18th May 2020, Royal Marsden Hospital, Surrey, England Chemo. What a club to be a member of. It’s week two of the chemotherapy treatment… and the rules have changed at the Royal Marsden, as mask wearing is now mandated for all. Jo and the kids shaved my head yesterday, I clearly didn’t look menacing enough, […]
Tag: lymphedema
It’s never simple, is it?
9th June 2020, Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, Surrey I have a massive burn on my cock I thought I’d gotten away with it, but that was a mistake. After 22 radiotherapy treatments, I had a pretty dramatic change in genital ethnicity, but thankfully everything was still intact. Then, boom. A patch of skin started to […]
9 months cancer free.
Home, 24th October 2020. I’m not sure I’ll ever really believe it It’s been almost a year since I started my penile cancer treatment, and 9 months since new disease was discovered. After taking out the sentinel nodes in my left groin, two or three cells were positive. Other than that, I’ve been cancer free. […]
Momentum.
5th November 2020, Home. When things move, they move quickly I think it was about ten days ago, maybe two weeks since I last wrote. Back then, I knew the tide was really turning on my recovery. I could just feel it. I still had swelling in my bollocks and my penis in the mornings, […]
There will be changes.
It’s ok to sit down to wee. You may as well know now, there’s going to be some changes round here. At least, for a while anyway. You might just have to get used to being one of those guys that sits down to pee. Practical things like having a circumcised penis is owning your […]
Inflammation, food, diet & exercise.
Inflammation and lymphedema (or we could just call it swelling) Surgery, radiotherapy and even chemo disrupt the way that your body works. Things just get inflamed sometimes. When you have had extensive surgery on your genitals, this is more than a bit of a problem. It’s the absolute last place you ever want to be […]
Nerve damage.
Thighs like wood. I have had five operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. I have been admitted to hospital with Sepsis, and I’ve had plenty of scans too. That means a lot of needles for tests and thinners over the past few months. I’ve had plenty of cannulas too. Every time something is given intravenously, or for […]
Radiotherapy.
“you lay down, it takes about a minute and you won’t feel a thing” Just hold on, because that’s only really half true. I’m not sure how many radiotherapy machines they have at The Royal Marsden. It’s a lot though! Between the two sites, they will almost certainly operate the largest radiotherapy facility in the […]
Sepsis. Oh wow.
A cautionary tale. You really don’t want sepsis, or septicaemia, or a septic episode. I don’t say this lightly, it’s absolutely horrendous. Cancer surgery often means big wounds. Wherever they might be, that also gives a lot of opportunities for infection. At one point, I had two huge wounds in my groin which were not […]
Oh not this again…
24th November 2020, The Lister Hospital, Hertfordshire, England That was a rough night I woke violently at 2.30am. My legs ache so much that I can’t find a comfortable way to sleep. All of my skin feels red hot, and the feelings of searing heat and shivering cold coursing through my body are relentless. At […]