Health and Family

In 1978 I was hit head-on by a car while riding a bicycle, this left me with a few bruises and loss of feeling in limbs and lower back. At that time I was 17 and it didn't really make a huge amount of difference but some 30 years later the story has changed somewhat. In 2001 I had an accident at work which resulted in my current state of health as it is now.
I am now unable to work at what is classed as normal employment and live a normal life.

Is my Sister who is 8 yrs younger than I am and has certainly had her fair share of ups and downs.
But nothing prepared the family with the shocking news that I know has happened to many other families.
Cancer, when you hear this word it brings dread and fear into the hardiest of people.
You ask yourself, Why?
But you know that this isn't a numbers game or a roulette wheel.
After 18 weeks of chemotherapy and several more weeks of radiotherapy the treatment finally stopped.
Approximately a year later she was allowed to return to work.
In between the treatments she was having our Father died. I was told he had a massive heart attack and didn't know anything about it.
He had retired to Spain to live out his retirement, unfortunately this was a very short time.
This happened two years ago and I still remember it as if it was yesterday.
In February of this year my Sister was again diagnosed with Cancer and is currently receiving chemotherapy again.
Again I asked myself Why?
Why our family?
This has left me completely numb now.
I have been up to visit her and to take some of the pressure off her husband because he still has to work.

I know we as a family deserve some good fortune and a huge amount of luck.
But I believe after all the drugs she is taking and the alternative drug treatments my Sister is taking she will pull through and make a full recovery.

They say people don't comment and society has changed about people with disabilities.
This I know from my own experiences is definitely not true.
People point and make comments, hence nowadays I rarely go out.
My Sister has completely lost all her hair which for me was a huge shock!
She said that she has got used to it now but won't go out unless she is wearing either a scarf or a wig as people stare and make comments.

Last week received some excellent news regarding my Sister's treatment.
Having had a CT Scan the previous week to check on the progress of the chemotherapy treatment my Sister was told by her Consultant that the tumours had shrunk by approximately a third of what they were.
This is amazing news and although she still has several more weeks of treatment left it has provided light at the end of the tunnel.
I don't know how much of the treatment by chemotherapy is working but with the addition of Chinese Herbal Medicine and Paw Paw Tablets, something is definitely working.
Maybe Herbal Medicine is the way to go but I cannot be certain for sure, maybe we needed to believe in something apart from the conventional medicine and normal treatments.
Well for me this has certainly been excellent news and I believe it will continue.

The first part of my Sister's treatment is finally over. This entailed five months of chemotherapy where you feel rubbish for the first week or so then feel much better before venturing back into hospital for another dose of chemotherapy.
This finally finished in August 2008.

Having had two months to re-cuperate and gain strength my Sister now has to have the operation at Papworth Hospital to remove the two lesions, one in each lung.
This is considered to be major surgery.
This will take place at the end of October 2008.
The time came and passed because at the last minute the operation was cancelled.
This was a huge shock to my Sister who had psyched herself up for this and at the last moment they said No.
It turns out that the Medical Staff had no intention of performing the operation as to why we don't know.

After being messed around by the Medical Team at Papworth Hospital, my Sister went back to see her Oncologist and an appointment was arranged for her to meet with a Doctor at the Royal Brompton Hospital.
This turned out to be the best thing my Sister could of done because Surgery will commence in the first week of December, which is excellent news.

They will only operate on one lung at a time not both at the same which is what the Medical Team at Papworth were going to do.

My Sister will be in Hospital for approximately one week and will require 2 months recuperation although she must do plenty of walking to ensure the lung inflates properly.
Or so was thought in actual fact She only had 3 weeks out which was over the Christmas Period.
Back into hospital my Sister went for the second operation this time it was a lot easier for her because they only needed to perform the operation by Key Hole Surgery which meant she was able to come out of Hospital after 3 days and go back home.

Technically my Sister is Cancer Free which is really good news just have to wait for a Scan to confirm this at the end of January.

Well it seems my own problems have escalated after having a check-up.
Blood Pressure is through the roof according to my Doctor, it's not surprising with what has been going on with my Sister.
Also my blood count is low which means I'm anaemic, that one I cannot understand as I eat reasonably healthily apart from the odd chocolate bar.

Plus of course I do the worst thing imaginable, I smoke and the next one is I have a liking for beer.
Therefore you can understand what I was told;

1.Give up Smoking.
2.Stop Drinking.
3.Take more exercise.
4.No Salt.
5.No Sugar.

The main reason for all this is because I moved area's and had to change Doctor's and all of a sudden I have all these extra little problems that were not there before, strange.

Hopefully the Doctor will realise that my Blood Pressure naturally sits high anyway, but he isn't listening at the moment and this is normal for me.

Okay I except that Smoking is bad for you and drinking more than 21 units a day is definitely not a good idea, but I don't do this everyday and yet I am made to feel so guilty about it.

On top of this I do have a huge issue with trying to walk around and losing some weight would be good for me.