The Cancer Chat Thread- share and care :)

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Hello everyone :smile:

, I had cancer and was away from school 2/3 of my 11th year. I'm an international planning to apply to Oxford and LSE, what's the best way to mention this in my application? Through and extra sort of reference from my study counselor/headmaster or my doctor?

My grades will be fine but I'm graduating half a year later because I couldn't fit my courseload.

On UCAS (the UK application) you don't really write about it. There's a section about disabilities and you write everything there.
I don't really know about the international application process but if you do a form, you put it in the "disabilities" section

Reply 101

Naevi

Hi, I fortunately had no cancer until now, but I´m always living with the fear of getting it.

I have a long history of abdominal problems and stayed several times at (childrens) hospital in my teenaged time, when I was 16 yrs. old, I was examined also by an oncologist (Specialist for cancer in children!) there, what was a bad and long exam, because they wanted to clear me totally up for cancer, too! He found out my intestinal cyst then, which was taken out in a bigger surgery then.

In my youth time, I was also diagnosed with dysplastic nevi syndrome, because I have hundreds of ugly looking and dysplastic nevi and moles all around my whole body, so that I had to go for regular mole checks to dermatologists since my early teenaged time (which I hated all!). I remember one dermatologist saying to my mom, "it would be no question if, but only when" I would get skin cancer and melanoma!!! Later, when I was 20 and at least by starting my education, doctors said moles would look cancerous and like melanoma, so I had to go for surgery of them, but all came back as "precancerous" or "severe dysplastic" lesions, but my fear of cancer is still very present!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 102

Tiger Rag

Well, it looks like there's a chance that my Granddad's cancer is back. :frown:

He has tumours on his spine and they have to be tested.

Reply 103

Tiger Rag

Original post by OU Student

Well, it looks like there's a chance that my Granddad's cancer is back. :frown:

He has tumours on his spine and they have to be tested.

Ugh. It's terminal and he's been given 2 years. :frown:

Anyone got any experience of this please?

Reply 104

Idle

Original post by OU Student

Ugh. It's terminal and he's been given 2 years. :frown:

Anyone got any experience of this please?

I'm really sorry to hear that :hugs:

My dad had terminal lung cancer, he was given 6 months - 1year and managed to last 11 months, if you want to ask anything feel free to PM me.

Reply 105

Tiger Rag

Original post by Idle

I'm really sorry to hear that :hugs:

My dad had terminal lung cancer, he was given 6 months - 1year and managed to last 11 months, if you want to ask anything feel free to PM me.

Sorry to hear that. :frown:

Thanks

I don't think it's quite sunk in yet. I did cry yesterday; but it doesn't seem real, if that makes sense?

Reply 106

MathsNerd1

Original post by OU Student

Ugh. It's terminal and he's been given 2 years. :frown:

Anyone got any experience of this please?

I'm really sorry to hear that :frown:

Just try and make everyday worthwhile with him as you go and I don't really like accepting how many family members have died over the years and in this past year, I think its 4 alone in this year but I still don't think I've ever accepted it as I had my exams to worry about instead and my Dad had an operation about a month ago to remove his tumour as luckily they caught it early enough, same with my Mum as well :redface:

Reply 107

Vicodin

I hate how fast things can change with cancer. My grandad was up walking then had a little pain in his back, a few weeks later he was back home in his bed in the care of marie curie nurses. It was about 5 weeks in all that it took and it's been a few years since he past.
It's horrible but that experience made me want to get into nursing and help people in anyway i can!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 108

Truflais

Original post by OU Student

Ugh. It's terminal and he's been given 2 years. :frown:

Anyone got any experience of this please?

I'm really sorry to hear about that. Slightly different but, like Idle's father, my mother had terminal lung cancer and was given 6 months to a year. She ended up living for over 3 years, so sometimes they live longer than predicted :redface:

It takes a long time to sink in I've found. Even now I can find it hard to believe.

Thanks guys

My aunt died of a rare form of lympnodes cancer last year. Three of my grandparents died of cancer. Only my grandad survives ... And he currently has cancer.

