausted. No energy. But as the days pass there is a little energy appearing, so I know things are beginning to improve again. The big difference is that this time I do not have to go back into hospital after a two week session at home. I am finished chemotherapujf/////////////////////////////////////d D D D .. .. Oppps, .. .. I fell asleep, I am that tired, I cannot stay awake at the laptop for more than about 10 mins. .. .. I came home from hospital on the final infusion day, due to a change in my medication I was able to come home 12 hours early, and thanks to my sister (who gives me the neulasta injection) I get to come home an extra 12 hours, so that's one who day early! That is a lot when it is compared to being in hospital. Thanks Sis! .. .. The following morning my wife dropped me back to the hospital to have my hickman removed. It did not take too long and it was not too unpleasant. Again (my wonderful sister) came to my rescue and collected me from hospital and brought me home and gave me my injection. I find it strange that the staff here all know me by name, they all know things about me. I do not remember seeing most of them. I am told that this is fairly normal as I was on Rohypnol, which is known here as the ‘date-rape’ drug. I was apparently awake for the three procedures for the Hickman catheters. I remember going into the theatres but that is about it.

I was on a high for the first few days of getting home. I could not believe it was over, the chemo that is. I have been wishing for this moment for quite a while, when it arrived I was feeling pretty tired, but I was excited, I felt like I was going on holiday, it felt like Christmas Eve as a child. It was truly wonderful being home.

I will come back and finish this, but I am simply too tired.

Another week later. .. .. I am feeling so much better in the last few days. I have more energy, I dont fall asleep during the day. The nausia has finally reduced to a level that is easy enough to live with.

With the increased energy I am able to do things like go for a short walk, go to the shops for food, tidy up after myself. These all seem like small things but to me right now they are big things.

I am not enjoying the way people stare at me, the lack of eyebrows and eyelashes mixed with grey skin and a bald head (even with hat) seems to be like carrying a big sign with CANCER PATIENT written in bold letters.

Radiotherapy begins in a week or two, then its seven weeks and I am done, I hope. My energy levels are pretty good, I am getting out for a walk most days (weather permitting) which I am enjoying. The nausia is almost gone, I still get strange feelings in my stomach and a bad taste in my mouth but it does not last that long and I am getting them less frequently.

I was in St.Lukes for verfication of my initial radiotherapy measurements a few days ago. I was on the machine for about 2 hours in quite an uncomfortable position. Sometime soon I will get a phone call to let me know when the radiotherapy begins, it will last for 7 weeks and I have to go there 5 days a week. Radiotherapy..... I have finally started radiotherapy. I have now completed the first two treatments of radiotherapy. The process of radiotherapy is that you go for what they call a 'verification' which usually takes 30-40 minutes. For me this was two hours. The machine is similar to an x-ray machine, just bigger and with more moving parts. Due to the sarcoma being on my upper, inner thigh, the position that I have to get into is quite difficult. My left leg is placed into a mould so that the treatment is in the same place each day. Once the verification was done I was told I would be contacted shortly with the date of my first treatment. A few weeks later I got the phone call to go in for my first treatment. This did not work as planned, the angles needed to penetrate the radiotherapy into my leg were not being achieved. After 1 hour on the machine they decided to give me a break as my legs were twitching and cramping. Then back on for another 30 minutes when it was finally decided that it was not going to work. I was sent home with no treatment done. It was disappointing but I knew that it was important for them to get everything right.

A week later and I was called in again, but this time they decided to only go through a 'dry run' and allow the doctors to decide if they were happy with everything. One of the problems they were having was due the fact that the radiation is positioned from my knee up to my groin. They wanted to protect my testes with the most primitive thing I have ever seen. Picture if you can a tennis ball sized cannon ball in solid steel, this ball opens into two pieces and the centre is hollow. The idea is that you place your testes into the ball and close the two pieces together. The reality is that you try and try to get the testes inside fully before putting on the top half. This very heavy metal closes to a very tight fit and any of the scrotum that has not fit in correctly will be pinched. The ball weighs so much that they have to sit it on a stand, otherwise it would pull your testes until you cry. Every time I moved it would pull my testes until tears would appear in my eyes. The pain was quite awful. But they could not get me into a position that worked, so they kept moving me, just a little to the left, and a little to the right, each time pulling and tugging one of the most sensitive parts of my body. After being in this horrendous position for a couple of hours I was close to fainting. I could not believe that I was going to have to do this every day for 7 weeks.

