Cancer 254
Posted on May 13, 2026 1 Comment
I feel I am now watching myself through the process of dying. At the moment my body is deteriorating faster than my mind – or at least I think it is! I am tempted to leave all my typing errors but this might be unintelligible.
It is difficult typing due to the severe tingling in my fingers. It is hard to read a book for the same reason. This morning I found myself sitting doing nothing except stare out of the window. I never used to do that. I do very few jobs at home now. I have not even made breakfast for weeks.
Yesteeday I phoned the Rapid Response line due to my constipation. I try and avoid phoning them.
I went to the hospice yesterday to a cancer support group, the first time evee. At least I still went with the idea of doing the supporting, rather than needing support. It had nice gardens but was unfortunately next to a dual carriagwway so was not peaceful. I often wonder wherher city folk actually hear traffic noise.
This morning I was reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. It is very realistic and helpful, noit hipeful in that meaningless way people talk about.
I am seriously considering how long I can keep on with this chemo treatment. I need to feel good at least sometimes.
Cancer 253
Posted on May 11, 2026 1 Comment
I may be entering a new phase of cancer life. This one is about waking up in the morning and wishing you hadn’t, wishing that you had died peacefully in your sleep. It is not every day – yet, but the number of times it is happening is increasing, particularly over the last couple of weeks. I improved after my last post, to the extent of getting a crip mobile and going around Chatsworth gardens, but then I have gone down hill again with these bloody tablets. The new regime is boody horrible. After a few days of the tablets I really don’t want much except death or recovery, and we know I am not going to recover. I a now on a four week cycle. Drug in hospital, two weeks of nasty tablets, drug in hospital (which is what I am waiting for now), and then over a week before the NHS takes over again.
I am hoping the next week and a half are going to be better (see – I still have my little hopes).
I am finding it difficult to type because of my neuropathy, the now severe tingling in my fingers. It is also getting harder to fasten shirt buttons and tie shoelaces. MY feet have the same problem, which creates difficulties putting shpes on and walking generally.
I still don’t now whether my pain threshold has changed or whether it is the morphine that is having an effect, but I am not sure how I bear all the things that happen, whether that is neuropathy, constipation and concomitant stomach pains, the pains from the growths which make it difficult to bend down, the inability to lie on my side, taste changes, aversion to certain smells (especially coffee), the continually breaking nails and what they catch on (I know, sounds trivial, but try having more than one broken nail a day and very soft nails – and the interaction withg neuropathy), and the general indescribable discomfort I am living with continually.
I am hoping that there will still be good days during the chemo cycle. There needs to be. If not, I don’t think it will be long before I decide to stop the chemo. We are meant to be traveling to Devon at the weekend. I hope it will be fine but I am now at the stage of wondering how far I can drive. If I get those days as good ones, then perhaps continuing with the chemo will be worth it. if not, then who knows?
Cancer 252
Posted on May 3, 2026 1 Comment
Well, this is rather unpleasant. The new treatment is starting badly, hopefully things with improve. Today is one of those days where if I was offered the gun I might just use it. Very tired, feel very sick, aching muscles, tender fingertips (actually affecting typing, which is something new). I am not eating much. OK, I have had a small bowl of cereal, a portion of egg custard and some yoghurt and raspberries. I have not really wanted any of them, but I hoped that they would make me feel less sick. They haven’t.
I have sat in my chair all day (it is 1442), and watched a couple of films as distractors. It hasn’t work too well.
Even the cats will have nothing to do with me.
As usual, I hope to feel better tomorrow.
Writing a blog hasn’t been much of a distractor either.
Cancer 251
Posted on April 27, 2026 Leave a Comment
I have just started my third cancer treatment, after the failures of the first – which worked well for over two years – and the second – which didn’t work well at all and just seemed to make me more ill. I am now starting the third with significantly increased numbers of tumours and tumour sizes. My abdomen is rather full.
I am the being treated with a combination of Lonsurf (trifluridine and tipiracil) with bevacizumab, not the easiest word to pronounce. Bevacizumab is given via my central line in hospital on day one of the new 28 day cycle. I then take Lonsurf in tablet form for the next five days, then a two day break, then Lonsurf again for five days, then back to hospital for Bevacizumab, then a thirteen day period of no treatment. Yahoo! The focus is on stopping the tumours from growing further rather than getting rid of them, and then for as long as possible. I did ask the consultant that only question terminal cancer patients are interested in, knowing full well there isn’t an accurate answer. How long? Reply. Typically 12-18 months. OK, here’s another challenge. My combined heart failure and cancer intitial predictions suggested i would die in the first half of last year. Now I should die in the middle of next year. Can I beat that? We will see. At the moment I am wondering whether I will last to the morning.
I made the mistake of reading the leafet that comes with the Lonsurf tables. Top tip, don’t bother reading this sort of thing. It is just too depressing. The list of potential (and common) side effects includes virtually everything that can go wrong with the human body, along with a few made up ones. Other people are not meant to touch the tablets, and I am meant to wash my hands after taking them. And I am putting these into my body? What are they doing there? Finally, the document suggests that the side effects can lead to death. That is a bit extreme. You don’t get that on the side of a packet of paracetamol. So taking the tablets that are meant to make you a little better might kill you? And I consented to this treatment before reading all this? Oh well, it is not going to make much difference one way or the other.
