What’s treatment mean.

Tags

attitude, chemothearopy, health, help, hope, love, nutrition, radiation, scans, support, treatment

How do you see treatment? After all it starts with a nice word, a word our parents said that meant something nice. A treat like a chocolate bar or an outing somewhere nice. But as an adult it means a medical way of treating something that needs medication, surgical management. When I was told you need treatment, I had no idea what that meant. I had no clue how that would occur. The word chemotheropy was such a meaningless word to me, but when you ask the question “what if I don’t have treatment” and you get the response “you will die” you kinda know you are going to need to do whats required of you. You then have to acquire the tools required to beat or under Ho your treatment. For me, what I needed most in my life was positivity. I knew that there was no room in my life for anything less than a ‘I can’ approach to the drugs I needed to have administered to me.

  
I also needed to trust that what they were doing to me was going to work, I asked questions like. “Is there another way” “could I not beat it by diet” I have since learnt that doctors have only 1 hour of nutritional training in a 7 year training period to become a GP. I have learnt that it’s our own knowledge that can help us, or maybe aswell as that the trust that what they do works. After all that was the answer I was given when I asked is there another way. “The way we know works” so why try to fight it, I needed to accept that they knew what they were doing and effectively trust them although making sure that what they gave me is what the doctor prescribed.

  
For me treatment meant, scans,  tests, and lots and lots of drugs. They named the drugs chemotheropy, and they were administered over long periods of time, they were in bags hung on a drip stand. They had words like cytotoxic written on the bags, there were more than one bag that would be dripped directly into my blood stream. My main weapon I used when having treatment was something anyone that faces illness needs. Not just cancer, it’s a weapon that can lift you out of any hole we find ourselves in.

  
Positivity, and attitude if we have both of those in our armoury, then our chances of success are massively increased. That’s because we believe we will win, our attitude is positive and our expectations are positive. My attitude to feeling down was positive because I believed if I was down the only was was for me to get up, therefore the only effect of being down was that I would get up and beat the situation I found myself in. It’s like we talked about in a recent blog about our minds. It’s only our own negativity that drags us down by the very thoughts we think in our minds. Our attitude to treatment and anything that is negative, is a massive part of getting through treatment. Well it was for me, and I know it helped me greatly in my fight.  All people have a lot of angry moments, I am not saying I did not get angry I did, lots. But the main help is to be positive, and expect an outcome that is in your favour.  My attitude to treatment is most certainly the main weapon to overcoming what I faced. 

I truly hope that my writing how it was for me, helps you in what ever you face. Remember it’s not feeling negative that’s a bad thing we all do and did. It’s how we deal with it that matters. 

Fonz

Follow me, I will follow back. 😊
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.

Copyright © 2016

I love blogging and bloggers.

Tags

blog, blogger, blogging, canada, snow, support, weather, Writing

If it was not for cancer, I would not have even explored blogging. Don’t you think that’s sad, how I had to get chronically ill before I felt I had something to offer the world.  I do, I mean we are all people with something to offer the world. As my dear friend Rob says “Everything is connected to everything” I have decided, well I did a long time ago. I just did not know how to make it happen. To mention bloggers every week, a kind of blogger of the week post. Only there may be just one or more than one. I am not really into these awards, but I am into recognising people that have been good people. People that blog to help others, and write to benefit others lives, not advertising bloggers, or product bloggers. I am interested in people that want other people to do well.

  www.chanelweb.co.uk
I have talked in previous blogs about, not giving a hand out rather a leg up. There are the two types of people. The ones that want a free gift, or hand out. Then there are the go getters, the ones that are already doing for other people but need a leg up, or a helping hand. Not because they don’t want to do, but because they are doing and because they are, the road became a bit more tricky. I love selfless people, because I was selfish once. I was someone that had a chip on my shoulder and thought the world owed me. Is it not us that owes the world… Why was I like that, who did I think I was! Well that does not matter really, because what’s important is what we are. NOT what we were. We choose who we are today, where as we chose what we were. The most wonderful thing about today is, that we can be a better us today than we were yesterday.

  www.cic.gc.ca
I seem to be getting a lot of people reading my blogs in Canada at the moment, I wonder if that’s because you guys are all snowed in. I imaging log cabins, lakes, snow, Indian style canoes and massive pine trees when I think of Canada. Thank you all for reading. Wouldn’t it be good if all bloggers had a flag of the country they are in next to their name?