Eventually, it was decided that it was not possible to protect my testes, the radiation machine needed to get closer to my leg and the cannon ball stand was in the way. So it was decided that I would not have any more children and my testes would have to be exposed to the radiation. The following day I began the treatment. This treatment will be done 5 days a week for 7 weeks. The process is similar to going for an x-ray, I have up to 5 or 6 different people doing there little bit in the set-up of the machine, once everyone is happy they hit a button which sets of a warning alarm, they all leave the room, doors automatically lock behind them. I lie there motionless, then the warning alarm is taken over by a loud buzzing noise which goes on for 40 seconds, yes I counted. Then silence. One or two of the radiotherapists come back into me and help me down off the table, dressed and off I go for another day. I am told to expect the wound to begin to burn, like sunburn, but that there is a chance of a complete breakdown of the flesh (uuuuuhhh). I am also to expect to be very tired. Sunburn and tiredness I can handle, once there is no nausea I will be fine. I have done two radiotherapy treatments now, my third one will be in about 2 hours, it takes about 3 hours each day including the drive there and back. Some days the traffic is not so bad. The staff in St.Lukes are wonderful, kind and caring. It is a strange hospital, everyone has cancer. Many bald heads, head scarves and wigs. When I was in Tallaght Hospital I notice how everyone stared at me, but in St.Lukes nobody stares, they might look at you, smile and say Hi, but they do not stare.

My hair is beginning to grow again, I had to shave the other day! I have the finest, slightly fluffy, hair on my head, but as it is only about 2mm long I am still wearing the hats, it stops the staring (a bit) and it keeps me warm. The normality of radiotherapy. .. .. I completed my 8th treatment of radiotherapy today. I am starting to get into the swing of it. I drive for an hour to get there. I wait for up to an hour as the department is extremely busy and constantly plagued by technical problems. Then I have an hours drive home again. The radiotherapists are very nice. They understand the gravity of the patients situations. They appreciate how time delays effect peoples lives and plans. They are a kind and caring group of amazing workers. St.Lukes is a specialist hospital in the cancer field. Every patient has some sort of cancer. Every visitor is visiting someone with some type of cancer. All of the staff are working with cancer patients all day, every day. It is cancer central. Yet there is something different about St.Lukes, the visitors, patients and staff are all different compared to a general hospital. I found that being stared at in a general hospital really irritated me, but in St.Lukes the visitors don't stare, they are too wrapped up in their own 'cancer story'. Their loved one needs the attention so they are there for them. Even the children visiting are better behaved. Child patients are the hardest to think about. Almost every day I see children with various forms of cancer. I try to imagine what their parents are going through but it is not easy to do. Whilst we all sit together in the waiting area, with similar diseases, we hardly ever discuss anything other than the usual topical Irish events such as 'the weather' or whatever big news event comes on the TV in the corner. The one topic I hear people mentioning that is related to their situation would be how many sessions they have done and how many left to go. Some people have 4 treatments, some have 12, a few have 20 and the rest of us have 30 or more. .. .. When you sit waiting your turn, you can't help but notice how hard and fast the radiotherapists work. In fact every staff member has that same element of hard work. .. .. Every department is busy. Every body is moving quickly. It is an amazing sight, one which you rarely see in modern business. It makes me wonder how badly managed the top end of the health system is when they have such amazing staff working as hard as humans can work, under severe pressure. It does not make any sense to me, those that went to college, studied for years, trained in hospitals, now work in a field where their bosses appear to have not gone to college, not studied for years (in the right subject), not trained in hospitals.

Its friday!!! Friday's have become special to me. Most of my life I have worked on Saturday's, I always hated it, but it was always part of the job, so I did it. It basically means you can never do the late night on Friday, with job buddies etc. Since cancer I have not been working, which is financially concerning, but has one amazing plus point, on the weekends we are all free, my wife and children are all able to be together and take it easy together. So on Friday's I get that 'Friday feeling'. It is quite new to me, so I enjoy it. Its a small thing, but it is worthy of a smile. I had an appointment for radiotherapy this morning, but they phoned me to let me know that the machine was 'down'. So I am booked in for treatment at 7pm this evening past half-way point with radiation I have passed the half-way point with radiation, I have another 3 weeks to go. Then I will have a week off before some scans, x-ray's and tests. At that stage I will know if I have the first 'all clear'. I did not notice how subtly my leg slowly turned red, just like sunburn, but it is now a very angry red. On Friday my doctor noticed that my leg was beginning to swell, I have been given some cream to try and get it down over the weekend. They want to see it before I get radiation on Monday. He is talking about stopping my treatment if it gets any worse so I have to take it very easy and do as little walking as possible, keeping the let raised. It is worth it though, I do not want to have to stop radiotherapy and wait until the leg improves then starting the treatment again. I see two issues, this will drag on longer, but more importantly, the effectiveness of the treatment will be reduced if I have to take a break from it. But, that said, everything is going well.

