Losing the battle? NAY!!!

[James England]

By the way, Cruiser, my mother developed bowel cancer 12 years ago and, after no treatment other than surgery to remove the section of bowel, she lived another 10 years, completely fine. She attributed the return of the cancer to the shock of driving her car through her house because she got her feet mixed up on the pedals! Maybe she was right but she lived until she was 78 years old. Not a bad innings, as they say. Keep your hopes up, it's not always a death sentence these days and certainly wasn't for my mum who had a whole decade of life after the first diagnosis...

My mum had been on a diet for years..now that was a battle for her....and towards the end, she indulged in previously forbidden things like chocolate, Guinness and candy. When she received a phone call from the organiser of her local Slimming World to ask how she was feeling, she said, guiltily, "I don't think I've done too well on my diet this week, Sarah"..... It had all of us, including my mum, laughing our heads off! Even at that stage of things, she could laugh and we with her.

[b.walker5]

James, everybody deals with cancer in their own, very personal way, and there's no right or wrong way. Some choose to face it head on and shout if from the rooftops, others choose to withdraw and suffer quietly in the shadows.

From my own experiences, first being a parent of a child with cancer, and then a sufferer myself, I can tell you, firstly, that its no picnic, and that from the win or loose perspective, when my daughter beat it, we all felt like winners, but we definitely knew that if she hadn't of, all the emotional 'feel good' pep talks in the world weren't going to stop us feel like we'd lost the battle.
And now that I'm fighting the battle, and make no mistake, it is a battle, and I'm definitely in a fight, my family is having to deal with the same thing all over again. For me, I'm just getting on with it, as my daughter was, but the battle is mostly being fought by my family, for they are the true winners or losers in this.

[James England]

Yes, a personal thing and no right or wrong way. In any event, it's no picnic, as you said. For my girlfriend, the chemotherapy was the worst bit...