It's so scary.

I really feel for you, OP, though. My aunt died two weeks before my first exam. I had predictions of A*A*AAAb and ended up with A*ABBCb :frown:

. I also got kicked out of where I was living a day before my aunt's death. It's ruined my life and I don't even have it. It totally messes you up psychologically but I had no one to talk to.

I've lived alone since 16 and my parents and immediate family hate me because im gay and I'm not religious. I've always had to bear this burden and it sucks.

I really appreciate this thread.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 111

Tiger Rag

Original post by Vicodin

That's awful. :frown:

Good for you for wanting to help others. :smile:

My granddad's original diagnosis was sciatica and started off as walking difficulties.

Reply 112

username242140

Original post by hjradley1

And I totally agree, if people were more willing to go to the docs even over 'little things' I think it would increase detection and therefore survival rates! Docs are there for anything, even if it seems ridiculous it's part of their job :s-smilie:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

The problem, I find, that if you go to the doctors with what you think could be a proper problem they say it's not and you end up feeling like a time waster. And you do hear a lot about people being told it's nothing then dying.

I can totally understand a doctors frustration since with the Internet everyone's headache is a brain tumour but I always feel uncomfortable going to the doctor. :3

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 113

Kavoi08

My dad was diagnosed a year ago with brain cancer. The tumour was operated on immediately and they removed around half of it. Then he went through chemo and a range of different treatments, but he hasn't really responded to any of them. He just had a seizure last week, so it's getting pretty bad and therefore we're flying him out to a clinic in Germany to be closer to his mum/dad/sister. I hate it, though. Because my mum keeps on saying 'all we can do is pray' and 'lets hope he makes it to wednesday' like he's about to die now! It's not terminal so I have no idea why she keeps on acting like he has a death sentence! It's really getting to me, I think, but I can't imagine how he feels so I have no right to complain.

The worst part, I think, is the personality changes. Because of where the tumour is it's affecting his memory and senses. He doesn't get up much anymore and it hurts for him to stand up. He muddles words a lot and sometimes he just sleeps for an entire day and forgets where he is. It's almost like he's a different person entirely, and that scares the **** out of me.

Anyway, stay strong everyone. Keep on hoping and praying for the best. :smile:

Reply 114

Hype en Ecosse

Original post by OU Student

Sorry to hear that. :frown:

Thanks

I don't think it's quite sunk in yet. I did cry yesterday; but it doesn't seem real, if that makes sense?

I totally get how you're feeling. When I was a kid, my mum was diagnosed with leukaemia and she opted not to have treatment, I'm still not completely sure to this day. My dad called me down to talk to me, and he told me that she had cancer. I had a similar reaction that you did: it hit me like a brick, I just went silent, my head hit the back of the couch, and I stared into space. Didn't say anything, and my dad asked me "do you know what that means?" That's where I nodded and started crying.

Over the next couple of weeks, it never really seemed real to me. My mum never came home again, but my sister and dad visited her a few times while I was at school - I think they purposefully did this so that I couldn't come, in a way to try to "protect me" from seeing her. I think I only got to see her once in that time. Her liver had failed at that point and she was jaundiced, but you know, I never thought she was dying. I thought she was just sick, the doctors would make her better, and send her home - whenever you hear a cancer story on TV or elsewhere in the media, it's always "the doctors gave me months/years to live" and I thought that's what my mum would have. So in the few weeks, it didn't upset me much. I thought she had ages still. Into the first week, I was staying with my gran after school while my dad and sister went to see my mum and I remember asking my grandparents whether they thought I'd be able to see my mum for my birthday, which was the next week. I was perfectly happy, still playing and stuff. Looking back, I think all the adults had decided to lie to me to try to protect me from the reality of what was happening, and I never really understood what was happening as a result - my extended family all left it to my immediate family to explain to me what's going on, and my dad being super stoical (and my sister taking after him) never spoke to me about it either. So no one ever told me anything (I was 11 at the time). The most I got was the "Mum's got cancer" from my dad, and that was it.