The treatments are not taking as long now that the radiotherapists are more used to my set up. The waiting time was not too bad during the past week, never waited more than an hour! The machines did not break down once this week! I am meeting, or more to the point, seeing, the same patients each day. There are about 70 of us using the same machine so every day I sit with a variety of them. I am one of the youngest, but there are two others about my age, and a couple of children. It can be boring waiting for up to a few hours for treatment, I can understand the frustration, but some people allow themselves to get very angry at the radiotherapists. These radiotherapists work all day long at a very high speed. They literally work on fast forward. They do everything in their power to get every patient treated as quickly as possible. They work as late as 10pm to make sure everyone is treated. They do all of this with little thanks. Like the nurses and doctors I have met in the last 6 months, they are angels. When I was in chemo, I noticed my finger nails change. Each session of chemo was followed by a white line appearing through the nail. After the fourth session of chemo I had 4 lines. I was told that this was due to the chemo reducing the thickness of new nail growth, so after each session the nail was getting thinner and thinner. Now these lines have moved up through the nail and they are nearly at the tip of the finger, they are splitting and cracking. The nail tip is now very weak and typing is starting to hurt. Some of my toe nails are starting to come away from the toe, but so far there has been no pain from them. Hair growth is good. It is strange starting to grow hair all over at one time. The hair on my head is as long as the hair on my fingers.

My balance is improving now that there are hairs growing in my ears again. I don't need to have tissues in every pocket now that I have nostril hair (uuuuhh) again. Due to the regrowth of eyelashes my eyes are no longer sore, I don't wake up with my eyes stuck shut. No more hats yahooooo!! It is the beginning of my freedom. This is the first physical step towards looking normal, the staring eyes will stare no more. I will not have to look at the pity in peoples eyes. Hair is not important, not in the slightest, but it helps us to feel like we fit in, in a physical sense. It is ‘the’ sign that cancer is in someone’s life. So not having hair is not important, it is the reason that we don’t have hair that is what sets us apart. Having a bald head is one thing, but lots of people shave off their hair because they want to. Although, how many people pluck out all of their eye lashes and then pluck out all of their eyebrow hairs? For me, it was a complete shock, I was geared up for loosing the hair on my head, but it never dawned on me that every single hair on my body would be gone.

Almost finished the radiotherapy I have two days left on radiotherapy. So after Tuesday I will be finished. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooo! It has been seven weeks since I began. It often feels like I know nothing else. What will I do when I am finished? I am not able to walk much now. My leg is badly burned and swelling more and more each day. I can sleep by closing my eyes at any stage during the day, but I keep fighting it. I was given 5mg of sevredol (morphine) every 4 hours and 10mg of MST (slow releasing morphine) every 12 hours. But as the pain increased I have been brought up to 10mg of sevredol every 2 hours and 30mg of MST every 12 hours. It has not stopped the pain, but it is taking the edge off it, enough to be able to walk about a bit. The pain comes from different places, there is the pain from the skin which looks like it has been very badly sunburnt, but strangly it is not that sore (probably due to the morphine). Then there is the pain in the muscle, this muscle was reduced in size at the second operation and it is burning, every movement hurts. The final pain is in the bone on my leg, which I am told is also burnt.

The good part is that when I do not move my leg and nothing is touching it, I can get quite comfortable. All along the doctors kept telling me that I would be in 'chronic pain' but as the weeks progressed I started to think I was going to get away with it. The past 2 weeks have been hard work. Getting into a car hurts. Sitting in a car ....hurst.... more. Walking is almost impossible. So the process of getting to the hospital is quite painful, then walking up to the radiotherapy unit, then sitting there for up to 2 hours, then off to the clinic for more waiting. But I do not mind any of it, the pain, the waiting, none of it bothers me in the slightest. The staff in St.Lukes are wonderful. Kind, caring and considerate. Passionate about their work. Diligent in everything that they do. With an unbelievably high work ethic. I do not know how to thank them for how they looked after me. 1 more radiotherapy session to go.....

