Pre-cancer. I’d have felt the achievements cycling as massive but I’ve since realised there can be far greater life achievements, just they tend to be not as easy to hear or talk about (unless there’s a happy ending). I expect these happen alot behind closed doors. So I’m going to do the opposite and air mine before I die. I’ve already posted the rare stable times I had in my on going hospital stay (times which I used to full extent). Here’s the other side.
Thanks to all those who read this, as always please don’t go straight to the like button and much better add a relevant comment instead. So I’ll summarise the key stats and then the challenge/ journey which I’m to come out the other side of.
- Hospital duration and counting 27 days
- Proportion of time spent in pain over that time 70 percent , around half of that extreme.
- 10 percent in extreme tiredness and dehydration
- Weight loss around 4kg
Treatments so far:
- Sigmoidoscopy whilst it was going to be more panful than normal given my bowel wasn’t and couldn’t be emptied. To make the procedure quicker I chose no pain relief and partly as and the pain made little difference on top of what I was already in
- One full enema leading to extreme sickness for the next day to flush stomach out
- Meds to counteract pain (but often unable to) included. Continual IV paracetamol at max or near max daily dose. Same for buscopan, slow release morphine. Fast acting morphine as required. Often 10 ml at night. Or faster acting , more powerful through an injection site. Fluid IVs and feeding tubes used and now permanently in place ahead of operation.
- Several CT scans with contrasts. One causing a temperature spike raising my temperature from 36 deg to 38 deg within 5 minutes.
So my victory
Well I’m still here fighting to live and get better. My quality of life had gone so low I even wanted to give up near the end on a couple of occasions. The duration of pain and intensity was the toughest I’d experienced (and I already have alot of experience here…). In reality I’m only part way through this challenge which will involve a further operation and 2 weeks in hospital before further recovery at home.
My reward will be a mixed one. In the meantime the cancer inside me has grown, I’ll be somewhat “more” terminal and the next health challenge unlikely to be far away. However to get some sort of quality of life back in the near term and quality time with family will still be a great reward and worth it.
The most successful challenges rarely happen alone. Massive thanks to my wife for being such a rock and keeping me strong. Also to my mum, dad and sister for your visits and strength. Also to our friends who enabled my family to visit alot by looking after my children. Thank you all.
I sit here about to have significant surgery and ileostomy (to all intents permanent), which will make diet and toilet breaks very different. I’m not quite as apprehensive as I would otherwise be thanks to this recent life challenge which seems to make all my cycling and running challenges feel quite insignificant in comparison. Due to scale and importance.
Thanks all Glenn aka #glennthecancerwarrior
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