This is my battle, your advice is NOT welcome.

Tags

chemotheropy, journey, Listen, silence, support

I don’t want to hear how well Peggy Sue is doing,  I know she is doing better than I was at that point in recovery, but this is how I feel. Have you ever thought that? Well I have! People saying  how well other people are doing in their recovery. Well you have to know that while people see me as strong and unshakable, I have side effects in recovery that are normal, but not all people have the same as I do. In fact I would go so far as to say no one has exactly the same side effects as another person. I get more side effects the more I do, which is a bit frustrating to say the least. 

 
I was talking to someone today what was saying, that she wants to tell people how she feels not have people tell her how others have felt. This is NOT selfish, this is part of the process of having a disease. Part of a recovery process, it’s one of the golden rules when talking to someone quit saying what is was like unless you say ” would you like to hear how it was for me”? I have had people say no. Oh and guess what, that’s fine to. Because the battle someone faces is worse than anyone else’s as it unfolds. What they face is real NOW, so many people think that telling the world how it was for someone else, is “comforting?” I know right? 

  
You know what comforting. Knowing that person has their phone next to them for you yo call if you need to. A gentle text, flowers that smell nice. That can also be a problem if they have lost the ability to taste or smell. The most important thing to do, here it is the money sentence. LISTEN…..  Just listen to them, hug them and make sure they know you care! Simple isn’t it and yes it really is that simple. Sometimes sitting and saying nothing is better than trying to make conversation.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Our support group on our FB

Cancer stories (people helping people through experience) 

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 

Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own.

Love yourself.

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Throughout my life there have been many stages, but one lesson I would say is perhaps the hardest, or maybe took the longest. Was to learn to love myself, you see most people blame situations people, ( I was dealt a bad hand)  my friend says it like. The people in the pub that have a woulda coulda story – if only it was not for such and such. Well it’s all a load of rubbish. Absolute BS. Our future is in our hands but unfortunately, if we don’t live ourselves we will find life is so much harder than it would otherwise be should we be happy with who we are. We have to become that person that when the person who is looking back, your content with. I am not saying the full article because no human is ever the ful article in my opinion. We learn until the day we die if always want to improve ourselves. 

  
I personally want to better today than I was yesterday, I think they call it growing. Always learning and always becoming a better you. Let me put it this way, a house needs solid foundations to last. Without solid foundations there will be cracks in the plaster in time, bricks will move and the house will become unstable. Loving yourself is the foundation for everything we build on top of it, a relationship, the ability to live with your whole heart, holding down a good job, respect from others. No one will respect you if you don’t respect yourself.  

  
I found the right person to marry because I had found myself in travelling Australia, yup that’s what it took for me. It was not till I was 36 and a broken marriage behind me that I became truly happy with the reflection in my mirror. Very late in life I would say, but at least I got there in the end. Cancer has honed me, made me a better more rounded person enabling me to see life through the eyes of a disability. The disability being the disabling treatments that my cancer demanded. In your life you will have your own challenges, but what ever happens in your life love the person who you are before you build a life.

Have a great weekend

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 
Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else. 

Chemo Brain.

Tags

achieve, affair, age, animal, attitude, avec, awareness, baby, banned, be live, because, believer, Bellamy, best, birthday, black, blood, bone, BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT, brain, can, cancer, chemo, chemotheropy, Christian, Christmas, Christmaseve, Cole, Compassion, courage, cricket, cruise, CS, dad, David, dead, death, define, Depressed, depression, desire, destiny, diagnosis, did, died, Do, does, Edmonds, empathy, encouragement, energy, England, Eve, expect, Experience, facebook, faith, falling, Families, family, floating, foundations, friends, gallery, gift, gifts, given, goals, GOD, Good, Goodness, great, greatness, guilt, Hannah, hansolo, happiness, happy, hard, healing, health, help, Hodgkins, hope, hospital, Jewish, jobs, Johnny, know, last day, Learn, Leicester, life, lire, Listen, live, lived, Liverpool, London, longevity, Lord'sPrayer, love, loved, Low, machine, marks, marrow, MDU, meal, meaning, memories, memory, Monkey, morph, Morris, motivation, mum, muscle, Muslim, Natalie Cole, Natking, neurology, neutrapeenic, new year, Noel, not, of, oncology, one, one day, onedirection, Paddington, Paris, partner, passion, Peace, people, persevere, precious, Presence, R2D2, raise, real, reality, recover, regret, Rejected, Rejection, relentless, Remember, resolution, rises, Samaritan, SENSATION, Sharing, shortbread, silverback, somebody, southport, Spirituality, square, stage, star, stats, Stemcell, Steve, StevenHawkins, StMichael, stories, strength, struggle, survived, survivor, swopshop, taught, teach, tennis, Thames, thankyou, there, time, today, together, Tohetehr, Tony hart, transplant, Transplanted, travel, tree, true, tvr, twitter, unite, unity, wars, WE, weakness, wealth, wealthy, what, white, who you are, will, win, Wordpress, working, Writing, yang, year, yes, yin, you, yourself

I read an article today on a site called Had cancer, talking about different ways that we feel sometimes years after having had chemotheropy. Some doctors say it does not exsist, (apparently) I have never had this exsperience with doctors myself but then I am quite a large person both physically and in personality. After reading the article I realised that maybe I could write about the very thing that frustrates me so much. So let me explain how it is for me as a cancer patient that like the person who wrote the article. I had cancer!