During the weekend, the pain in my leg got stronger and stronger. Last night I woke up in agony and my body was shaking. The doctor thinks it is either an infection or my body was experiencing shock. I think it might be an infection as I am on morphine. This morning, I had to visit the nurse before getting radiotherapy, she was not happy with the look of my leg so she got the doctor. They agreed that I should continue with the radiotherapy as there are only two sessions left. So I went off for therapy and after that I had to get a new prescrition for more morphine. The nurse took a swab of my leg to check for infection and then I went for blood tests. Thankfully my wonderful, beautiful, caring wife drove me. I could not have managed it. The pain is so strong at times I get the feeling I should not be driving with my eyes tightly shut. As my morphine has been doubled again, I am feeling pretty sleepy, but they are working, at times I do not feel any pain, but usually there is pain but it is quite acceptable with the morphine mask. Over the weekend their effects were becoming less and less, but when I saw my leg today without the dressing I was a bit shocked. My incision from the operations, which had healed up nicely, has now split open. It has a horrible yellow discharge. The skin is burnt to a black colour, it is puffed up and raw. It was only when I saw it that I realised why the morphine did not seem to have any effect, it is getting worse every day even on the days that I am not being radiated. I was told today that it would keep getting worse even when I am finished treatment tomorrow, for up to a week or two. But does it really matter? No, I will still be happy to be finished. The pain might get worse and I might moan a bit for a few weeks, but then it will all start to improve. I was given some local anesthetics to take home, which I can use when I need to. Because the wound is open I do not have to inject it. I don't think I could handle injecting it myself. finished radiotherapy I have finally completed the radiotherapy. I have been in constant pain since it ended.

I am on 8 times the strength of morphine I was on last week. So I am sleeping pretty much 18 hours a day. When I am awake I am only seconds from sleeping. I can't keep my eyes open, but they never stay shut for long, I wake with a fright just a few seconds later. The pain is intense. Constant throbbing. I curl up in a ball and wait for the worst pain to pass. Walking is almost impossible. Any movement is painful, but walking brings every pain out at one time. The wound is too disgusting to mention. I would not want anyone to feel queezy. (ha ha).The wound is about 24cm x 17cm which is the surface area damaged, but what is most painful is under the skin, down through the muscles and into the bone. I have to take 2 salt baths a day. because my leg is burning I cannot take a hot bath, so it is quite unpleasant. sitting there frozen in a stinging salty bath. I am sore, but happy. I will be through the worst of this soon enough and then I can enjoy the healing process. Sunday, July 13, 2008 ........ almost fully recovered The past two weeks have been an amazing improvement each and every day. The pain reduced daily, my mobility increased daily. I am now able to walk around again. I get exhausted quickly, but that is just my body recovering. I cannot believe how well the wound has improved, every day I could see a difference in it. The skin eventually began to grow, slowly closing the open wound. The constant salt baths, new dressings, burn creams, more dressings, salt baths, on and on and on, but they made a big difference to the skin's recovery.

When the time came to give up the morphine my body took a bad reaction. I went into some strange world. My skin did not fit, my muscles would spasm, my body would shake. My mind racing. It was horrible and went on for nearly a week. I ended up on sedatives to calm my muscles and stop the shaking. I had two tests done to see if 'everything was clear' or more to the point, that the cancer was gone, I got the 'all clear' from one of them and I will have the other result in the next couple of days. I now feel like I am recovering. I now feel like I have reached the end of the treatments. The next step? I am not sure.

Some of the specialists I have seen suggested that I avoid going back to a stressful job. But working in sales is stressful, I can't change that. So do I start looking at a new career? I think that this might also be stressful.

I got the 'all clear' Well, the results have finally arrived. I have now received the 'all clear' for both of the tests done on me recently. So, as of last week, I am free of any tumours. I will have the same tests done again in 3 months. Have I reached the end of my journey? I have spent the 9 months living this cancer life. Everything has been about cancer. All of my treatments have been about cancer. I have been sick. I have felt like being sick. I have lost all of my hair and grown it back again (well almost). My skin has turned a few different shades, pale, yellow and grey. Grey was the worst because I looked like the living dead. I have been happy. I have been sad. I have had great laughter. I have had tears. I have been told I am strong, yet I have only ever felt weak. Have I reached the end of cancer? Or is it just the end of a chapter? Cancer is the most awful word in the English dictionary. When you are told you have cancer, a piece of you dies that second. Your future. We live our lives, not thinking, not letting ourselves think about our death. It will never happen to me. But it did happen to me, I have to think about it, I have to realise that my future is uncertain. My heart is warmed by the lovely messages and emails I have received, friends, family and strangers. It kept me going during the tough times. Thank you.