I hope you all have a great day, and thank you one and all for reading my blog, have an enjoyable day. Remember today is the day to make the change, start believing in you. Start stepping out in faith, every journey starts with one step. You can’t start a journey unless you put one foot forward. Today is that day.

Enjoy it,

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.

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.

Carrot cake. (A story)

Tags

cancer, chemotheropy, human, kindness, LEP, Sharing, support

So how did I come to have this amazingly tasty carrot cake in my kitchen. Well it’s quite a story as to how it got there really starting with my old school friend Daniel Clyedburn. You see if it was not for Danny there would be no carrot cake in my kitchen even though he did not make it it’s because of him it’s there. You see Danny made a phone call to someone called Aasma day, Aasma works at the LEP (Lancashire evening post) he called her up to say that he had a friend who had beaten cancer twice and maybe she may like to run a story on him. So that men would be encouraged to get their butts to the doctors on finding a lump. That because He did this He was still alive and his friend owed his life to the NHS and the medicine that was given to him, in the form of  chemothearopy. 

  
The next step in the chain that led to my carrot cake was a photographer coming to his friends house and photographing him and his wife along with his dog Faith. They ran the story both on the Internet and in the actual LEP. You can read the article here.

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/community/cancer-fighter-mark-beats-disease-twice-despite-delayed-diagnosis-1-7481482

In running the article, Aasma kindly agreed to put the link to his friends cancer support group, and also his friends blog address. This is where the chain of events led to my carrot cake finding its way to my kitchen. You see, in wanting to help other people and desiring to give hope to mankind, and because Danny told Aasma day about his friend. Some people in the surrounding area joined the cancer stories support group, that is there for people to lean on each other because of their own journeies. One of those people lived in the friends village, another lived in a near by city called Preston. Together as man and wife they talked and were encouraged, because of cancer stories which may (if I can be so bold) have contributed to saving someone’s life.

  
Of course you know who Danny’s friend is, because the person who made my amazing carrot cake is called Anne and she read the article in the LEP and joined our group along with her husband Dave. Such special people who came to my house yesterday for a coffee and a slice of carrot cake that she had made for me, Danny’s friend from school. It’s a chain of human kindness that led to me and my wife being able to enjoy this special gift given to us because of Danny. So tonight we will be sat by the open fire listening to the rain pounding the Windows nice and warm with a slice of cake washed down with a glass of red. Thanks Anne, Aasma, and Danny. Maybe there will be some left for you when I see you on Saturday Danny.

Keep encouraging everyone, it’s the best thing in the world to give a little human kindness to someone. Have a great night.

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.

Attitude changes everything.

Tags

cancer, faith, gift, happiness, helping, hope, How, humility, knowledge, love, reality, relief, support, survive

Its your attitude they say. Well as a twenty something I did not understand what that meant, I even found the statement inconsiderate in some cases. I mean you can’t tell a cancer patient to change their attitude, can you? Well actually it’s very important, especially someone fighting cancer. Let me explain from my own exsperience. What your attitude is to something, does that not depict how someone responds to you?  I think if someone has a bad attitude to something, people around you tend to respond negatively. Have a happy heart and people will look on the bright side. What do you think?

  
No one likes to be around people that constantly moan, or talk about their problems all the time, people that seem to have the weight of the world of their shoulders. Don’t they choose to have that, don’t they choose to have that amount of luggage with them? I was that person the first time round, I was the person that did not understand cancer. But that’s just it, maybe I had it twice so I knew what I did wrong the first time.  My first cancer exsperience was very different to the second, I learnt how it affects you in rehabilitation also. My attitude was to not be around people that people were going to bring me down. That communicating with people about cancer, was going to make my journey harder. I think that was quite selfish of me, although some would say that it was self preservation. 

