Oh, I forgot to add that I am eighty years of age. One or two travel insurance companies that advertise widely on television, declined to provide me with insurance cover.
Tuscany here we come!
Greetings one and all,
My wife and I are travelling to Tuscany for a week, to wander around the hill towns. We decided to take out travel insurance and after several long phone calls answering the same questions over and over again, we found SAGA were able to provide us with insurance cover at the lowest price.
In my case the questions piled up, for in the past eighteen months I have been diagnosed with myeloma, had a pulmonary embolism, bowel cancer, pneumonia and then found I have osteo arthritis.
For every ailment under the sun,
there is a remedy or there is none.
If there be one then try to find it,
If there be none, then never mind it
Hi y’all,
Generally things are getting better, my bloods are back to normal and I am on a holding regime of Revlamid. There are just a few remaining clots in my lungs but nowt to worry about.
At the start of December I was back in hospital with pneumonia. When my temperature spiked and my blood pressure went down by a third, I thought this was my grand finale and I wondered if I should decide on something pompous to say as my final words. Onyroadup, things got better so I’ll be around for a bit.
Apropos Revlamid, as I was on numerous antibiotics when in hospital, I stopped taking my daily Revlamid pill. I saw the consultant last Tuesday and she decided that I should restart the cycle and I received the 21 Revlamid pills, for I take them for three weeks and then have a week off. As I still had 13 pill left from my stay in hospital, I asked the MaMillan nurse what I should do eith the pills.
She explained that, if I gave them to her, protocol required that she throw them away. She suggested that take them and then eight from the twenty one in the prescription and she would reduce next months prescription to eight so that all the pills would be taken. She then explained that a packet of 21 Revlamid costs £5000.
I could hardly believe it but a check showed that an equivalent price is charged in the USA. This means that my daily pill costs the NHS £250. Unbelievable! I’m on my nine month of treatment with Revlamid so the cost must be around £45,000.
If I think of all the scans I’ve had, the numerous stays in hospital, the hours spent with the various consultants, the keyhole surgery on my bowel and the hours being treated in the McMillan Centre, I shudder to think at the cost and effort spent at keeping me, an eighty year old man, alive and well.
Think you, NHS and my thanks to all you taxpayers who have funded may treatment.
Don
Hi Calray,
My history in brief is diagnosed with MM twelve months ago, swiftly followed by pulmonary embolism the cancer on bowel was discovered six months ago. My first two cycles of treatment were CVD plus daily injections of Fragmin to thin my blood and monthly drip of zemeta. Next two cycles have been Revlamid and Dex. Plus, of course, pills for other minor possible problems.
My cycles end today and I have the usual side effects – poor sleep, extreme fatigue, breathlessness. However recently I have developed strong pain in my right hip and knee.
I’ll see what the consultant says today and report back
Don
Hi Jacko,
I was diagnosed with MM in November and treatment was organised by the Consultant at the MacMillan Centre to start within a couple of weeks. It became a bit more complex because I promptly had a pulmonary embolism but start they did.
Like Richard, I am surprised that you have still not started chemo. Have you had any treatment? I think it might be a good idea to start chasing things, so that you have clear information on what and when treatment is planned for you. Why not pop this information on this site? There are a lot of experienced and wise heads on here who are also coping with MM and they can give you advice.
If you are not happy with the way that your treatment is going, you can always look into
switching doctors and/or hospitals.
Good luck
Now David, I think all of this is a result of you lying in damp grass on long summer evenings with bonny teenage lassies when you were just twenty years old.
That’s what I blame for my myeloma, pulmonary embolism and bowel cancer.
It was good, though, wasn’t it. Those were tha days……
Don aka The Cancer Pensioner
Hi Alison,
Hi Alison,
We are all different yet all in the same boat. My MM was diagnosed in November but I had a pulmonary embolism before treatment started. When I learned that 74% of my blood cells were cancerous, I thought the end was nigh. As I am almost eighty, SCT was not really an option.
Progress on VCD was slow and I was switched to Revlamid. However, it turned out that I had a separate cancer in my bowel. My MM treatment was put on hold and the tumour was removed two weeks ago. Tomorrow I meet the consultant to see if I restart the MM treatment.
What the future holds for each of us is anyone’s guess. All we can do is plough on regardless and use the forum to give our news, good or bad, and gain strength from the others who are striving to cope with the physical pains and the mental stresses.