If I can get one message to anyone reading this, here it is; If you find a lump, no matter where, no matter how small/large, please visit your doctor as soon as possible. It could save your life. If someone you know tells you that they found a lump, beg them to visit the doctor. I left it too long, the tumour grew too big, I will have to live with the consequences for that. .. .. My wife and kids are keeping very well. The have all been on a journey themselves. .. .. My wife has had to come to terms with so much. Is her husband going to die? Will she be alone? but after a while we got into the swing of dealing with and concentrating on the treatments, it is hard enough going through chemo without thinking about the future, it's a day to day existence, you might think of next week but that is considered forward planning. It was the same for my wife, she brought my girls to see me every single day that I was in hospital. We live about an hour from the hospital so it was a long trip (in the dark) at the end of each hard working day. The three of them brought a smile to my sad face each time I would see them. There were a few days that I did not smile but inside I was smiling. My girls seemed to adjust very well and very quickly to the new life of hospitals. At 10 and 13 they were old enough to understand everything, so we were honest with them. We did not give them the % chance of death or anything like that, but we let them know how bad things would get from the side effects of the chemo and radiotherapy. So nothing was a shock to them. They saw me in every stage of it, grey, white, yellow, bald, they watched as my skin sank, puffed up, wrinkled. During the days that I was at home, they nursed me, fed me, even watered me. They were constantly checking on me. In the hospital I was on 15 minute checks for a lot of the time, at home it was something similar. When the chemo ended, I started to look better, feel better, they reduced the frequency of the 'check if Daddy is alright' down to hourly checks. .. .. Things are getting back to 'normal' life now. My wife and girls are now starting to relax a bit. They even let me stay at home on my own now! The feeling of normality is a truly amazing sensation when you have spent 9 months in a surreal existence. The simple little things mean so much more. Just being home is perfection.

Today is my birthday, I am 42. It is a strange day so far. My wife has some work to do for a couple of hours. I have to do a bit of work myself. It is Saturday morning. We have not done any work on a Saturday morning since before ‘c’. I was awoken this morning hearing my wife moving around the room. I opened my eyes and she said ‘Happy Birthday’. It is a bit of a shock to me as I do not remember it is my birthday. Growing up birthdays were special to me. I have good memories of birthdays as a child, but as an adult the special feeling never existed. Once I was old enough to earn money and buy my own things, birthdays lost their appeal as I had already bought the ‘perfect gift’ for myself when I wanted it. I seemed to loose all celebratory feelings associated with birthdays. But this year is different. It is special. The gifts don’t matter, it’s the thought that matters. I was feeling quite embarrassed when I thought of the years that have passed where I probably showed very little emotion when someone gave me a gift. .. .. Waking up this morning, my birthday wishes meant so much more to me. My birthday gifts were special. The looks on my girls faces were somehow more animated to me. It did not matter what they gave me, it was the thought and effort they went to. I know that they had to work hard to find the right author, and a book I did not already have.

Time is ticking past. Last November my world came crashing down on me. A part of me died. Sometimes I feel that part coming back to life. Time is passing and as it passes I am able to begin to forget ‘c’. I will probably not be able to full forget it, but it is not always on the front of my mind. It hurts to think about it, so I try to be positive about it, but I have to keep real about it at the same time. I am eating healthier now than ever before. I am not ‘on a diet’, but I have chosen some things to remove from my diet. These things include dairy, beef, pork, in fact all red meats. I am beginning to loose some weight, but I am not trying. .. .. I am not getting much exercise. My leg bothers me when walking. I know I should just push myself harder but it hurts. My bones are hurting in places they never hurt before. My left hip is sore for about 2-3 hours a day. My feet feel like I have a broken bone in them. My chest and neck ache most of the time. My arms are constantly stiff. But I am recovering, I am getting better, I am not on any painkillers. .. .. During the last year I have met so many people with cancer. Every different type of cancer. We are all given the same label but we are not all the same. I am lucky, so very lucky. I have a cancer that has a chance of never coming back, it is not a big chance but it is a chance, that means I have some hope. .. .. Hope is such a simple word. It only holds 4 letters, yet its implications on your life are outstanding. I floated through my life with an abundance of hope. I never questioned its existence in my life. Hope offered me choices. It gave me opportunity. It had an abundance of ability for change and improvement.

Cancer is a word of only 5 letters. We all have a picture in our heads of what cancer is. We have all been effected by it in some way. We all feel that we know cancer. We throw words around like chemo, radiation, port’s, blood count, remission. But we do not have any idea what these words actually mean until it is your vein that the chemo is pumped, your body that is burned from radiation. .. .. I thought I knew chemo, until I met chemo. I thought I saw my Mum suffer the side effects of chemo, but I only saw what she could not hide. I never understood chemo until I felt it run slowly through my veins. I remember as my Mum was being sick I thought that she would feel better after vomiting, but vomiting from chemo is not like it is when you have had too much to drink or a stomach bug. There is no end to the nausea, it is there always, vomiting does not take away the feeling. Anti-nausea tablets take away some of it, but there is only so much they can do. .. .. Chemo took my strength away. I cannot compare it, I have never experienced anything like it in my life. Being plugged into it, I became like an old car battery on a frosty morning. It was like the opposite of giving someone an energy drink.

