Hi, now that you've had the two big shocks first the discovery that you COULD pee Ribenna and then the big C word (stands for either Character or challenge
)
How does it feel to know that you are far from alone - I have had so many flexis they now sit me next to first timers to chat - most people get worried - oh no you ain't you can't be serious! Put that in there!!!
Then I tend to explain that a flexi is as simple as shelling Peas it is only later it gets like peeing shells!
Then you get to see the one they use for a TURBT, usually as a guy the first time you see it they already have you nailed into Gyny stirrups and if they didn't that is when you'd start running - oooooh no they won't manage that!
I've seen the most macho guys fade away like a very cold day at the pool!
The surprising thing is the lack of pain with most bladder cancer and TURs.
My bladder cancer has been pestering on for 5 years now - a nuisance and a perpetual excuse for never having headaches - ever since my radical nefrectomy in 2001 I don't have headaches they are
potential Brain Tumours but strange how a pint of water usually cures them and failing that an Asprin!
I guess when we have been presented with our own mortality, even if it is as yet theoretical, you start to imagine the worst in the
wobbly moments. I'm 60 so if I wake up in the night and my hip or thigh aches a bit I overlook the climbing fall in The Bernese Oberland 43 years ago, the ski fall in 1964, the rugby injury of 1962, the bad drop into the Congo in the 1970s, it must be
Mets to the bone but as the dawn comes up and you get up and common sense returns what you do know is that BigC may be a Challenge but a huge number of us who face that Challenge every hour of every day could give master classes in stress!
Once you realise you are not alone and that your omnipresent fear is perfectly rational and almost always unwaranted it makes managing that stress easier - it is those who don't, won't or can't talk about it who improve Cancer statistics - they die of coronaries!!
When you learn to laugh about it the stress goes and survival figures improve hugely. Kpindy Kay you are not alone we are all frightened it is just a matter of control and perspective - don't forget we are all in fact mortal but for many of us the first time we were reminded of that with any efficacy was when a specialist muttered the word Cancer at us and most of us don't remember a word of the next hour of advice and instruction
remember!
How are you now almost 8 months later?