I fell asleep in hospital today, waking up to the nurses looking at me and asking if I was all right. They are not used to seeing me ill.
Cancer 250
Posted on April 22, 2026 2 Comments
I always feel that certain milestone numbers should be celebrated. I am not sure why, but we do it in society generally so why not. Here we are, the 250th cancer blog. Do I have anything new to add? I am not sure. I will proably repeat myself, but you know that is how these blogs function, with honesty and openness for the moment. When there are so many moments (so many blogs) there is bound to be repetition, so here we go.
It is very bad at the moment. My stiff upper lip is wet and soggy, my resilience is disappearing, and my almost but not quite desire for it all to be over is increasing. I have gone rapidly downhill in the last few weeks. When I am reporting this it is difficult to know what is a decline, what is just a blip, and what is my depression. I accept it is all of them, but practically I am less able to do things I could do a while ago. I am struggling to stand up from my chair. I have to think about my actions. I fell today as my arm slipped as I was rising – fortunately I fell back on to the chair. I am finding it more difficult to climb the stairs, and avoiding doing it when I can. I generally need to stop on the way up, and both ways I cling on to the banister, fearing a fall. I am constantly cold, though people around me say the room is hot. I have a blanket over my knee and a hot water bottle, and it is still cold.
Two critical areas for me are food and driving. Yesterday we drove to Worksop to a Polish bakery/cafe recommended by a Tesco cafe staff member. It was, or shouold have been, great. A choice of breakfasts, many cakes and a wide rnge of breads. I ordered a small breakfsat of ham, cheese and bread. Small? It came with eight slices of bread, four slices of ham, four of chicken, two pots of jam, a wrapped soft cheese, and salad. In the past I would have happily eaten the lot. This time I gave a lot of it away and still left some. Food generally. I am having a small breakfast (eg cereal), followed by a reasonable sized lunch, and then nothing. I am now usually having nothing in the evening. Recently the wife has had chocolate sponge and custard and I have not even eaten that (those who know me will recognise the seriousness of that). At one meal the wife ate steak and I had pasta. At another she had steak and I had a baked potato with cheese and beans. That was a couple of weeks ago when I still ate in the evening.
To make matters worse I struggled with tiredness while driving home from Worksop. Not only am I uninterested in food, I am having difficulties driving even short distances. We are now cancelling activities that involve long distances. As for driving abroad, I don’t think that is going to happen again, ever.
I am having breathing difficulties. It is not clear what it is but a blood clot is ruled out after a CT scan. I am having an Echocardiogram which will indicate if my heart failure has returned. I have constantly thought myself lucky that my heart has kept going through this cancer nonsense (I was diagnosed with heart failure two years before the cancer diagnosis). Breathing difficulties make activities like walking even harder. A couple of weeks ago I bought some slabs with the view of slowly laying them in the garden. Now I wonder how I could even transport them up the garden. Apart from the pressure hose, I have not used any of my garden tools this season, leaving the mowing to a good friend, which keeps the garden looking reasonable. The wife is preparing plants in plant pots, which also helps. I am entirely useless in the garden.
I am struggling to work on my MA thesis, not because it is difficult, but because of the amount of work involved. Fortunatley I have done a little in the last couple of days. I must try and persevere. An article on Wingfield Manor has been accepted for publication in Battlefield magazine, but I need to sort out pictures for it and I can’t possibly walk up to the manor to take pictures. It is too far and too hilly.
I am still managing most of the medical stuff, the stoma and the drugs, which can get difficult at times, especially laying out my drugs for the week.
My hallucinations are increasing. They occur mainly at night. I might become aware of people nearby, or having a conversation with somone, or something nudging my ankles, but I do get them during the day, similar but not as frequent. A common one is where I think I have something in my hand, perhaps food, but when I try to eat it it is not there. I have always hallucinated, but not at the level I now experience them.
My chemotherapy has now been stopped for two weeks. I had hoped by now that my system would have cleared enough of the poisons to make me feel a little better, as has happened in the past, but no, not this time. If anything I am feeling increaingly worse.
Is this it? I know I have thought it before and then I have recovered to some extent. But I was told at the outset that the second line treatment would not work as well as the first, and while I am aware there are other treatments I suspect they are more placebos than anything with proven effectiveness. I have always tried to be positive but I am increasingly thinking that death is positive as, in my present state of health, I sometimes feel that I can;t go on, or that it is not worth it, that I should just tell the consultant I don’t want any more treatment, just painkillers.
But then I think I am still having some good times (I won’t say days) so isn’t life worth living for those moments? I don’t know any more. I don’t know what I think, I don’t know what is right, if there is any ‘right’. Am I just starting to live for others, when I know that in the end I have to be making the choices for myself? I know people want me alive, and that is fair enough, but inside, I don’t know what is right any more. I do know that if I start to get more selfish about my choices then I am likely to die earlier.
As for my 250th blog, it is a good number to finish on – but I have no intention of finishing just yet.
Dr Nigel Hunt 