Everything was harder to do. Radiotherapy began quite easily, I had 5 weeks of recovery so I was feeling pretty good compared to being on chemo. But as the weeks of radiation went on I began to get less and less energy again. The burning became intense. The pain meds were strong.

In my understanding ‘low energy levels’ were just like being tired. In my ignorance, I thought some extra sleep would sort that out. .. .. Whilst all of this is going on, I am having to cope with the one thing that is gone, hope. Will it ever come back? Am I on borrowed time already? .. .. As a patient, we usually follow our doctors instructions, that is why most of us choose to accept the treatments. But the doctor does not prescribe how you think. They tell me to be positive, but to be realistic. Which to some means that you should ignore the cancer and continue living as before until the day of remission ends. To others it means that you should enjoy today and don’t plan too far ahead. I am not sure what it means to me, I seem to change by the day. There are good things to take from every walk of life. There are things to be learned. Moments of enjoyment. But we do learn, we understand more, we can appreciate things in a different way. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But where does the lesson on cancer become useful in life. I cannot get my 42 years back to re-live. Those years are gone. The lessons I have learned would have been amazing to know during my life before ‘c’. .. .. So I must go on, living my life, learning my lessons, applying what I can to today, tomorrow and every other day after that.

I am one of the lucky ones. So far. I have been given something that I did not want, but it could have been a lot worse. I AM lucky, seriously, I am. If you have ‘c’ then you know how lucky I am.


A STRANGE WAY TO LAY OUT A BOOK, I HEAR YOU SAY.

Yes, I began on the day of being told I had cancer, then I just kept going. I could see no reason to tell myself my history, I could see no reason to say names, but then it got to the state where we are now, tomorrow it will be a year since cancer entered my families life, I now feel able to begin to put an end to my story, so I feel I should, in true Irish style, end with an introduction.

INTRODUCTION

I cannot believe I left it so long before I introduced myself, sorry about that. I just said 'my wife' and 'my daughters' and left out their names. I wanted to write about the cancer, I needed to get the cancer seperate from me and my world.

Hi, my name is David. What you have just read is my story. I did not write it for anyone, I wrote it for me. I started to type on the day that I was told I had cancer and I never seemed to stop.

As I wrote, as the weeks passed, my life changed, my personality seemed to stay the same, but everything in my life became about cancer. It absorbed every waking moment of my day. Each day was filled with thoughts of cancer. But I kept writing my thoughts and descriptions of my days.

I never thought I would let anyone see my words, but as the weeks and months passed I felt more at ease with what was going on around me and I felt obliged to let some of my family know how I was getting on, especially as I had said I did not want to speak to people. So I blogged my story on the net. The idea of writing started to change when some people started to contact me as they had seen my blogs on the web. I had not told anyone other than a few family and friends but soon I was receiving emails from strangers wishing me well.

'My wife' is Niamh.

'My daughters' are Sorcha and Jessica.

When this all began it was November 2007. As I write this now it is November 2008. Niamh was 39, Sorcha was 13 and Jessica was 10. I was 41.

They were all too young to have to deal with cancer.

Each of us have had to deal with cancer in our own way. It has had its impact on our lives in a way I never thought imaginable. We all do our best to live as normal a life as possible but cancer is always a part of everyday life.

Niamh and myself live a 'couple' life. When we are not working we are almost always together. We spend every free moment as a couple or as a family. We have chosen to do this for years, it makes us happy and that makes us stronger. Over the years we have let friends move off into the distance, allowing us to live a free life of our choosing. We are not dependant on anyone, our fun is together. I know many couples live like that, but some will not understand.

Myself and Niamh talk freely and openly about the cancer, but we never talk about death. We do not speak of "after I'm gone". There have been times where we have had to discuss the practical side of our future. I cannot get life insurance, this means that if we choose to move house we cannot get a new policy. Actually, Niamh can, but I can't. So we had to discuss the practical reality of "if I died".

When I lie in bed, listening to Niamh breath (a gently ladylike breath, not a snore like an elephant) I think of how she will get through my death. I think of how lonely she will be. How friends and family will continue with their lives and she will be left alone. I know she will find love again because she is beautiful, inside and out. She has so many qualities that every man would be attracted to. I love her, and I would want her to fall in love again.


WHAT HAS CANCER THOUGHT ME?

I was going through life, without a care in the world. I was asleep to pain and suffering. It would be fair to say that cancer woke me up. Not a gentle waking up like on a sunny Saturday morning, but a waking that causes a shock to the system, like sleeping late on a Monday.

