ElGato

Hi Robby you don't know me. I've been a lurker for ages and have been reading your thread and mostly battling my demon alcohol from the sidelines. I am a cancer 'survivor' currently in remission. My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to and your loved ones. Buckle up and get ready for the fight, literally of your life. If you haven't already, check out the website:
CANCERactive, holistic cancer information
There is lots of amazing info and research data. I went to see Chris Woollams at a live seminar last year and his attention to detail and experience was quite literally life changing for me.
Wishing you all the very best and I will be cheering you on from the sidelines.

EG xx

PS: Hair is so over rated!! Life is much easier without it - and I'm a girl!

RobbyRobot

Thank you ElGato for the site. Looks awesome. And glad to hear you're a survivor in remission.

Yes. Buckle up for sure. And thanks for the support and encouragements.

RobbyRobot

Hey peeps.

So, I'm just this afternoon actually feeing less nauseous and I'm feeling higher energy. It's been a rough three days since Monday. I'm also down to one dilaudid every 12 hours. Monday I was taking as prescribed 2 every four hours. I expect to be finished tonight and nothing thereafter. Sweeet!

I've managed to eat some vegetable soup late last night, and just now some chicken noodle soup. I'm still downing my nourishment drinks, and without using a friggin' straw too, lol. I tried some yogurt. No joy there. I like yogurt too, so go figure. Last night I had cold sweats with some horrific dreams about my cancer. Let's just say, in the dreams I wasn't winning, you know? I felt depressed on waking. So I got out of bed around 8am and forced myself to do some required financial paperwork. I'm feeling better this last hour or so after focusing on something besides myself.

Melissa spoke today with the cancer center's help group about availability of individual and immediate family counseling. They have a lot to offer us, so we now have that initially covered going forward. And of course, all the support gang here at SR are the best of the best! Damn right!

I have been in deep touch with my mortal fears of dying from my cancer. I do my best to stand my ground and let my fears just pass through. Although I'm not running, I'm beaten down to my knees since Monday, and I don't like the feeling that goes with all that useless noise. It is what it is, and I know its best to have some kind of healthy respect for my mortality. No dynamic respect of my situation would just be a textbook example of being a severe dumbass.

Even though I'm dreading what the PET scan this Friday will reveal on the spread of my cancer, its essential information to fully personalize my treatment plans. I really need that baseline established asap. I don't mind saying my core guts of what makes me me are hurting something awful. No matter, it will be what it will be and there is nothing for it as yet except to get it done and behind me.

courage2

Just stay as honest as you can and remember to ask for help when you need it, or just cry out that you need to be reminder that we're rooting for you. We are, 100%. (((Robby)))

You're helping me & probably a lot of people by showing so much bravery and plain good sense as you deal with cancer. Thank you.

SoberLeigh

You continually amaze me, my friend.

(and what courage said)

RobbyRobot

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Melissa warmly gifted to me last Christmas a signed original published 1923 edition of collected poems by Robert Frost. His signature reads 1927 Amherst, which is a college in Massachusetts where he taught at off and on for more than forty years. A prized possession. Thought I'd share one of my favorites.

Della1968

I've always loved that.

trachemys

I wonder if the sweats and dreams are from coming off the dilaudid?

Great to hear you're eating! That's where the energy boost is coming from. Happy for you.

RobbyRobot

Possibly Trach. Although I've had cold sweats at other times for other reasons while not taking any narcotic. I've always tolerated narcotics pretty well when I abused or when I took them as directed. They've really never compared to how alcohol lays me out for the count.

I think it's more about unprocessed cold fears. I'm scared, and I'm not ashamed to freely admit as much, yeah? No sense in being brave if eradicating my cancer is a cake walk. I'm holding my own, sure enough. I think only a fool wouldn't be fearful. I know I cried today. Felt damn good those tears melting on my cheeks.

Yeah! Its great to be eating again however slowly.

alphaomega

Life is scary my friend.

In the best of times, I still have anxiety about my eventual demise. A mere car ride on the highway, often renders me into a giant ball of goo.

None of us gets out of here alive.

But, we are all in this together. All of us. Connected by a very common and tattered thread. Our mortality.

Lenina

((((Robby))). Did I ask you this before? Have you tried hypnotherapy to cope with fear and anxiety? It's helped me. I use self hypnosis tapes. of course, they work best with twice daily use. I used to get the cold sweats with anxiety. Still do from time to time. Mostly it's short lasting bursts. Do try the counted breaths.

BBL. love to you. Xxoo

LeeLee

RobbyRobot

Hi Lenina. Hypnotherapy isn't effective on me. I stay aware and present, and very much in the moment. When the sessions ended, I could speak to what I was told to forget, lol.

I'm thinking my defenses are just too dynamically organized to allow myself to be open to suggestions which are supposed to be placed just under my awareness. Whatever the reasons, I'm not a candidate. Thanks for the mentioning of such though. Its good sense to be open to all workable scenarios.

Dee74

I wish it worked on me too Rob.
Can't help good luck, huh? LOL

D

courage2

Serious practice of diaphragmatic breathing is good for handling pain and anxiety. A yogi would say it's good for almost everything. It isn't the same as "belly breathing." It got me through unmedicated labor and childbirth.

Della1968

I can't be hypnotized either. Have tried it many times. Many people have great results with it though.

Aellyce

I love this

So,Robby, what are those "two worlds"? Reading Robert Frost here reminded me of many, many dilemmas in my early life especially, but I still have them in different forms. About "two worlds" and the challenge to integrate them, and to make good decisions in a particular situation, to hopefully make the best of it.

I also very much relate to the whole "road not yet traveled" thing. VERY MUCH. Code of my life, I should say. I don't know how many times I felt compelled to start new things... sometimes just new ways of perceptions... and it seems like I never have enough of this

Have a peaceful night if you can, my friend

RobbyRobot

Yeah, the two last stanzas really brings it home for me:


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


This really speaks to my appreciation life is about making choices which often enough thereafter precludes other choices previously available for the choosing. I'm very enthusiastically grateful with how life doesn't take orders from me. Rather, my being a servant to life is a far greater endeavour than anything I could ever selfishly master from my own sorry machinations desiring to control my fates.

Aellyce

Just an intuitive "diagnosis", forgive me if it's way incorrect. You strike me as someone who could have potentially intimidated a lot of the academic world... imagining that you were born into that world and followed that track of education.

Other area, maybe I'm projecting... but I grew up in a family where no one had higher education in my generation. I was the only one who went to college even. I recognized my intellectual interests very early in my life, and I had opportunities to seek out that sort of social connection already when I was a young child... but because I had very minimal external control, I also got into the "street life" very young, in my teens. So I grew up "in two worlds" in this context, and many other contexts

Robby, have your read works from Herman Hesse? Not an author I would recommend now, as I think he remained quite immature... but I loved him in my youth.

courage2

Robby -- something in Haennie's posts and a conversation I had with a good friend made me think, I don't actually know a whole lot about you. Like, where do you call your hometown? What's the view out your window now? Do you play cards -- and if so, poker, gin, or bridge?

I'm in your story for the long haul, or that's my plan anyway. Years and years and years more of it. So when you're up to it, I'd love to hear you start filling in some details, my friend.

Della1968

I hope he plays poker I love poker!