Dreamy Warrior

Many people use "fighting", "battle" and "warrior" in relation to cancer patients. I dislike these terms because we didn't choose to go into battle, and fighting is exhausting. It also makes it sound like when we succumb to our disease, that we lost the fight. Like we didn't try hard enough. Or worse, when some choose to stop treatment, that they're giving up. And that's the crossroads I'm at now. I've got appointments with my palliative nurses, surgeon, oncologist, GP etc to talk about my decision and what their opinions might be. I'm lucky that my family understand and fully support whatever I choose. The same with my fellow cancer patients/caregivers - the support I have is overwhelming, really. It makes me feel like I'm not giving up, I'm merely just tired and it's OK to want to sleep.... forever. I worry I'll be in pain but I'm already in pain now. Great discomfort and pain and inability to get a g...

You hear it all once you get diagnosed. "Take it one day at a time." "Make the most of every day." "Everyone is different." "Thoughts and prayers." "Get well soon." When you get diagnosed stage 4, sometimes people start talking about you in the past tense.... to your face. "You were such a good friend." Excuse me, what? These aren't my lone experiences. Since starting my own support group for young people with gastric/esophageal cancer, I've seen how none of us are alone in our experiences. Despite being alone in our respective lives. Most of us have great support networks. Friends and family. Some have amazing doctors and specialists. But where is the rest of the support that you see for cancers like breast, leukemia, lymphoma, melanoma... etc. GI cancers are not sexy and nobody wants to talk about them - chalking them up to be "old people's cancer". Oh they've lived their life, it's sad but ...

There are too many variables up in the air when it comes to most cancer treatments. Some are lucky and have localised cancers which can be cured with surgery or radiation. Some are less lucky and need to undergo chemo/radiation to shrink the tumours before they can have surgery. Some are even less lucky, like myself, who are given little opportunity for 'cure'. Just because the cancer decided to take the party outside the stomach and into distant lymph nodes, liver and bone. At least that's what the last CT scan showed - that there is more metasteses BUT we are shrinking them with chemo. So we're buying me some time. I still feel like shit on chemo but this round has so far been more tolerable. I'm staying on top of nausea better - though I'm getting this weird "ball" sensation stuck in my mid esophagus. Some burping tends to relieve it but it's a strange spot for gas to get stuck. Not to mention I overate at dinner and was miserable all night ...

This month is apparently stomach cancer awareness month. Did you know about stomach cancer before I got diagnosed or whatever reason you've come across this blog? Did you know anything about it? Did you know the ribbon colour for it is periwinkle? Did you know that most people don't get diagnosed until it's a late stage? There are so many different kinds of stomach cancers - you'll hear about them in support groups. Diffused gastric adenocarcinoma. Linitis Plastica. Signet Ring Cell Carcinoma. And sometimes if you're lucky like me, you have a little bit of all of the above. Mainly the first kind- diffused poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. It translates to "You're fucked." They say one of the symptoms of stomach cancer is nausea. What the fuck? People get nauseated often - they don't automatically think "Oh shit maybe I have stomach cancer." I didn't show any major symptoms until March of this year when I started getting a pain...