So for me when I was having chemo, even my first chemo (mine was very strong) it had to be I was at 4 a and in a bad way. Close to losing my life and riddled with cancer. Remember in previous blogs I have talked about chemo feeling like snakes in your head, it did. Sometimes your head even hurts as you remember stuff, but then your brain is a muscle. It has lots of connections in the brain that need to work in a certain way. Now I am not a doctor, but it makes sense to me that maybe the brain has been affected in a small way by the drugs pumped into my body. I do forget things where I didn’t before. So I have to write things down to remember them. Where as before I really never did I just remembered.

Trust me no cancer patient uses it as an excuse, after all who wants to forget? I look like a Pratt sometimes because I repeat myself, repeat myself. Seriously though it’s embarrassing.

  Picture by Fine acupuncture.com
People that have not had cancer will never understand how it affects a human being. How can they, we must excuse their ignorance in not trying to even understand. I have been insulted, even misjudged by people close to me. I have to realise it’s not something they will understand unless they try to. Walking around pointing the finger at someone suffering does not help anyone.

Chemo brain can last for years so if it’s you, know it’s a possible normal for you. It’s frustrating because people may get annoyed at you, no one will understand unless they have researched what you maybe feeling. It does not mean we have lost our intelligence. It means we have been affected by chemothearopy, our memories may not be up to scratch but it does not mean we are inadequate. Far from it, chemo brain is real. But the fact is that chemo brain is much more frustrating for the person with it than it is for the person communicating with that person. Have a great day and know that your not alone, there are I suspect many that will read this and realise that it’s normal and even feel a bit better about it. Because others feel what they do.

Have a good weekend

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 
Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else. 

Do u listen to understand or listen to reply.

Tags

achieve, affair, age, animal, attitude, avec, awareness, baby, banned, be live, because, believer, Bellamy, best, birthday, black, blood, bone, BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT, can, cancer, chemotheropy, Christian, Christmas, Christmaseve, Cole, Compassion, courage, cricket, cruise, CS, dad, David, dead, death, define, Depressed, depression, desire, destiny, diagnosis, did, died, Do, does, Edmonds, empathy, encouragement, energy, England, Eve, expect, Experience, facebook, faith, falling, Families, family, floating, foundations, friends, gallery, gift, gifts, given, goals, GOD, Good, Goodness, great, greatness, guilt, Hannah, hansolo, happiness, happy, hard, healing, health, help, Hodgkins, hope, hospital, Jewish, jobs, Johnny, know, last day, Learn, Leicester, life, lire, Listen, live, lived, Liverpool, London, longevity, Lord'sPrayer, love, loved, Low, machine, marks, marrow, MDU, meal, meaning, memories, memory, Monkey, morph, Morris, motivation, mum, muscle, Muslim, Natalie Cole, Natking, neurology, neutrapeenic, new year, Noel, not, of, oncology, one, one day, onedirection, Paddington, Paris, partner, passion, Peace, people, persevere, precious, Presence, R2D2, raise, real, reality, recover, regret, Rejected, Rejection, relentless, Remember, resolution, rises, Samaritan, SENSATION, Sharing, shortbread, silverback, somebody, southport, Spirituality, square, stage, star, stats, Stemcell, Steve, StevenHawkins, StMichael, stories, strength, struggle, survived, survivor, swopshop, taught, teach, tennis, Thames, thankyou, there, time, today, together, Tohetehr, Tony hart, transplant, Transplanted, travel, tree, true, tvr, twitter, unite, unity, wars, WE, weakness, wealth, wealthy, what, white, who you are, will, win, Wordpress, working, Writing, yang, year, yes, yin, you, yourself

Do you know the differance? Ok well here is my take on it. If your a friend to someone you will listen to understand what they are going through or facing. If you listen to reply, you are more interested in what your opinion is than helping the person to deal with the problem they are telling you about. God, if you believe there is a God ( I do). When he made us made us with 2 ears and one mouth, interesting don’t you think?  Does that not mean we should listen more than we speak, sounds  daft as I write this as I love speaking, but I also love to solution stuff. The only way we can solution is by listening, I love coming up with answers to situations. But hate jigsaws.

For a long time in my life I thought that people wanted to hear my opinion, when in fact the person that really wanted to hear my opinion was Me. I was a selfish person in some ways, even though my motive may have been good the result of my motive was to reply with my opinion. 

  
I have realised that by listening your learning, and when your speaking you are not learning anything at all. It’s a skill to listen and one I am working on everyday, as I endeavour to complete my challenge of blogging everyday for a whole year. 365 days. I am busy learning to as I get feedback from people, people that care, some are surprised that I am nearly 3/4 of the way through and still am doing what I said I would do. I know it’s helping people be use people are telling me and I am listening. Using the skill I am honing to listen to other people to understand as opposed to reply. 

  
Listening to understand not only gives us more knowledge but also it helps us to understand people and their situations. Which I turn gives us experience. The one thing about exsperience is you can’t buy it, you can buy someone to tell us from their exsperience, but if we want to have exsperience we have no choice but to listen and learn from someone else.  Because that’s what listening to understand does. It gives us the exsperience that we can call on in another situation in the future. We may be able to recall what we have learnt and help us in our very own situation. This may mean nothing to you, you may think you know what I am saying and don’t need to hear it. If that’s the case then you will not learn anything.

Have a great Friday,

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 
Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else.