Last year (June 2022) I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I had surgery (which left me with a permanent stoma) and I had a bit of adjuvant chemo to kill off any remaining cells. I've been discharged from oncology, and I've started my 5 year surveillance. Staging is complicated but my I was pT3pN2bM0 (tumour was stage three, I had lots of lymph node involvement, but no metastasis).

Alongside that I've had problems with gall stones, starting in April 2022, and ending this year when my gall bladder was removed.

When I tell people about the cancer they pull on their serious face and say things like "oh no how awful hope you're okay glad to see you're doing so well now it's good news that you're in remission", and when I tell them about the gall bladder they're kind of baffled and not at all concerned.

But here's the thing: cancer was not such a big deal. I do have a permanent stoma, but for some reason my brain has disconnected that from being a cancer thing. I had a relatively gentle chemo regimen (short, and it was CAPOX which is less rough than other meds) -- don't get me wrong, chemo SUCKED, and left me with neuropathy in my feet, but I got through it. When I compare that to repeated[1] hospitalisation for cholangitis (a gall stone stuck in a bile duct causes bile to back up and that causes pretty severe problems), well, those repeated hospitalisations were a much bigger deal for me.

English NHS hospitals tend to have dorm wards. In the ward I was on there were 6 beds to a bay, and 5 bays to the ward, and then a further 6 or 7 single occupancy rooms. Some of the bays were smaller, and had 4 beds. Once the hospital was very full, so I spent a night in a bed (proper bed, not a trolley) but in the ward corridor. I spent over 60 days in hospital for the gall bladder stuff, and just 7 as an inpatient for the cancer. (And Sartre was right, hell is other people ).

There are lots of health forums online and I always feel deeply uncomfortable in the cancer forums. I feel okay in the ostomy forums[2], but I don't use them because they're all a bit odd.

I dunno what the point of this post is. Maybe it's "sometimes cancer is treatable and the person isn't particularly bothered by it", or maybe "people with cancer want support, but sometimes that support won't have anything to do with cancer".

[1] When a stone gets stuck they need to do some emergency work to stabilise you and remove the stone. And if you keep getting stones stuck they want to remove your gall bladder. There's some discussion about when to take the gall bladder out. Hypothetical Bob has a stone stuck - you stabilise him, so do you take the gall bladder out then (when he's still recovering) and then monitor him for a few days and discharge him home to fully recover? Or do you stabilise him, then discharge him home to recover, and call him back for planned surgery to remove the gall bladder? Evidence is inconclusive about which is best, so there's a bit of a lottery depending where you are in England. My local hospital took the later approach. The problem was that i) I had cancer, ii) My gall bladder was very active in kicking stones out and iii) we had several Covid pandemic waves causing huge disruption. These meant that by the time I had recovered enough to have the surgery, and they had a space on their surgical list for me, my gall bladder had kicked out another stone and that reset the whole thing again. They gave up this year and took my gallbladder out.

[2] Online health forums can have this really weird dynamic. English speaking forums are usually dominated by Americans, and Americans fall into 2 groups: 1) People with bad or no insurance and 2) People with good insurance. When someone says "I'm having this problem" the replies from the first group will all be along the lines of "go the the vet and buy this fish medicine" and the second group will be "here's a huge list of tests and products to use".

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I am in England, and so I am very fortunate because all treatment is free and a cancer diagnosis opens up quite a lot of support.

Getting to that age that I know my hearing is declining and I have steady tinnitus, which I'm pretty used to already. Conversation in a quiet room is no problem but in a busy restaurant I have to concentrate and strain to pick up what's being said. I can tell I have to play things a bit louder than I used to. I'm delaying going to an audiologist for a test out of anxiety that I'll have to get hearing aids.

Which makes me wonder what they're really like - How does using them change your hearing? Do you get back the crisp highs and lows in music? Is conversation in a noisy place easier? How much maintenance do they require?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

I've started to date a lovely woman, and she's now allowed me to know that she has Dissociative Identity Disorder. I've done my best to read and watch information about the 'disorder' but I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences that might they're willing to share.

I know that everyone is different, and there's no set way anyone who has it acts or behaves.

This thread can be used for general recommendations for anyone, but I'm specifically looking for a daily sunscreen I can wear on my face and neck.

I'm looking for a holy grail sunscreen that might not even exist (in the US, but I'm willing to import if needed). Here are my preferences:

• Not greasy
• No whitecast
• I'm not allergic to it (this I won't know until I try it -- I'm allergic to "fragrance" which is a relatively useless thing to know -- it just means that any scented product is a roll of the die as to whether or not I react with it because there are thousands of different things that can constitute "fragrance" in a product)

I found what I thought was it: this imported sunscreen. Went on easy, smelled great (green apple!), and legitimately worked.

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to it.

I've since replaced it with this Sun Bum face stick which is similar, but it doesn't go on nearly as easily and the synthetic banana smell is offputting. Nevertheless, I put up with it because 1) it doesn't activate my allergies (yay!) and 2) the banana smell is actually better to me than "regular" sunscreen smell.

Sun Bum actually has a fragrance free mineral sunscreen, but it still smells like sunscreen (which I hate) and it has a really strong whitecast, so it's out.

The Sun Bum I'm using now technically "works" for what I want, but I don't love it. I'm looking to see if there's something out there that I can actually love wearing, especially because I'm going to be doing it daily.

If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

I've just started switching my medication and it's been pretty bad for me. Brain zaps are very frequent and I'm crying a lot. I'm struggling.

I've been trying to find out what other people's experience has been like when they switch meds. What is normal and what isn't. People who relate to brain zaps and how they deal with it. Are brain zaps even considered a real thing?

What has your experience been like?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?