My ex lover fought non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and won

he is in total remission now. I sat with him through every minute of his chemo. The chemo did a freaky thing and caused his appendix to burst. Plus he had the surgery to remove the lump under his arm, the chemo, the staging of cancer (which included taking bone samples, very painful) and the emergency appendix removal. After all of this, he was required to give himself a shot in the stomach every day. I noticed that he wasn't taking his shots and and said "hon, you must do this, it's for your own good!" and he said, "i'm tired of doing things for my own good." Then a few minutes later, i spotted him in the kitchen, spent syringe in his hand, tears rolling down his face. It was so heart wrenching!!! But he is doing fine now, he beat it!! I adore my ex lover. :-)

What courage it took for the both of you to get through that. You may be ex's, but the struggle you both took part in will bond you forever. I'm so glad to hear of his triumph.

Yes, we are still friends and that is so important to me.

About 7 years now.

May I ask what your symptoms were that alerted you that something was wrong? My ex had a huge lump under his armpit.

Started out small but by the time I started treatment, it was about the size of a silver dollar.

This is a thing that bothers me, because when you read about this procedure being performed at some hospitals, they tell you that they prefer to sedate, on account of this being such a painful procedure. Then other hospital websites describe the procedure saying, "You will experience some discomfort as the doctor extracts the marrow...."

Why isn't it standard to offer sedation for a procedure that is known to be torturesome? I've heard this described over and over again as being one of the most horrible aspects of cancer treatment, yet it doesn't warrant sedation in most places. I've had moles removed under sedation as a child, I've had wisdom teeth removed under sedation, why on earth would doctors not sedate as a matter of course when knocking holes in people's bones? Did your lover request sedation?

I saw a study done in Iran where, during bone marrow aspirations, they sedated so many kids and didn't sedate so many others. The results showed that the children who underwent sedation had absolute minimal side effects (a few percent exhibited nausea afterward) but otherwise there was no downside or risk with sedating children during bone marrow biopsies and aspirations. So why not always do it? It's bad enough to put adults through that, putting children through it seems unconsionable, and yet it is probably done 1000 times a day.

And was he ever offered EMLA for the shots in the stomach? Why are these things not par for the course?

Sorry, I've needed to rant about that for a long time.

Very happy that your ex-lover beat it, curse cancer and all its ugly faces. x(

Cancer survivors are incredibly strong and brave people for all they have to endure. When we lobby on Capitol Hill, sometimes a legislator or aide will give us a hard time or bully us when they don't support our advocacy. We tell them, "we've survived cancer, we're not afraid of anything".

I had to take neupogen shots in the stomach, too. Today there are more oral medications that do the same thing - darn we missed out!