Thanks bro.
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Excellent to hear!
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Feeling good? Saw your posts on FB.
Hi David. Thanks for asking. I have good days and bad days as most in my situation do. Today was pretty good.
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Hooray for the good days. Here’s to more and more of them.
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Keep 'em rolling. Hopefully you can draw some energy from the good ones
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damn dude… holy fuk
come out to my place for some weed, beer, bbq and fishin’. i’ll be proud to help fatten you up.
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Thanks friend. I appreciate the offer. Maybe when I get thru these treatments and healed up a bit.
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It’s a little cheesy and poppy and its Paul and all that
But for me once in a blue moom is a nice pick me up
https://youtu.be/NnHu-WLvY5U
If you didn’t know Sir Paul plays all the musicians except his wife.
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‘This is not the end’: Experimental therapy that targets genes gives cancer patients hope
http://wapo.st/2r2aDab
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Yeah, I mentioned something about Immunotherapy on another thread.
D_M, you might try googling immunotherapy trials.
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I’m in an immunotherapy trial for MS. So far, so good.
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Thanks bro. Yeah, immunotherapy was all the rage a few years ago as a potential replacement for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The problem is… as with all new cancer research… is that only certain cancers respond to it. Unfortunately, there haven’t been enough trials with esophageal cancer to know the benefits if any. As we’ve discussed many times here over the years, big pharma isn’t going to invest research dollars on a cure for a rare disease because there’s no financial incentive. All the money goes to breast, brain, colon, lung, etc cancer research. My beast bet at this point remains an integrated approach using conventional and alternative treatments.
Please though, continue to let me know if you come across things like this that may help. The volume of data is such that I can’t possibly read everything.
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Thanks LR. I did catch your post awhile back and it did in fact prompt me to investigate immunotherapy.
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I think the potential is great, hang in there.
Mostly I posted the article, because the chick is very cute. But yw.
How are you feeling DM?
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Thanks for asking. The past week has not been the best. I had an appointment a few days ago with my Palliative care team. Normally, these are 15 minute meetings where we discuss any needed changes to medications or devices and I’m out the door. This time I wanted to discuss a few issues and it did not go well. The primary issue is reflux I’m suffering from, particularly at night when in bed. Every 30 minutes or so stomach contents from earlier in the day come up my esophagus and choke me. Obviously, I have to jump up and clear my throat and lungs to prevent myself extreme pain or even drowning on my own vomit. Bottom line is that I’m getting almost no sleep because of these interruptions.
My hope or expectation was that there was some medication that would simply put an end to the problem, but it appears there is no such modern medical marvel. It seems there is a valve at the bottom of the esophagus (LES) that opens and closes to control food flow and mine was removed as it was part of the cancerous mass. Dr. Tom explained to me that I would just have to learn to sleep sitting up and offered to have a hospital bed shipped to my house. Not interested. The thought of sleeping in a hospital bed or even having one in my home is just a daily reminder of the severity of my illness. I know there are beds like the Craftmatic that work like a hospital bed, but those are high end cost wise and I need to squirrel away my money to live on and cover medical costs in the event I have to go on long-term disability, which will be a substantial cut in pay (60% of salary).
Aside from all this I’m still having a lot of pain from my slip and fall a few weeks ago and I fear I have a fracture. I don’t want to deal with that right now. Chemo starts back up in a week and I just can’t deal with both simultaneously. I also found out that one of my best friends growing up, Russ, died of brain cancer yesterday. He went fast. Shit like that not only saddens me, it scares me.
I’ve really beginning to feel depressed and that’s not good for healing. I’ve got to turn things around. Sorry for the depressing response.
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So sorry to hear all that.
As far as the bed thing goes, they make a lot of stuff out of memory foam now. I bet you can get something that you put on top of the bed that supports you in a sitting position.
Where do you think the fracture might be?
How long with the chemo treatments be this time?
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