Just got home tonight after spending the last few days in Denver. My best friend has been battling melanoma for over a year now. He's gone through a year of immunotherapy and just had a second surgery to remove additional lymph nodes, an additional melanoma site and a biopsy. It's been a roller coaster of emotion for me the last few days and just needed to vent.

We've known each other for over 20 years, grew up in the same area of Colorado at the same time, he was my best man when I was married, is the godfather of our daughter and we've spun wrenches together, shot together, hunted together and raced together. It hits very close to home for me.

I've also got a really hard time dealing with this due to my job as an ER nurse. When we see cancer patients in the ER, it's usually bad, close to the end or something has gone horribly wrong. That's my perception of cancer and fortunately it's not his reality. Even with all he's been through, they still consider it to be stage 3 and treatable.

So I spent the last 6 days at their house fixing dinner for the family, picking the kids up at school and getting them to archery practice. But mostly sat in the living room with my friend and watched reruns of all the car shows on Velocity channel and lots of B-grade westerns on the Starz Western channel while talking cars, trucks, guns and archery.

I'm guy, an ER Nurse and an Architect in my former career. I see a problem I want to fix it and this is something I just can't fix.

Prayers sent for you, your friend and your family and friends.

FUCK CANCER!!! My Mother-In-Law is currently being treated for Mesothelioma in Boston. She's a trooper and fighting her ass off. But DAMN. TSM11 has been working her ass off too, spending her days off plus vacation time travelling between home (Florida) and Boston to be with her Mom and give her sisters a much needed break. It sucks being here home alone and not being able to fix it. Like you I am a fixer. I am a mechanic by trade and am used to being presented a problem to solve. I feel so useless and quite frankly, helpless. THAT feeling sucks. I sincerely wish I could do something, ANYTHING to help. But it's out of my hands.

Another shitty aspect of this horrible disease is that it is affecting a NON-stereotypical MIL. She accepted me with open arms and has treated me link a long absent, returning son. I love her like my own.

I will keep you and yours in my prayers.

I've got a good friend in the oncology ward right now with lung cancer in his lungs, liver, and cervical spinal cord. His oncologist ssuggests he's got a "few weeks." He's tough and looks good. I think he'll go a lot longer.

We need some widespread prayer to the Holy God to wipe this friggin disease out.

Well, you are right, CANCER SUCKS!!!!!!
I have survived brain cancer, the same kind of cancer that killed the late Senator Ted Kennedy. But the aftermath of the disease has affected ever aspect of my life. I used to be a athlete in a Bog-10 university. Now, for all practical purposes, I am a cripple, had difficulty walking 2 city blocks with a friend last evening.
Cancer sucks.
I will keep your friend in my prayers. And hope that he recovers soon.

Yep!
Today is a year since Tony, my old partner died of brain cancer.
Talked to his wife this morning. It's still hard.

However, my wife is going out this Friday with her best friend. She beat ovarian & brest cancer.

No rhyme or reason behind that shit... the one common factor is, how the title of this thread so succinctly put it: Cancer Sucks!

Yep, sucks big donkey balls.

One of my sisters just had a double mastectomy. She was diagnosed 2 weeks after coming to visit me while I was going through diagnosis and kidney biopsy for an autoimmune disease. They found 2 small lumps, does NOT appear to have spread to lymph nodes. However now they've found a defective gene marker that gives her a 70-80% chance of stomach cancer, so she'll be having her stomach removed soon. Our parents are being tested for the gene to see if the rest of us need to be tested or if my sister is the first generation of that defect. Sucks for her kids though, they have a 50% chance of having that marker and needing to get their stomachs removed before cancer sets in.

It sucks big time. My daughter has breast cancer. She had to do chemo while she was pregnant, then the radiation after the baby was born. On Monday they operated to take out the chemo tubes. She has a positive attitude and the baby has brought a lot of joy to her life. We just go day to day hoping she will get cancer free. She had a mastectomy on one side, they didn't want to do both unless absolutely necessary.

2000Z-71,

I have sent you an email and the package insert for a newer monoclonal therapy for melanoma to your personal email.

Mike

I couldn't agree more. It sucks big time.

I spent all of 2016 fighting it myself and I'm still too weak to rack the slide on my 3" 1911's.

The thing that strikes me the most, is how hard it is for the families and close friends of the patients. I felt so sorry for my wife and what she went through and how much pressure she was under to help and support me through the whole process. At this point I'm now cancer free, however the doctors say it is a high possibility it will show up elsewhere in the future so my wife thinks about that everyday. Yep, it sucks all right, but not just for me.

I wish your friend and his family the best. Thank God we live in a time that allows for cancer to be defeated at a higher rate than ever before.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
I couldn't agree more. It sucks big time.