  
You see where U.S. Humans get it wrong, is we look to preserve ourselves by giving nothing, only  looking after number one. By making sure that we don’t give of ourselves thus preserving ourselves for the future. Where as I have learnt a new way, a way that is a little risky but it’s worked for me. But I found it out by accident, because I had set up my support group Cancer stories before I realised I had cancer again. So I had already decided I was going to give of myself to others and support them in the fights they had before them. Thinking myself that I would rebuild myself at home, because the person I love gives me strength as I do her. How wrong was I, the support group does something very different. (We all support each other) in supporting another, it relights the fire inside of us to continue. Well it’s what’s happening to me now. 

  
You see it’s human nature to put out our hand to help someone, it’s also a benefit by doing that one thing  is that by putting our hand out it energises us. You see that what we as humans don’t get, you don’t use your resources of strength by helping another. You actually strengthen yourself because that is how we are made, it’s natural and human nature to help someone else. By doing that you actually strengthen yourself, you do NOT give of yourself. You become a better more rounded person, I learnt lots as a salesman but never the giving lesson. Why? It’s what sales people do, find people that need what we have. Wow how things are actually starring us right in the face, but it’s our stubbornness and lack of humility that stops us from learning the simple lessons that are necessary for success.

  
By giving to someone else you are actually helping yourself, helping yourself to work through your own luggage, to educate yourself as to what you can be. Who you actually are, I am sure some of you are reading these blogs and watching me grow. I know I am myself, I can feel that I am more considerate of others. Of course people will misunderstand me but that’s not my issue is it, to just keep doing what I am is making a differance somewhere. We all have it in us, we just choose to protect one. The one we are, not to help others by holding out our hands. Maybe becoming less of us and more a helping hand. What ever is thought your attitude to cancer is what matters. Ultimately what we give is who we are, putting out your hand is everything.
It’s not only + and – that make one battery, it’s you and me that make humanity. ( last sentence by Rob Fischbeck  ) 

 

Mark
http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
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. It took me an hour to write, but will take you a second to share.

Communication.

Tags

cancer, communication, eachother, friends, helalth, help, hope, love, network, patience, stories, support

Whilst I was ill, one of the keys to us being able to get through the horrible ordeal was being able to be open and honest with each other. Right at the start of my relapse having chatted to Andie and another close friend. I realised completely by accident really that I had my  support network in our cancer stories group. That I was able to offload how I felt in a private place with people that understood me, with people that had come across the same situations as I was going to come across. I believe communication is THE number one key to any relationship after trust. Of course we all know that we can’t have anything without trust. Right from the word go in our relationship we agreed that we would talk to each other, that we would communicate with each other, building on our foundation of trust. 

  
I think in pictures so let’s use an analergy  that my untie Rose uses to describe me. A bottle, just a simple humble bottle, people use the term don’t they “bottling it up” I myself am a very simple person, uncomplicated, although some would disagree. But that’s only because they are carrying  around stuff they have stored up in their own bottle. Let’s explore this a little, you remember the blog about the garbage truck. Well it’s a little bit like that in my eyes, only there are lots of bottles in a garbage truck that are full of unspoken things.

You with me so far?

You see if I have a problem with someone, or with something. I face it, speak to the person get it out in the open, I don’t drive around with it in my mind thinking about it over and over. I have learnt to speak openly, I am learning to listen more to others, something I am working hard on. But if it’s bothering me I have to get it out or it comes out like a shaken bottle of pop. I go back to a memory I have, a storey really, but I will make it short.

  
I was at the zoo, Chester zoo, with my uncle Ron and Auntie Rose my cousin and my now wife Andie. One animal I had longed to hear and see was a lion, not a lioness a full sized Lion. It’s something I yearned to hear and see. It was a sunny day, and Rose said to me, “Mark, the Lions are over there” WOW. At that moment nothing else mattered, I ran as fast as I could darting in between the people with my cousin inclose persuit. As I approached the Lion pen, there he was right in front of us. In all his proud glory, it was like he knew I was there, and put a show on for me. He roared at the top of his voice, again,and again! I loved it and will never forget that moment and day. Made all the better because I enjoyed it with my family. That when my auntie Rose made the comment. “He’s like a bottle of pop int he” that was a moment I exploded with joy fulfilling a dream of mine. One day I hope to see them in the wild and see them face to face, to go on a safari.      

