A new member's story

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A new member's story

Postby carol » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:38 am

Hi and thank you for this site I have just discovered.

I am the partner (soon to be married) of a 70 year old with cancer of unknown primary. Jim was diagnosed early this year after cancer was found in lymph nodes. He finished a course of chemotherapy at the end of July with good results but has recently had a scan which shows that some more tumour is now present around his abdomen area.

Tomorrow he will have some fluid drained to reduce severe pain which has begun to manifest in this area. His original prognosis was maybe a year survival due to the spread away from the unknown primary site. Now almost a year on he has been told maybe another 6 months if he does nothing (ie no more chemotherapy.) He has elected to go ahead with a further treatment of a different Chemotherapy drug beginning within the next couple of weeks.

Jim is quite a traditional New Zealand male - reasonably heavy drinker, loves his meat and dairy products. He has also over the years relied heavily on the medical model of health care and prescription and pharmacy medications.
I on the other hand am resistant to this kind of 'health' care, preferring to rely on organic vegetables and a few supplements such as spirulina to stay healthy as much as possible.
Some changes have been made over the year. Jim is taking Essiac tea daily, has replaced refined salt with alternatives and margarine with butter. T do most of the shopping and buy very little processed food and as much organic produce as possible. We also have both begun to have several alcohol free nights during a week. Vegetable and fruit smoothies have met with little enthusiasm so I stopped doing them. I may be able to begin juicing now summer is coming he may become interested ....

I am now fearing these efforts will not be enough to swing things in his favour. He still relies heavily on meat, bread and cheese/yoghurt as part of his diet and would be resistant I think to going much further towards the whole/raw food diet I dream of. I try to incorporate turmeric and other spices, nuts, seeds etc into our diet whenever I can.

I have had a daughter, brother, sister, mother and long term partner all die of cancer and am aware that a person needs to have the freedom to do their own journey. Having said that I would welcome any support and suggestions to help me ensure I am doing the best I can to promote the best chance for Jim's optimum day to day wellbeing as he goes through another set of chemotherapy drugs.
:) Thank you again

Carol, Judith has messaged you privately but will also flag this up on our Facebook page to see if any other members would like to reply to your post...good luck!
carol
 
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Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:54 pm

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