In the interim between finding out she was dying and her actually dying, it was just completely surreal to me. I just went about my life as normal, I think the adults around me wanted it that way, it just didn't feel like it was actually going to happen. I knew it would. I knew that she was eventually going to die, but it just didn't feel real. It didn't feel like it was going to happen.

Even after a couple of weeks, it still hadn't sank in yet. My dad, my sister and I were sitting around eating dinner, had just finished and we were watching TV when we got a phone call. My dad pretty quickly got ready and said we were going in to see my mum - I thought this was just a random visit. We got to the ward she was on, and we could hear this audible moaning - I remember looking around as we walked through (you could see into some of the rooms) at all the other patients in beds, looking sullen, and I thought about how distressing it must be for the other patients. A nurse came up to us and said something to my dad before turning to me: "You must be Scott! Your mum's been asking for you." and I thought "Awh, sweet! She wants to see me!", I'm still thinking at this point that I'd walk in and be greeted by this perfectly healthy mum.

They took us to her room and I saw her - she was much, much yellower than before, but much paler at the same time, she had this nasal cannula in, another few cannulas in her arms, I can remember one IV, and she had lost all of her weight - she was super thin (and my mum was overweight for much of my life, so it was an especially big shock). I was afraid to touch her - I had never been around a really sick person before, I didn't know what to do, or what to expect or how to act, I didn't know what I was and wasn't allowed to do, so I sat there looking at her in silence. It took my sister to switch on to what was going through my head and tell me that I was allowed to hold her hand - so that's what I did. I held her hand and stroked the back of it in an attempt to make her feel better. She never moved, no reaction from anything at all, not even her eyes moved, she just lay there staring at the one spot in the ceiling moaning. The moaning started to sound like my name at one point, that she wasn't able to enunanciate the hard c and t, but was trying anyway. I still don't know if that was just my brain hearing things or if that was really it. My dad had taken her hand and pressed his forehead against hers, whispering to her. I still didn't know what was happening, but seeing my mum like this...I was crying hard. My sister decided to take us out to this waiting room that they had for grieving families to have some privacy, and my dad stayed with my mum: my sister got me to read this magazine that was there with some article about Rio Ferdinand, and that distracted me and calmed me down.

Now, my uncle (mum's brother) was always a joker. He had a very harsh sense of humour, too, very gruff. He walked through the door of the waiting room with his wife and the first thing he said was, loudly and clearly "Yer mam's deed." His wife turned round, hit him, came over to me and said "What Uncle John means is that your mum's went to sleep." So I took it literally, I thought she hit him because it was a really dark joke, and that she had literally just went to sleep is all. My memory's a bit fuzzy at this point, but I think they left to go see my dad. I was perfectly calm still, reading my magazine, thought she had just went to sleep. My sister called me over to sit on her lap and asked me if I heard what my aunty said; I nodded and was like "Yeah, she said Mum's gone to sleep."
"Mhmm...but she means that she's not going to wake up..." That's when it clicked for me and I realised that my mum had just died. Right up until that point, right up until that sentence, I didn't think she was going to die. I never understood: I was still in this wonderland of suspended disbelief, so I totally understand how you feel.

This post ended up a lot longer than I intended. It was only meant to be a paragraph or so, but it turned into a whole recount of my experience (at the same time, it was rather therapeutic for me to recount it all). What I wanted to try to share with you was that I understand how you feel right now. Your experience won't be like mine - right now it feels surreal, like it isn't really happening, and I totally understand that feeling. It's important that you understand what you're feeling is totally normal. Eventually, it'll hit you. You'll start thinking about it a lot, you might feel like it isn't fair, you'll be upset, and eventually you'll come to accept that it's happening. Obviously you'll deal with it a lot differently from me, but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone in this - other people have been through the same thing and we understand how you feel; it's a completely normal part of the process.

If you ever want to talk about how you feel with anyone. I'm here and willing to listen.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 115

Idle

Original post by OU Student

Sorry to hear that. :frown:

Thanks

I don't think it's quite sunk in yet. I did cry yesterday; but it doesn't seem real, if that makes sense?

