Hi, Im Jonathan and so far I am a cancer survivor :)

I just wanted to tell people my story of dealing / living with cancer, I am not sure if it will help anyone but hey!

Okay, last year I was diagnosed with having cancer in my lymph nodes in my neck and throat (tonsils) and from that day on my life changed, both work and relationship wise. sadly the minute my employer found out I had cancer my contract mysteriously came to a very abrupt and immediate end, not a great situation what so ever but I have since learnt that is just the way things go sometimes.

Anyhow, The specialists at the hospital were great and pretty much every other day / week I was having tests of some kind or another and then came the operations and the after treatments (Radiotherapy & Chemotherapy). The operation itself lasted about 6 1/2 hours and it went okay obviously as I am writing this :) 

The treatments afterwards were not so great, I was lucky with the Chemotherapy as it luckily for me did not effect me to badly (just felt a tad queezy) but the Radiotherapy was a slightly different experience. I was warned that the Radiotherapy had an accumulative effect and the recovery time is pretty much the same length of time as the actual treatment period (how right they were) don't go planning any holidays immediately after your treatment ends as your just not going to feel up to it!

Because the cancer was in my neck the Radiotherapy was obviously concentrated in my neck area so this did make eating and even drinking extremely had to say the least, in fact impossible was a better description so opted for a PEG to be fitted......OMG words cannot describe that whole situation but one very important bit of advice, if you are offered a sedative or to be knocked out DO IT, I for some insane and stupid reason decided to not be sedated and it was the worst decision of my life, well that and various other not thought about decisions I have made in life! 

Okay moving swiftly on from the PEG fitting situation, the actual using of it was interesting and sometimes fairy humorous as I fairly often wore most of the meal I was supposed to be injecting. I am sure I am not the only person it happened to....or am I?

Okay, now the not so funny parts of treatment......loss of taste.....this I found to be one of the hardest parts to deal with, I know some people loose all of their sense of taste and some only part but I lost the lot, jezzz no matter what I seemed to eat it all either tasted the same or tasted metallic, and this went on for some time but slowly bit by bit I have got most / part of my taste back, the one very sad exception is that I can no longer at anything with any heat, none what so ever, if I do then it feels like I have red hot coals in my mouth and drinking copious pints of milk/water or any other liquid that's close to hand does not seem to make the slightest difference. my friends do find this rater amusing MMMmmm not so for me! 

So its now its been just over a year now and apart from the 6/8 weekly visits to the specialist and not being able to eat anything with a hint of spice I am doing okay I guess, I try not to think of the whole cancer thing too much as life has a way of not making you feel too sorry for yourself for long. life goes on as they say, and it certainly does, bills need to be paid and I am now at the point of looking for new job opportunities and realising I have changed more than I thought.

I am not sure if I can say there was any real plus side to having cancer apart from loosing loads of weight, which I am constantly reminded by people who awkwardly say it as if it makes the whole having the cancer thing and going through the various treatments not such a bad thing....it does make me laugh though..........if I had my choice I would have rather still been a bit (lot) tubby and not had it at all.

So that's the story so far, I am looking for work as I write this and thinking what can I do these days, realising my CV reminds me of someone I was but who I am not now really!

I hope someone reads this and finds it of some help, if not I apologise in advance for wasting the 10 mins of your time its probably taken you to read this rambling post, either way if your a patient then chin up who ever you are, your not alone so never feel that you are. and if your living with or know someone with Cancer just be there for them. 

I appreciate its not always easy so say or do the right thing and its normal to feel helpless but don't ever feel guilty its not your fault, As Mr Gump said " Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get" or something like that!

Actually that just reminded me I cannot eat chocolate anymore either, ****** I had forgotten about that!

Anyhow Bye for now, 

love & happy thoughts

Read more at www.cancerresearchuk.org/.../yeehaa