About a year and a half ago, my older brother went from Stage 0 Cholorectal cancer to Stage 4. Just like that. After about a year of what seemed to be rigorous and at times torturous rounds of chemo, of all days, on my birthday, February 26 of this year, he was basically told that his cancer is in remission, and the cancerous tumor has been shrunk down to nothing. Don't get me wrong, he is still very high risk of return, especially if he doesn't keep up with maintenance, which is still every other week like his chemo was. With his chemo, he went in every other Tuesday, was hooked up to a chemo IV for a couple of hours, and then sent home with a pack and pump that did like a slow drip or injection, that was timed to run out about a certain time on Thursdays when he would just about be at the oncologist to be disconnected. Mainetnance to prevent a reoccurance or flair up also happens every other Thursday, but only for a short time, and not nearly as potent as the chemo.
My brother, and being a witness to his treatments had some very tough times, BUT as a reminder, other folks have been through this, and others will. One day I could be one as well. There ARE an awful lot of survivors out there, and my brother WAS written off at Stage 4. My brother is doing much better these days.
One place where my brother still suffers, was that when being questioned by his physician about general health, changes, things of the sort, would not tell his physician about a growing numbness in his extremeties, such as fingers and toes. Nueropothy, I think that they call it, and is a known side affect of Chemo THAT CAN OFTEN be minimized, and possibly even avoided with medications. My brother got in his mind that he didn't want to take anymore chemicals into his body, so he didn't say anything, and by the time that he did, there is and was some sugnificant nerve damage done that he is now trying to reverse through things like Vitemin-B and ??? Also, there are some mood swings attached as side affects of chemo.
In my brother's case, he also has an inherited gene that is passed down to females that often causes their boys to go blind, that somehow missed me. I won't go into it in detail, but its a degenerative eye disease called "Rhetonitus-Pigmentosa" where the optic nerve basically goes away to at least a point where blindness sets in. That's my brother, and studies somehow seem to link the increased posibility of Choloectal cancer. How does that happen? Who knows, but its another dart tossed at my brother, darts that it seems will never stop...therefore never ever let up on preventive maintenance for one second.
Jennifer, may God bless you always, and keep in mind that over time, they seemed to have documented that there is a direct correlation between cure and mental attitude. Obviously, not always. HOWEVER, it seems that with a positive and upbeat, fighting attitude, the human brain must trigger the release of some chemicals, enzymes, whatever...that help isolate and fight off cancer.
JENNIFER...JENNIFER...JENNIFER...my brother was STAGE 4, and its only been about a half year, but so far each of his bimonthly tests seem to show that he is doing not so bad, and actually pretty good. He had another one today and I need to call home to see how it went for him.
My fingers are crossed for you and my brother. ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, UPBEAT AND WILL NOT BE DEFEATED FIGHTING ATTITUDE. Something we had to remind my brother of along his journey...easy for me to say as a witness, not the survivor. Easier for me to say.
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Today's Featured Article - Identifying Tractor Noises - by Curtis Von Fange. Listening To Your Tractor : Part 3 - In this series we are continuing to learn the fine art of listening to our tractor in hopes of keeping it running longer. One particularly important facet is to hear and identify the particular noises that our
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