I completely understand that and felt it myself, I maybe cried 5 times during the year he was ill, I didn't cry at his funeral in fact after his funeral we went to the pub and I sat watching the cricket laughing and joking with my friends... Then about 8 weeks after when everything had calmed down it hit me like a train, I think I was sitting at my computer and the sudden realisation that I wasn't going to see him again and that he was gone hit and I ended up punching my wall repeatedly and crying in a heap on the floor. People get hit with it at different points, some while the person is still ill, some right after they have died and others a bit later.

I remember the night he died quite well, I sat in the chair next to him and after he stopped breathing I sat with him for a bit and then went upstairs to get changed, I ended up taking my trousers off and putting my shoes on and getting halfway down the stairs in my boxers before realising just out of the sheer shock. You can't prepare for it.

People deal with it entirely differently and there is no right or wrong way, all that I can say is tell him everything you want to say while he is still lucid, I ended up having to say a lot of what I wanted while he was slipping in and out of consciousness and one of my massive regrets is that I didn't just sit down while he was mentally capable to have that conversation.

Reply 116

katehlouise

My grandad is still doing 'okay'. But he now has a carer to visit him mornings/evenings. He's getting so weak! It's horrible to see.

Reply 117

Belle-x

Original post by Idle

People deal with it entirely differently and there is no right or wrong way, all that I can say is tell him everything you want to say while he is still lucid, I ended up having to say a lot of what I wanted while he was slipping in and out of consciousness and one of my massive regrets is that I didn't just sit down while he was mentally capable to have that conversation.

This is so true. From my mums first doctors appointment to her dying, I think it was about 8 or 9 weeks so it was all really fast and I honestly never thought she would die. I remember the night she died and the days before, she was really ill and there was so much I wanted to tell her and show her photographs from our holiday a month or so before she got ill that she hasn't seen. I doubt she took it all in because she was really weak, and I don't regret it, but it would definitely be nice to have told her everything whilst she could still respond etc.

Reply 118

Tiger Rag

Original post by Hype en Ecosse

This post ended up a lot longer than I intended. It was only meant to be a paragraph or so, but it turned into a whole recount of my experience (at the same time, it was rather therapeutic for me to recount it all). What I wanted to try to share with you was that I understand how you feel right now. Your experience won't be like mine - right now it feels surreal, like it isn't really happening, and I totally understand that feeling. It's important that you understand what you're feeling is totally normal. Eventually, it'll hit you. You'll start thinking about it a lot, you might feel like it isn't fair, you'll be upset, and eventually you'll come to accept that it's happening. Obviously you'll deal with it a lot differently from me, but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone in this - other people have been through the same thing and we understand how you feel; it's a completely normal part of the process.

If you ever want to talk about how you feel with anyone. I'm here and willing to listen.

First of all, thank you for sharing your story and I'm sorry to hear about your mum. :frown:

It's nice to know I'm not alone in this. I am hoping that if dad goes to see Granddad on Sunday (as he sometimes does) I can go and see him too. No idea what to say or do though. When he had cancer before, he didn't want to talk about it all the time and didn't like being asked how he is, which made things a bit difficult. (because that's what I normally ask people anyway)

I would just like to say thanks to everyone who has replied to me over the last few days. It's nice to see that I'm not alone in all this.

Reply 119

pandabird

This is such an inspiring thread, I'm amazed at how strong you all are, you should be proud of yourself for dealing so well.

It's funny how when you're a child, cancer is this distant term, you know it's horrible and destroying but for a lot of us, it's so distant, it's something that happens to other families, but not your own. But when you're older it's comes a lot closer, and becomes very real.

One thing that this thread highlights, is the importance of getting things checked out by the doctor as early, no matter how seemingly insignificant, instead of waiting for things to get worse. Like someone else said, it would be great if they drilled that into us in school, alongside other health talks.

Another thing which my family found to be really important was having a second opinion.