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TODAY IS WORLD CANCER DAY and thousands of people across Ireland at the moment are coping with the disease, the effects of the various treatments and the impact it has on their lives and the people around them.
New research published yesterday found chemotherapy brought about major changes in the lives of men battling prostate cancer in this country with one third of family members saying their loved one is afraid that the chemotherapy might not work, and have been mentally or emotionally drained by it.
On average, most family members would rate the patient’s quality of life while undergoing chemotherapy as 5 out of 10, mainly because of the side effects like hair loss, nauseau/vomiting and loss of appetite.
Nicola Elmer, diagnosed with breast cancer over ten years ago had a full mastechtomy and also went through chemotherapy, said these were the physical effects of the treatment that she found particularly challenging.
“I always found that day three of the chemotheraphy was always the worst so I always had it on a Friday and Saturday and Sunday would be awful and then Monday hit you really badly and then as soon as you start to feel better they hit you with the next dose.”
That’s the strange thing about a cancer diagnosis, especially breast cancer because I was feeling really well, in the prime of physical health and fitness and then they started giving me a drug to make me feel sick.
The treatment makes you sicker than the actual disease at the time but you’re always grateful for it because it’s a lifesaver.
Support
In the study published yesterday, one in five families admitted chemotherapy has often left their loved one sad and depressed or finding it difficult to cope with their family’s emotion.
Naomi Fitzgibon, Cancer Information Service Manager at the Irish Cancer Society said offering patients the support they need at the times they need it is vital.
“Not everyone has a huge support system and everyone is different,” she said.
Some people just want to go in and get on with it and after the treatment it hits them and they need the support then. Other people are very active and they’re onto the cancer information service, talking to nurses, speaking to other people who’ve had cancer and going to support groups.
Loss of libido
Fitzgibbon said that while side-effects like hair loss and exhaustion are the ones most feared by people who have just been diagnosed with cancer, many of the psychological impacts of chemotherapy are not addressed.
Something that is nearly never mentioned is that somebody’s libido can go out the window and their relationship is affected and that for some people is the most upsetting – that their intimate relationship with their partner is changed. For people who don’t have a partner at the moment that can also be devastating because they think they can’t have one now.
Elmer, who had just been married when she got her diagnosis, said it was “really tough” on her husband because he knew that there was nothing he could physically do to make her better.
“It was really challenging for him and it was at the beginning of a new life for us at the start of the marriage but I was so lucky to have a really supportive husband and he’s still here eleven years later,” she said.
While chemotherapy – and other cancer treatments – can have extreme side effects, Fitzgibbon stressed that as research progresses, different treatments are being developed for each different cancer and with this, these side effects are also being addressed.
For more information, you can contact the Irish Cancer Society on 1800 200 700 or through its website.
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2016 has been some messed up year in UK politics. Irish politics is mundane in comparison.
Messed up? Labour are weak, Tories doing their brilliant best. Perfect. Only wish we had a party in Ireland as competent and inspiring.
@Seán Donnelly: Irish politics is mundane alright because their all in it for self enrichment and entitlement!
Stefanivich …tories brilliant, woukd you ask my arse.
@Gus Sheridan: Well seeing as he’s taking out of his they’d probably understand each-other!
The only people who hate the Tories are scroungers, hippies and the IRA.
If this happened in Fine Gael, at least there would be no brain damage. Always look on the bright side of life.
@stefanovich: — I’m not in any of those categories but the Tories are A1 a-holes.
After last weeks Tory party conference the Conservatives are quite literally morphing into UKIP. Scary stuff!
As Michael D. Once said… we might be the arse hole of Europe but it’s our arse hole…
@Seán Donnelly: UKIP is a loutish and nasty party. This is not the first fight and it won’t be the last fight. Most of the assaults get no publicity. They are hushed up. There is a macho tolerance of fisticuffs and knocking blocks off.
UKIP consists of extremists, oddballs, nasty and prejudiced types unified by an ultra right wing ideology.
Lol good one
Only if they landed on their ass
How long will it take for our ‘news’ media to tell us the one thing we all want to know: who hit him?
@Willie Penwright: Mike Hookem
I’d say they’ll close ranks on that. The French police will be pulling the lot of them in..I’d say UKIP will love that… being questioned by a bunch of “bloody foreigners”.
Ah there we go.. apparently he “fell over and hit his head against a window”.. as if.
