Tour de Cure - Donate to find a cure for Cancer

That big, nasty C no one ever wants to hear.

No, I'm not diagnosed with cancer - my boyfriend of 4 and 1/2 years has been.

It's something I haven't been very comfortable talking about outside our group of associates until very recently, its traveled through the grape vine so fast that even people we barely know or even spoken to before come up to him and wish him all the best in his recovery.

On the 23rd July he was diagnosed with Lymphoma, or the longer version of it; Stage 4, Aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. What a mouthful xP

But the development of this whole messy business started at the begining of the year with the odd sweaty nights every now and again - and being summer you really don't think your sick or anything abnormal about a night sweat, just that the weather is too hot.

It wasn't until some time in April, after our 4 year anniversary when he started getting minor pains in his neck and shoulders. Here he was thinking it was just a muscle injury (before this he had fallen off his chair and landed his shoulder on the corner of the printer...i did tell him not to keep it on the floor there >.> ) so he went to his mother's massage business and continually got worked on.
Over the months the pain got much worse, it traveled down his back and right arm to the point where he would need to take a cocktail of pain killers every 4 hours or so to keep moving, and loss strength in his right arm. He did go see two doctor's about it and had blood tests, but they came back clean, and refused to see a doctor since because, as he said so many times; 'they can't do anything about it, its a muscle injury'.

We fought alot over this, even to the point where neither of us slept for days because he was constantly in pain and I was always getting something for him to make him feel better. He refused stronger, prescription pain killers because he couldn't drive with them, but our options were running out fast - normal pain killers didn't do anything anymore and heat/cold packs weren't doing a thing, yet he still refused to see anyone other than his mum about it. The night sweats became more frequent, but we always thought the apartment was too warm (clothes dryer was usually running at night) or that the quilts were too thick for him. We'd wake up in the middle of the night and it would feel like we were sleeping in a bath tub >.<

Me and my parents fought alot too over his unknown sickness at this stage because I spent so much time at his place looking after him I barely came home to see my family >.>; My mum kept telling him every time she saw him to go see a doctor or go do this and that, because he had canceled so many shifts at the last minute because of the pain (she's his boss lol).

The day before I started up tafe again for the semester, he was rushed to hospital because the pain had finally became unbearable and he couldn't move. He didn't want me missing my first day back and refused to let me come, so his mother went with him instead. The first hospital he went to found two lumps on his neck - one in the front and one in the back. Thinking they were cyst's they were going to go into surgery and just drain them out, but to make sure they sent him over to a different hospital where they had specialist for necks.

That very next day they went into surgery to remove them. He wakes up from surgery and the doctors tell him they weren't cyst's they removed but two tumors that were pushing on his voice box and around the top of his spine. They had to shave off some of the bone on the back of his spine to get it out, so he needed to keep a neck brace on;
[link] < The day after surgery, much before the news has sunk in...
The pain went away instantly - he could now lay down and move around without any worry or drug in his body. Of course, his right arm was still damaged and needed a few days and lots of movement to get it back to how it was. He has two very lovely scars now on his neck, one that runs up the back of his head (they had to shave off some hair to cut that high) and one just on the right side on the front of his neck. They are currently healing wonderfully.

After many a test and scan in the coming weeks, we find out he has tumor's on his kidney, liver and a massive 10cm one right between his lungs, as well as the cancer being right through his bone marrow too (hence the stage 4 title, the cancer has traveled further than a normal lymphoma would). Thankfully it isn't in his spinal fluid which is a very, very good sign (if it was, there would be a possibility of this developing a tumor on his brain)

But the main thing to point out is that he is curable and will survive the whole situation. If it was left for a few more weeks, he wouldn't of made it to Christmas, a thought that runs chills down my spine.

Chemo almost started instantly once they found out exactly what it was and where it was. We shaved his hair before chemo started so he wouldn't have to deal with it falling out in clumps, I kept a small sampling of it so we could compare his new hair to the old hair when it started growing back.
[link] < Without his hair, I too cut my hair off and donated it towards cancer research.

He will be getting 6 rounds of chemo every two weeks and is due for his 3rd this wendsday and thursday so long as infection stays away this time, but it doesn't look like it. Also once the chemo is over, he will be going in for radiation on his neck, then going into surgery one more time to fuse his neck together and make it stronger.
He has had the natural bacteria in his throat play up and caused Mucositis, a common infection in most chemo patients where very painful ulcers develop in the mouth, making him eat very little. He has lost about 15kg because of this and if he looses anymore, he will be put in hospital where they can feed him through tubes - not something he wants to do but doesn't have much of a choice right now.

He does have his good and his bad days; where he can't move around much, taste certain things, extreme mood swings, or barely talk, honestly every day is something different. It took him a few weeks to get his head around what he has, but when he did it wasn't a pretty sight The only thing anyone could do was just be there for him when he needed it.

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This is where you guys come in. During the unknown period where he was in pain and taking pain killers, a few weeks before he went into hospital, he was actually helping out on Tour de Cure, a charity organization that raise money for cancer research. Him and his mum help out the riders every year since it first started in Australia, ironically enough he happened to be one of the people they raise money for this time around without even knowing it.
Because of him, the riders are going to continue riding for many more years to come (2010 was going to be the last year of the riding) to raise as much money for cancer research as possible.

The aim for each person on the team (staff or riders) is to raise $10,000 to go towards cancer and add it to the overall sum at the end of the ride. He has decided to turn his 21st celebrations this year (October 29th) into a charity fundraiser, where the only presents asked are donations towards the charity. If your able, I do suggest helping out the charity like his and my family have already so future patients have a better chance at life

Tour de Cure - Donate to find a cure for Cancer

Any donation is a step closer to their goals If you do happen to donate, let me know and I can pass on the message ^^

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Phew, that was a big load off my mind. Not something I can run away from, but I do feel much more comfortable sharing this information that I did a week ago. Its just one of those things.

In other, smaller and more insignificant news from my very long absence on DA, I don't know what else has really changed in my life xD; I'm doing web design at Tafe currently (last semester i got all distinctions, don't know how well i'll go this semester though xP), still working for menewsha and game, I turned 21 on the 26th August, was recently in hospital over a back spasm (woke up with a sore back, sneezed and it locked up, unable to move), started playing neopets again xD and i got my P's (meaning i can drive without someone else in the car supervising).

Hopefully I'll be uploading more work to DA now, I have soooo much stuff I've been working on that I haven't put up, so I'll get around to that soon too
I will also be going through the people i watch and removing some - don't take it personally anyone, understand that my tastes in art over the years have changed, so something i might of enjoyed one year i no longer enjoy the next

For now, that is all, on the worlds longest DA journal entry xP