My Story by Terri Camp
By Terri Camp
Reading this as a Fibromyalgia patient you will understand better most the toll that living with constant pain and the overreaching anxiety of serious illness brings.
How do you describe the scariest day in your life. For me, that was the Friday 21st July 2017. I had just been on holiday with my family and within 3 days of being home my whole life had changed. I had been losing weight since giving birth to my daughter. I had been to my GP 7 times about feeling tired, loss of appetite and blood in my toilet. Every time I was dismissed being told I was a geriatric mother, it was a bleeding haemorrhoid, it was post traumatic stress or a tear in my rectum from the labour. Not once was I checked internally, not once did I have my bloods checked. We were on our last day of holiday and I had so much blood in in the toilet that my husband said to me this isn't right, you have private healthcare, please book an emergency appointment the day we land. Which I did. The doctor took one look at me and my history, I also had cervical cancer at 30, got me on the bed and did an internal exam. He told me he could feel a mass and wanted to get me in for a PET scan and bloods while I was there. That was the Monday. After a barrage of tests and a colonoscopy on the Wednesday, that Friday 21st July I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel and colon cancer. My first thought was how the hell am I going to tell my parents and my husband and please God let me live to see my daughter grow up. The pain in my heart and the sickness to the pit of my stomach was unlike any other feeling I have ever experienced in my life. That fear that I would lose my world took my breath away. Since that day I have had 7 surgeries, 7 rounds of chemotherapy, 3 rounds of radiotherapy, enough pills to put King Kong to sleep and a whole truck load of cuddles from friends and family. From that moment to this I have fought and will continue to fight to be here for my loved ones and myself no matter the pain, the sickness, the fear and the continued prodding and poking from nurses and doctors, I will continue to push myself to be here for as long as I can.
We found out in March 2020 that I was no longer seen as curable. My heart sank. I refused to give up and accept this. My first oncologist basically dismissed me and said there was nothing more he could do apart from a gruelling biweekly chemotherapy regime until I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew there had to be other options so found a new oncologist and decided to look for alternative pain, anxiety and sickness medication. The pain medication I was on caused me to have a continual foggy head, constipation and stomach cramps, the anti-sickness medication also causes constipation and I ended up in hospital twice with a twisted bowel, the last time I nearly ended up in surgery.
My little girl was only just 4 years old and all she had known her whole life was mummy being sick or in hospital. I was being sick in the bathroom from the latest round of chemo. It was 2am, I remember the time because I had watched greys anatomy back to back because I couldn’t sleep from the sickness and steroids. My husband was asleep but my little girl heard me and came into the bathroom and sat next to me on the floor stroking my hair and telling me she loved me and it would be okay. It broke my heart. She had got me out of bed that morning telling me it was a lovely day and I should be up and snuzzling with her, but I just couldn't drag myself out of bed. So she cuddled me in bed for an hour while I pulled myself together. Between that moment, being told I am no longer curable and the 2am "wake up call" I said enough I needed to find another way to manage my pain and sickness. I had been given this beautiful gift and I wasn’t going miss it, miss her, my beautiful baby girl, because of sickness and pain. I needed to fight in an different way.
The previous oncologist refused to treat me if I was going to try alternative medication along side his regime. But my new oncologist was all for it. He knew me from when I was first diagnosed and agreed with me that whatever I needed to do to give me more time and less pain was the right decision. All he asked was that I keep him informed and we work together with whatever I wanted to do.
I had done some research into the effects of cannabis and how it can help with controlling pain, anxiety, sickness and loss of appetite; all of which I was experiencing. I found out how to grow my own and managed successfully to grow and harvest 3 plants. It worked, but the more I read about cannabis the more I realised just growing it and self medicating wasn’t going to be enough. I met a cancer patient and she was talking about medical cannabis and how it has helped her. So I reached out to Integro Medical Clinics in October 2020 and have been a patient with them ever since. With the support of my oncologist and my doctor at Integro I no longer need to take any of the horrible stuff that was making me lose myself. Since switching to medical cannabis, I no longer take gabapentin, codeine, domperidone and diazapam. I no longer need to take 2 senna a day to try and help me go to the toilet and I sleep better than I ever have done and I am there mentally and emotionally for my daughter and family. Chronic pain and anxiety no matter the cause, is torture. Popping pills continuously is torture.
I have just finished 6 rounds of the latest bout of chemotherapy and for all intense and purposes I am okay. The 7.5cm tumour in my liver has shrunk to 2cm and the others are responding well. Not well enough to go a few months without Chemotherapy, but enough that I can have Christmas with my family and restart on the 7th January. We hope I will be able to have the surgery on my liver and my collapsed IVC, we will know by Christmas, fingers crossed for the future.
Out of adversity I have learnt to cherish the things in life that really count and express my self by writing an article like this or having started by own Instagram/Blog 'Cancer Cannabis & Me' - things I would never have considered possible ten years ago.