Dave's Family

The Role of Family and Friends in the Recovery of Cancer Survivor, Dave Colligan

Leading on from his post about the importance of family, Mike encouraged me to write about my own thoughts on the subject. I mentioned in my previous post about the phases of recovery one of the bad side-effects of the chemotherapy drugs I was on is that it practically wipes out your immune system for the period of the treatment, so any type of infection, even a minor cold, can be dangerous

Given that danger, the hospital were very keen for me to call an ambulance whenever I needed to come in. “You shouldn’t ever feel embarrassed, just call one!”, they’d say!. But I was too embarrassed because it didn’t feel like I was that sick – just that I had a bit of a temperature – so Mum and Dad became my personal ambulance service. They would throw me in the car and quickly drive me down to the hospital - just about as fast as any ambulance.

Mum would also make me nutritious meals that I could put in the freezer and just heat up on the weeks that I had my chemo. She was more keen for me to leave my flat and move home with her and Dad, but an important part of my recovery for me was that I still had my independence so this was a bit of a compromise! My sisters and friends would be happy just to sit around and chat or hang out and watch TV on days that I didn’t really have the energy to do anything else. That was important to me because I never felt like I was the only one going through this experience.

Like Mike, I think one of the most important parts of my recovery – both the treatment phase and post treatment - is having a fantastic support network. I’d really like to thank my family, friends and medical team for helping me and continuing to help me through a challenging time in my life.

Dave

The Phases of Recovery

Another View on the Process of Recovery from Cancer Survivor, Dave Colligan

I agree with Mike’s idea that recovery is a journey rather than a destination. Four and a half years on since my cancer diagnosis, I’m still officially in recovery with check-ups scheduled every 3-4 months, but it’s not like I’m actively receiving treatment anymore. So, to build on Mike’s view, I like to see recovery as a journey with different phases.

Phase One for me was the treatment stage. The chemo and radiotherapy probably couldn’t have been more effective on the tumours, but the side-effects of the drugs made things difficult at times. A major one was that the drugs practically wipe out your immune system for the period of the treatment, so any type of infection, even a minor cold, can be dangerous. I had to constantly monitor my body temperature, and if it increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius [Ed’s note: slightly less than 1 degree Fahrenheit] I was to call the hospital immediately and it generally meant a trip to the emergency room.

Phase Two is the post treatment stage where they regularly check to see if the cancer has relapsed. In contrast to Phase One, it has been (luckily) very straightforward. I get the results of check-ups approximately every four months. I’ve been in Phase Two for nearly four years now and the chances of the cancer reoccurring are becoming more remote by the day. However, the thing with cancer is you’re never really ‘cured’. Instead, you’re classified as being ‘in remission’.

Mike wants to keep this blog focused on TBI recovery and he and I discussed applying my phase idea to that. He thought that TBI recovery fits well in to a three phase structure with the extra phase at the beginning. Phase One becomes the period of time in Post Traumatic Amnesia before treatment can properly start. Then treatment and post treatment stages of my cancer example become Phases Two and Three.

Mike thought that the distinction between the treatment and post treatment stages wasn’t always clear for TBI recovery. He said, “Even after discharge from, say, a rehabilitation centre, a recoverer may well continue to seek help for specific problems, as I’ve been doing.” But he still thought a phases approach very worthwhile.

The nice thing about the phase idea is that it’s good for motivation. You don’t feel like recovery is one endless slog. Yes, it goes on and on, but, if you keep in mind the different phases, it does so in a clear, structured way.

Dave

We Are the Lucky Ones

Thoughts on Recovering from Cancer Survivor, Dave Colligan

It’s difficult to describe the emotions you go through when diagnosed with serious illness. For me, it was more relief than anything else, that I finally knew for sure what was wrong with me. At 23 years old, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. I had two tumours identified: The primary one, about the size of a closed fist, in my chest and the secondary one, about the size of a plum, in my neck. Hodgkin’s is not hereditary and nobody really knows what causes it.

I actually wasn’t that surprised to hear what my diagnosis was as I’d been sitting around in the hospital while all sorts of tests were conducted, reading the women’s magazines in the various waiting rooms – there’s never anything for the guys to read! I read an article about the Australian singer/actress Delta Goodrem, who also had Hodgkin’s, and I just knew.

The doctors told me that my chances of recovery were pretty good, around 75% in fact, so I almost felt like a fraud when talking to other cancer patients during my chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions as they had typically been told that they had a much slimmer chance than me. The positive outlook that these people displayed under such difficult circumstances was inspiring to say the least

My friends and family reacted in very different ways to my diagnosis. Some people cried, some people were very matter-of-fact – I guess everyone has their own way of dealing with adversity and I tried to help people deal with it as best I could. For me, I just coped by trying to live as normally as possible, and encouraging people to treat me as normally as possible.

I’m usually a fairly active person, but cancer and cancer treatment really saps your energy levels so I passed the time when I had no energy by doing a bit of reading. Two of the books that I read, which will be no surprise to those affected by cancer, were Lance Armstrong’s books It’s Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts. Lance is a very inspiring person himself, but there was one line in particular that I liked which I think Lance attributed to one of the many cancer patients he became friends with:

“We are the lucky ones…”

When people ask me whether I ever think that I was unlucky to get cancer, I always reply that if I had my time again I’d still want to go through what I went through. This is pretty hard for a lot of people to understand, and maybe it takes a ‘life-changing’ event to really understand it, but I really do feel lucky to have had this experience. Sure, chemo’s not much fun, but being faced with the prospect of losing your life puts a lot of things into perspective and highlights what matters to you and what doesn’t. I know it’s a cliché – and a slogan - but life is short and (depending on what you believe) you only have one.

So I reckon it’s good to make the most of it.


Dave