  
So going back to the point, our support net work in communication. Real friends will listen to you, they will help you deal with stuff, they will give to you without counting the cost. That’s what marriage is all about. Giving to each other without counting the cost, but communicating about all things that are affecting us making sure that the bottle never fizzes up blowing the top off the bottle. Because if we communicate often and have nothing to hide how can it ever be a problem, how will it ever become such a problem that it becomes an argument. It can’t because the bottle is never full, your continually allowing yourself to speak about what you need to. With the people that care about you either called family or the family we choose called friends.

  
Having an issue with something does not need to be a problem, as some say a problem shared is a problem halved. You have it in you to allow yourself to communicate with a person or keeping it to yourself. Keeping it to yourself means it’s your problem, where as sharing it means you are being conciderate to the other person not making it a future problem. Andie needed her own support network which ended up being a small but dedicated few friends, we spoke about having a network to help us through. If you are facing cancer right now, please make sure you have your own support network. It’s a huge help not only to the person suffering but to the person caring. The carer goes through as much as the sufferer just in different ways. 

  
Have a great week
Mark 

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
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. It took me an hour to write, but will take you a second to share.

Because there is an us.

Tags

cancer, Cancerstories, family, honesty, love, Markblackwell, support

We are just remembering the journey, my wife sharing with me how she felt at certain times. You have to be a special kind of person to care for the one you love in cancer treatment. Or any treatment for that matter. The person caring is on their own journey, they are also being drained of positivity. It’s upsetting writing this, the screen is blurred but you need to know what I will write. This is so others can have some understanding, of what it’s like, what its like to see the life drain from your husbands body. There were 2 people that asked me to go into that room, my wife and my best (male) friend.  I made the promise that I would do it, knowing those people would be there for me at my time of need.

  
The only reason I went in that room was because there is an us, because we are the reason we do. We have a purpose to survive, for each other. It’s really nice to have a person that you know loves you with their whole heart. It’s a source of strength, motivation even. As a carer or a sufferer it’s hard as you scroll through your phone on a Saturday night isolated from the world to know who you could call. You think about their situation before you make the call, you wonder who you will disturb and what impact that would have on their week and or evening. For me I had people I knew I not only could call but would be annoyed if I didn’t call. The people were (disguising their identities) The chemist, the retailer, and the money man. These people despite the things they were facing daily made time for us. They showed unconditional love for us, they gave me strength to carry on, because they believed in us.

  
It’s amazing that these people made me smile in this situation, they even made me laugh. This is what someone needs when faced with cancer and the effects of treatment. It upsets me to think some people didn’t call because they did not know what to say. It’s normality a person craves amongst all the nastiness. I was so fortunate to have those people in my life, I am thankful those people are still in my life. Don’t get me wrong, there were other people I could call but you ain’t gonna call a shovel monkey working nights. Or your parents when they have church the next day, or your brother when he is enjoying family time.

Just knowing you are loved completely gives you the extra strength you need to carry on. It’s funny how men don’t like to admit they love someone completely. I however love to say it, I want to shout it from the rooftops that I have survived and I am still able to hold my wife’s hand.

  
Just remember the phone call you make to that person, could make a huge difference in their life. You could be the one that makes the difference between  self belief and deflation. You could be the tonic someone needs to carry on, your words could be used to give someone the will to carry on.  What you do in someone’s life, surely is better than not doing. Whilst some people chose to do that in our journey, many could not muster up the right words. That’s why I am so grateful for our group  cancer stories (a support group) we are open there and you can read when you like and have a considered response when you like. It’s a place where we can all share our experiences.

  
Remember no one else can do what  you can, you are someone’s hope, their life line and only you can make that happen. Hope you have a great day being you.

Mark

Friendships

Tags

friendship, social, support

We meet many people in our lives, some stay with us for fleeting moments, some for our lifetime.  For me each of them are an important part of my journey.  I don’t regret meeting the “time wasters”, or the selfish people, as each of them has taught me something…even if that is just a reflection […]

https://pandyb.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/427/