I spent all of 2016 fighting it myself and I'm still too weak to rack the slide on my 3" 1911's.

Yeah, it's amazing to me how weak the chemo makes you. I don't have cancer, but do have an auto-immune disease that requires me to alternate between very high doses of chemo and steroids every month. Just finished the first month of chemo, and it wiped me out. I was sleeping 18-20 hours a day, and am very weak, hard to even stand up from sitting, and I learned not to crouch down, have to put a knee down to stand back up afterwards. LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Kadin:

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
I couldn't agree more. It sucks big time.

I spent all of 2016 fighting it myself and I'm still too weak to rack the slide on my 3" 1911's.

Yeah, it's amazing to me how weak the chemo makes you. I don't have cancer, but do have an auto-immune disease that requires me to alternate between very high doses of chemo and steroids every month. Just finished the first month of chemo, and it wiped me out. I was sleeping 18-20 hours a day, and am very weak, hard to even stand up from sitting, and I learned not to crouch down, have to put a knee down to stand back up afterwards. LOL

My problem stemmed from the fact that my body had a very negative reaction to the particular chemo I was getting. Regretfully it is the only chemo that works well for the type of cancer I had so they started with a full dose, then they had to reduce it to 3/4 of a dose, then to 1/2 dose which made me to be on it for a much longer period than normal. All of that and getting radiation every day for 2 months.

Again, getting back to the point I want make on how hard it was on my family, especially my wife. The only thing that made me want to cry was watching her trying so hard to support and help me through it all. That really sucked.

As a side note, the weakness I've had to endure forced me to buy a P938 to replace the Sig Ultra as my primary EDC pistol. Bummer, huh.

Jim

I lost the most important person in my life when I was 12 to cancer....my Dad.

If I could be granted any wish I wanted it would not be money or some other riches. It would be to end cancer.
There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of him and it's been almost 50 years...

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:

quote:

Originally posted by Kadin:

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
I couldn't agree more. It sucks big time.

I spent all of 2016 fighting it myself and I'm still too weak to rack the slide on my 3" 1911's.

Yeah, it's amazing to me how weak the chemo makes you. I don't have cancer, but do have an auto-immune disease that requires me to alternate between very high doses of chemo and steroids every month. Just finished the first month of chemo, and it wiped me out. I was sleeping 18-20 hours a day, and am very weak, hard to even stand up from sitting, and I learned not to crouch down, have to put a knee down to stand back up afterwards. LOL

My problem stemmed from the fact that my body had a very negative reaction to the particular chemo I was getting. Regretfully it is the only chemo that works well for the type of cancer I had so they started with a full dose, then they had to reduce it to 3/4 of a dose, then to 1/2 dose which made me to be on it for a much longer period than normal. All of that and getting radiation every day for 2 months.

Again, getting back to the point I want make on how hard it was on my family, especially my wife. The only thing that made me want to cry was watching her trying so hard to support and help me through it all. That really sucked.

As a side note, the weakness I've had to endure forced me to buy a P938 to replace the Sig Ultra as my primary EDC pistol. Bummer, huh.

Jim

I'm sure radiation is no help either when it comes to side effects. Luckily I don't have to do that.

Unfortunately I'm taking about 12 times a 'normal' dose of the chemo drug. Luckily it's oral not IV, so I can easily take it all at home. But the side effects are significantly worse than they would normally be. And I take pretty high doses of diuretics (which has it's own side effects) and supplements and several anti-infection and other supporting drugs and a blood thinner shot every day. I think I'm up to 14 different meds I have to take daily, some twice a day.

I live alone, no spouse or kids, no family nearby, have had to rely on friends for help as necessary, and they've been great! One came to my house at 5am to take me to the emergency room on a Sat.

Today I stopped taking chemo and switched back to the massive steroid dose for a month. Down to around 8 times a normal dose instead of the 16 times normal I was on the first month. Hopefully the side effects won't be quite as bad.

We thought we had beaten the endometrial (ovarian) cancer my wife was diagnosed with in September 2015. We did all the right things, but this past October the wife had major issues on her right side so off to the ER. Twenty minutes after the cat scan was completed the Dr. came back and reported that there were masses on her right lung and liver where her previous cancer had spread to. After three chemo's, the PET scan shows shrinkage and we are about to get another PET scan after the chemo on the 30th. However, the wife is now going through hand-foot syndrome where chemo leaks to both locations and creates swelling, pain, and blistering on the bottom of the feet and hands. Think second degree burns. She will probably forego the next chemo and see if there are any plan Bs from the Doctors. It just plain SUCKS! To say it nicely.

Cancer sucks ass!

Lost my mom 7 years ago, my FIL had a brain tumor removed a week ago and we find out tomorrow how much longer he has (they already said he was terminal) and I found out last night that a really good friend just lost her fight.