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I'm Carole, living in London, happily married and mum to two amazing boys.I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Rectal Cancer in April 2010. Surgery took place in November 2010 and I now have a permanent colostomy...Spinal mets were then diagnosed in October 2011...In January 2012 I was told of further spread to the hip area (multiple lesions)..My life expectancy is now 6-9 months. Walk alongside me on the last part of my experience with this..

Wednesday 23 June 2010

My sore bum !!!

Update from Radiotherapy yesterday as promised......

After my zapping session I met with my consultant Dr L. We discussed the sore areas and in particular the two patches that are having trouble healing at the moment.
He had a quick peep and said 'Oooooh, now THAT looks very sore and uncomfortable' (that's what you call an understatement!).

We then had another chat about the way forward, he said we could delay treatment for a week or a fortnight BUT feels that the skin may well flare up again more or less immediately as soon as we start again - or we could continue and see how things go for another week and try to get through the remainder of sessions if possible THEN let the skin heal once all Radio sessions are finished.

I decided that I will continue for now and we'll review in a week to see how the skin is doing with regard to repairing itself.

Dr L suggested that the aqueous cream is not helping enough so to try using Sudocrem instead and maybe a bit of neat Lavender to see if that helps.
So last night I bathed the area in a strong salt solution, plastered it with Sudocrem and dabbed some Lavender oil onto the non healing patches - managed to get 4 hours sleep before the awful stinging pain started again then got up for a while, took more painkillers and smothered the whole area with more Sudocrem.
Will stick with this routine for a few days and see if there's any improvement....keep your fingers crossed for me :-))

Today the weather is lovely here again, totally blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Temperatures expected to get up to about 27c and continue for the rest of the week. About time we had some sunshine that lasted more than a day at a time :-)
Anyway we have to make the most of it in London because Wimbledon tennis has now started and it's impossible to think that it WONT rain by next week - it's traditional to rain during Wimbledon and disrupt the whole thing!

Today is also the day when we find out if England are heading home from the World Cup!
Yesterday the French were on their way home after failing to go through to the next round - the French FA sent them home economy class (LOL - I personally think that's great and should England lose tonight I reckon we should send them back on RyanAir and charge them for the flights)...
Rab's still optimistically hoping against all odds that Algeria manage to pull off a miracle and qualify for the next round.

Lastly Manolis, bad luck for Greece last night - you hung on in there for a while but unfortunately it's all over for you guys now :-(
On a positive note, thought your Goalie did really well ...

4 comments:

  1. Well done the England boys, finally remembered where the goal is, if you listen to the press apprantley we'll win the world cup now.... Have to laugh as we are sooooooooo fickle. Mum, got everything crossed that the pain starts to ease off a little, don't give yourself a hard time about getting upset, you have dealt brilliantly so far (not just saying that coz i'm biased either). Don't worry about Rab, he knows whatever he says won't be right but just trying to be positive for you. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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  2. Sorry you are having a tough time of it...I got off light in comparison!!!

    The frustrating thing is there is no alternative so losing control of your body and the nuclear sunburn is the only option. :-(

    Just had a look around and there seems to be a number of articles on Aloe Vera, Manuka Honey etc... there is a cream which is a combination of both called 7 Cream (not to be confused with Boots No7 :-) )

    Here are a couple of links:

    Story of a lady and how she dealt with cancer and its effects, mentions aloe vera too...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3136141.stm

    A cancer research page on aloe - obviously the cancer research site doesn't like to commit or endorse products although they seem to quite like this...

    http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/about-cancer/treatment/complementary-alternative/therapies/aloe-vera

    I have emailed you a link as didn't want to put it on here... tells a ladies struggle with radiotherapy burns one statement stuck in my mind "If I was feeling this bad, think how the cancer cells must be feeling" She stuck with it and also shows pictures of how it reduced after the treatment finished.

    Speak soon.

    T x

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  3. Tony, sometimes it truly amazes me how in tune we are with regard to ideas/treatment plan etc. I think I was supposed to find you to help me through this and it helps me so much that you are ahead of where I'll eventually be.

    With regard to Aloe Vera and the 'in tune' comment above, you'll soon see why I said this on my next post :-)

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  4. James, let's hope they STILL remember where the back of the net is by Sunday eh!

    Good luck to England - simply because I know it matters to James and others who always believe 'this is their year' :-)

    Talking about fickle...yesterday Dafoe was a 'hero' today he's a 'wanted man' (he's being charged with talking on his phone whilst driving back in October..you'd think that could have waited til he came back really)...

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