Right Hookem
@Allan Farrell: I read your comment hours ago and thought you were trying to be funny, unreal.
@Allan Farrell: Me too. I rescind my red thumb.
Thought I was reading A Waterford Whispers article. Truth is stranger than satire.
@Barton Hill: Unbelievably the guy who allegedly punched him is called Mike Hookem.
Beginning to look like “be careful what you wish for (chaos), you might get it” !
@Brendan Cooney:
Guardian reporting he was punched after inviting another MEP to take the discussion outside.
Also reporting it wasn’t Farage.
Imagine 17 million listened to them
@EC P Ford: No need to imagine. It happened.
Altercation suggests a punch up and then he suddenly took ill. Seems odd, guess he could have had a heart attack but there is certainly a suggestion of a punch up.
It was a punch and he is bleeding in his brain. Oswald Mosley would be so proud of his political descendants.
You lack the backbone to utter godking Mosley’s name.
Mosley personally favored an integrated Europe (and a home rule / united ireland)..
@Ben Gunn: all that’s missing here is the Beer Hall
@stefanovich: there are lots of lads who’d have the backbone to send that toerag to the hospital as well
Farage should stay as leader. Single handed he got the British out of the EEC.
He has nothing to stand for. His only political policy was to get GB out of the EU and give zero fücks to everything else.
@Francid Dooley: Then left everyone to pick up the pieces and deal with the negotiations.
@Dave Murray: Nigel Farage is an MEP and is not an MP so he wouldn’t have been involved with any negotiations even if he stayed.
Factually incorrect Francid
Poor divil, regardless off his politics. He’s only 49, today is his birthday and the injury is life threatening. I wish him well.
Thug gets involved in argument.Can’t solve it using words. Steps outside to fight it out. Gets hit so hard he ends up in hospital. Save your sympathy…
That’s Kippers for you. Bunch of thugs, even the elected ones.
Says a lot about the calibre of people in UKIP
@James Darby: I’ll just leave this here… http://bit.ly/2d5Qau7
Another shower of gentlemen.
A lot of you are doing a poor job of disguising your glee that this man has life threatening injuries, and yet there’s also an air of smug moral superiority. It’s quite a combination!
Thw glee is certainly inappropriate, but I don’t see anything wrong with feeling morally superior to people who have fights with their party colleagues.
@Lorem Ipsum:
It’s not smug moral superiority. It’s actual moral superiority.
I don’t disguise my glee at all, I’m bloody delighted. I hope they all make ribbons out of each other. lol
Farage is like a dose of herpes once you get it, it is impossible too get rid of
Sounds nasty Tony
The Monster Raving Looney Party in disguise!
@Joe L: I’m nit able to see the disguise.
He found out he was half Romanian and his head exploded
Don’t mess with Nige
These guys make the BNP look like angels.
@Ossi Fritsche: there are no angels on the far right, only boot boys.
Once they start fighting amongst themselves then game over.
yes, now he’s tasked with getting them back in!
Telegraph is reporting that he was hit and then smacked his head on a metal bar collapsing later.
It also seems to intimate that a Patrick O’Flynn may have been involved in the incident in some way.
Not quite as dramatic as Jabba the Prescott punching the egg-thrower. I don’t like the man but it was a move that made sure it didn’t happen again.
Hahaha Is minic a bhris beál duine a shrón, goes the proverb. That Brit MEP has a name that would suit a fisherman, a missionary or a drug dealer, but he has a big mouth on him as well. Looks like he used it too injudiciously and ended up with a red dribble.
I presume that the European taxpayer is covering his hospital bill…
I hear that when pints are consumed, the song sung by UKIP is “Tomorrow belongs to me”.
Bootboys battle it out. Sluggers UK.
To “UKIP” a person is to give them a Ringsend uppercut.
Neil Hamilton, charming guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Hamilton_(politician)
Lunatics are taking over the asylum
Don’t believe the hype
@Mercurial 49: Far right eating themselves up from within. Great. *popcorn*
I don’t think we should be celebrating this. Sounds like a nasty incident. Having said that, I heard him a number of times over the summer and found him to be an unpleasant and thoroughly objectionable person. When I heard he missed out on the last leadership election I said phew to myself. Looks like he’s not joining the Conservatives now after all.
Chat shït, get banged.
If this was verbal only it gives a whole new meaning to the expression “tongue lashing”
have your say