I can still clearly remember my consultants face on the day I was told I had cancer. I could see in his eyes that he did not want to shatter my life, but he had to.

The second I realised it was cancer the earth began to have a stronger gravity effect on me, I became a dead weight.

Every dream went. Every bit of hope went. Future became a word for others.

I cried, so hard, it hurt.

But what made me cry? Were they tears for me, for my loss? No. They were tears for Niamh, Sorcha & Jessica. What were they about to go through. If I die, how will they be? Will I get to be a part of their future?

I thought of my friends who lost a parent when we were kids. I thought of how they were changed by it.

My constant fear was to leave a wife with no husband. To leave two children with no father. That was it, I was not concerned about my death, only of who I was leaving behind.

My mind was opened by having cancer. I lost the future, but I learned to love the present.

None of us know if we will be hit by a bus today, but cancer is a bus driving towards you very quickly, it might not hit you today, but you are stuck in the middle of the road and it is going to hit you.

Spending so much time in hospital gave me a new appreciation of being home. I always enjoyed being home, but I now love it. I am grateful every day, for every day.


HOW TO DEAL WITH A CANCER PATIENT

The first thing I can say is 'deal with it'. Being told you have cancer puts you in a lonley place. Hardly anyone has the guts to visit you. You will find out who are your friends and who are just people you know.

There is only one word that you need to know, honesty. It is a simple enough word, we have all been thought about it since we were kids. Being honest involves discussing things that might be difficult to bring up, but once it is spoken about things improve for both of you.

The initial few days were impossible to get my head around, there were so many thoughts going through my head, darting quickly, positive then negative. It seemed to never end. But after the first week or so it became easier.

I built up a wall around me, I told everyone who would listen that I did not want to see anyone. I just needed Niamh and the girls in my life, I did not need anyone else.

The feeling of shame was quite strong, I still feel it a bit, but at the beginning it was unbearable. I am not sure if it was shame, but it felt like it.

If your 'good friend' is told they have cancer, they do need you, but they might give off signals that they do not need you. It is a mixed emotion.

I think being a guy might be part of the root of the problem for me, I felt 'unmanly' when I was brought to tears and I wanted to have those emotions under control before I had to deal with people. But once those emotions were no longer that fresh, it became easier to talk to people about it. So I guess some of us need time. Time to let it sink into our heads before we have to deal with people.

One of the most annoying things that you can possibly say is "you look amazing". We all know it is not true. If we look a bit better than the last time, then that is what you should say "you look a bit better than last time", not, as was said to me "you look better with no hair". If we look worse than last time, it is probably better to say nothing, unless asked, then be honest.

We feel crap, we look crap, lets just leave it at that.


HOW I WAS HAPPPY WITH CANCER


I have spent the past year in my own little cancer hell. But although I have been to hell, I have met angels, the wonderful people who work in all levels of health care.

The initial days of joining the world of oncology were some of the worst moments of my life. But there was a part of my brain that told me to continue with my education of bringing more happiness into my life.

So I began to smile, although often a fake smile, a smile made other people smile. This, I soon learned, helped me to smile without it being fake.

My days were often filled with hospitals. Sometimes there for a week, sometimes just the day. I was in for a week in every three weeks for 3 months with chemo and in every day for 2 months of radiation. The time spent with nurses, doctors, catering staff, administrators, was vast.

Many times people would say to me "you are very happy for someone with cancer".

I was not ignoring the cancer. I was not denying its existence. But I managed to get it into my head that every day is a day to be enjoyed wherever possible. So when I did not feel sick from chemo, I enjoyed my time.

There were days where I was not happy, days that I wanted to die. Days that seemed to last for weeks. Vomiting. Nausea. Pain. Meds.

These days were not kind to me. Physically I was as low as I could be brought to under chemotherapy. I felt like death. I looked like death. At times I even thought I wanted death.

When people tell you that you loose your hair from chemo, they never mention that you loose ALL of you hair. Every single hair on my body fell out. The obvious area is the head, I shaved the hair on my head off as soon as I started to see clumps of hair on my pillow. But I never though of eyebrows or eyelashes, or chest, back, legs, EVERYWHERE! Even ears and nose. With no hair in the nose, it can run like a tap. With no ear hair, balance can be a problem. With no eyelashes, eye infections appeared constantly for me.

With grey skin, no hair, rubber tube permenantly fitted into my chest for chemotherapy. Feeling like death, looking like death. I was like a combination of cartoon characters, homer mixed with shrek, with a touch of fester. Not a pretty sight. But there was still room for a smile, I just avoided mirrors, what did I need them for? brushing my hair?

I am realistic about my cancer. I am hopeful, but realistic. It is a fine art to balance the reality with hope.

