Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Third time unlucky?

As I hinted in my last post, there are some serious issues on the home front. My partner of nearly 14 years is gravely ill with malignant melanoma, and was admitted to hospital on April 29, just 2 days after I returned from the USA. Unfortunately, there was nothing that they could do except for manage pain and alleviate the worst of the symptoms with radiotherapy, and he was moved to a palliative care hospice on May 28th.

The melanoma started 8 years ago from a spot on his back which he had removed. As a precaution, he was sent to hospital where they removed even more tissue in a day procedure, and all was well for another 3 or so years, until he started getting abdominal pains. These turned out to be a melanoma tumour on the intestine, which was also successfully removed, some 4 1/2 years ago.

Lase November, he began to get chest pains, which were diagnosed as "recovering pneumonia" from a chest X-ray. As he did actually come good over Christmas, we weren't overly concerned, but the pain came back in mid January and rapidly got worse. By February, he was off work, and finally, after a frustrating search, the worst was confirmed in April - inpoerable malignant melanoma, with tumours in multiple sites. I received the information while away in the US (thank goodness for VoIP telephony, which made phoning home cheap).

Well, if it wasn't for the awareness campaigns of the Anti Cancer Council, we may not have had the last 8 years together. Heeding their warnings certainly did give us many good times. However, if you have a mole or spot you're the _slightest_ bit doubtful about, get it checked NOW. And if you have kids, watch their sun exposure. Moderate sun, especially early and later in the day is great for their health, but avoid sunburn and the midday sun in summer.

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