Don
Best foot forward, Alison.
Hi Bryn,
Just to add my sixpenny worth to the comments.
Getting the news that you have MM is a heart stopping moment and your world seems to implode. Do try to draw some comfort that there are many of us here that have been through the same early stages. Somehow we all cope and things are rarely as bad as they seem.
Keep telling us on your progress and how you and your family are coping.
Best wishes
Don
Hi Robbo,
I’ve had two bone marrow samples taken and both have been painful I think that I had a quick jab but whatever it was, when the process started the pain was strong.
I am off treatment for the MM whilst I had the operation to remove the cancer from my bowel. That seems to have gone well so I’m expecting that, before I resume treatment, I’ll be having a bone marrow sample taken. Not a pleasant prospect. I’ll close my eyes and think of England.
At least, it isn’t habit forming
All the best
Don aka The Cancer Pensioner
Thanks Karen,
Assuming that the operation has totally removed tha cancer in my bowel, we can focus on getting the myeloma into remission. That’s my next target.
If you think about it, we set targets throughout our lives and achieving them can give a great sense of satisfaction.
How about these.
At four years, getting through the night without wetting the bed
At ten years, having two or three really good friends
At eighteen years, having a driving licence
At twenty three years, having a true love to share life
At thirty years, having a happy family around you
At forty years, having enough money to live life in reasonable comfort
At fifty years, having a happy family around you
At sixty years, still having your true love to share life with you
At seventy years, still having a driving licence
At eighty years, having two or three really good friends
At ninety years, getting through the night without wetting the bed
Think on these things, my friends in adversity
Don
Well, now, where are we? Oh yes, I said I would let you know how things are.
The news is that The Bad Penny has turned up, replete with irritating jokes.
I can’t bore you with details of the operation for I was in the Land of Nod and remember nothing. The aftercare was tremendous, from consultant down to cleaner. For this operation the hospital runs a programme of Enhanced Recovery, so having awoken at 17.00 on Monday after the operation, on Tuesday morning I tottered for ten steps and gradually over tha past week this was increased, so that, by Friday I could go to the loo on my own, reawakening a satisfaction achieved when I was three years old.
Now home, my diet bans roughage and consists mainly of things that are not good for you, but are good for me.
Things get a bit painful at times, but this is nothing when compared to the agony suffered several times each match by Premier League footballers when tackled. However they recover immediately, being made of sterner stuff than mortals such as I.
More later
Don ( aka ‘The Cancer Pensioner’ )
Thanks everyone for the kind wishes.
We had a lovely evening, sitting in the garden until 11.30, having had a BBQ and a beer.
I had a couple of phone calls from my great grand children, but they are a bit too young to know how things are.
Today, it’s off to hospital. My grandfather advised me to ‘always keep yourself out of the hands of doctors and lawyers’ and generally I have followed his advice. On this occasion I have to let them get on with it.
Grandfather maintained that he could remember a winter when it was so cold that lawyers had their hands in their own pockets.
So… I’ll post here in a week or so and let you know how things went. If I don’t post, well, all the best to you all.
Don, Darling of the Debutantes, 1953
Hi all,
Thanks for reading my tome.
Mike, I am being treated at Milton Keynes Hospital, in the McMillan Centre. Praise doesn’t come high enough for the nurses, doctors and consultants there. I have put them under some pressure for I have assured them that, if they don’t keep me going until I am eighty five, I will return and haunt the McMillan Centre. That should keep them on their toes.
Karen, the real victim in this has been my social secretary, financial controller and life organiser, for she retired last September but before she could start to enjoy her retirement, along came MM and then everything else. Like others, I get very fatigued and breathless, my bones ache and I get grumpy and I’m ashamed to say that I sometimes forget momentarily that all this is worse for her than for me. She organises all my medication, including my daily injection of heparin, which will continue indefinitely. I am apprehensive about going to the pub for I have had so mant needle injections in my stomach that I worry that the beer might squirt out in all directions.
Thanks for the good wishes, David and Tony F.
One thing that I have done is put my affairs in order. If I should pop my clogs, I quite fancy my final exit being accompanied by Gracie Fields singing ‘Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye – Cheerio as I go on my way’ it would make an interesting change, don’t you think.
Don, otherwise known as the Cancer Kid