My journey has been tough, but many many people go through a lot more than I have.

I have been luck enough to meet some of the most amazing people as a result of cancer, but also to see people in a different light.

I built up a wall around me when I was told I had cancer, I would not let people in, but some people climbed over that wall and I am so glad that they did. Some of my best friends knew me well enough to know that I needed some time to adjust but after a while they came back into my life. I am so happy that they did.

Sometimes, life is hard, but being happy is usually not that hard.

Happiness comes from within, we each have control over it. We choose to let it into our lives or we choose to keep it out of our lives.

I have learned that you can't buy happiness.
People can't sell it either.
It's free.
It's easy.
It's easier than being unhappy.

I am not happy that I got cancer, I am happy despite the cancer.


MY THOUGHTS

I live in a small country, Ireland. It is a little island, yet every year 20,000 people are told they have cancer.

This makes my story look insignificant, but then, thats all it is, a story, but it is my story, about my life. My tears. My wife upset. My children worried.

I am lucky. I know this to be true. Sure, I am not as lucky as those who do not get cancer, but I am luckier than many of the living heroes that I have met on my trail.

I feel like I have written a book, but it is small enough to be a booklet, I feel foolish for having written it in some ways. I am dyslexic and I think I have very little confidence in what I write and how I write it. But the story is weak, almost as weak as me. The plot is not very deep, even I am deeper than it. The complete thing is about getting through chemo and radiation, how could that be of any value to anyone? I know very few will read it. In may ways I hope nobody finds it.

I hope to find peace in the part of my mind that lived so carefree before.

I wish people could be happier with what they have got. Today is special, tomorrow is extra special.

I hope I inspire people to visit their doctor when they find a lump.


A BIG THANK YOU

The list is big, some of them are whole communities of people, some are staff in the hospitals, patients, friends and family.

Niamh, for helping me through our hard times, for being with me through every part of the journey, for your love, care and compassion.

Sorcha and Jessica, for being such wonderful daughters, looking after me, doing extra jobs, for your help and love.

Patricia, for your patience, your letters, phone calls, texts, visits, dinners, driving and injections.

Those who helped with our daily life when we had no daily life; Joe & Monica, Emer & Alan.

Tallaght (AMNCH)

Sarah - The first nurse who gave me help to take control. Without her I might not have made it through chemo. An angel, no doubt.

Judy, Rita, Kay, Fergal, Naderm, Janosh, Orla, Niamh, Una, Marrian, Jill, Nollaig, Phylis, Calista, Edel, Letecia and Victoria. each one of you made a difference every day, thank you.

James, Janice, Mirriam, Jo, Anne, Pierre, Alex - the specialists without whom it would all be pointless.

St.Lukes Hospital

Tina, Naomi, Maeve, Sandra, Colette and Eadaoin. you managed to make the un-natural seem natural,

Rob, Siobhan & Dave - for their special gifts.

Each and every person who was a part of my treatment and recovery will always be a part of my future.

My friends at;
http://ourcancerlife.ning.com/ http://myplanet.planetcancer.org/
who helped me through the recovery and will be a big part of my future.

Lori, Maggi, Missy, Mike T (& Dianne), Mel, KylieGirl, Paddy, Joe - for your friendships.


Jules - thank you for your friendship, your words, your thoughts. Our paths were not the same, but you stopped to guide me through. You were the first person to 'get' me, you understood. Your a legend.


(((EDITED MAY'09 -- Jules sadly passed away. When her sister Mindy told me, I felt a mixture of sadness and loss for her lovely family. They have been through so much, each and everyone of them. It has been such a struggle for the whole family to get through this. My thoughts are with them for their loss, for their sorrow, for their grief. I know they will not feel it yet, but what they did for Jules was the ultimate gift, love, care and respect to the very end. For me Jules (Julie to some) is a strength and a spirit, this strength and spirit lives on in those that she touched in her life. I am at a loss for words, to loose such a bright spirit makes the world look darker. )))


Each and everyone of you made a difference to my life. My days have been brighter because of you. You have all given me a gift. It is so amazing that you were there for me, at every stage of my last year there have been true heroes standing by my side. Some with the image of a gladiator and others as angels, each of you a super-hero, each of you showing true humanity.


The thanks section is usually filled with names of people who helped in the gathering of information for the book. But in this case it is thanks of a different kind. Thank you for being a part of my story. Thank you for the jobs you do. Thank you for being the wonderful people you are.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.11.2008

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
To all of the staff who work in hospitals throughout the world. For me in particular, the staff of Tallaght Hospital (AMNCH) and St.Lukes Hospital. Thank you, thank you, thank you.