Make it to Singapore and have a singapore sling at Raffles

Hi My name is Jonathan and my wife is Rebecca. We got married on the 17th of May 2023 after my diagnosis of terminal cancer. Since then we have been ticking things of my Bucket list and having a singapour sling at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar is one of them. Unfortunately all these bucket list items mount up and now all savings and capital have gone. so looking for donars to help us celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary on the 17th May in Singapore. We were never meant to make it to 2 years as the prognosis was months to a year to live from March 2023. I am still here thanks to trials at the Royal Marsdon Chelsea hospital. Funds raised are to go towards basic flights and a hotel for a week in Singapore . So any contributions would be so gracefully appreciated. Here is a little essay I wrote on living with Terminal cancer .

Terminal cancer My life with terminal cancer, and how I feel You may call me stoic or brave, but the truth is there is nothing I can do to change anything. I just have to accept it and try to concentrate on other things. Every morning I wake up with a sore mouth and throat and an achy body. I sound like I have a dose of the flu that we all get, but it’s not flu. It has been going on for a year and half and will carry on until my body gives up. I will never get better. I will always be ill. My body will always, for as long as it can fight these cancers, feel tired and generally " under the weather". When I wake, I take eight pills and, if I remember to, my oxycodon. I forget this sometimes because my brain function has been messed up by chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy (often known as chemo brain or chemo fog) but also because I am currently not in the severe pain that I was. So why keep taking it, if I don’t need it for pain? Well, I am now highly addicted to opioids and so if I don’t take it, I get nasty withdrawal symptoms. As my long-suffering wife explains, if I don’t take the oxycodon, not only does my entire body feel the agony of withdrawal, I also become extremely grumpy. I take fentanyl morphine, another highly addictive drug. Previously, I have been able to ween myself off the opioids, but it takes months, only for them to be needed again when things change. Knowing you are dying plays on one’s mind and so I also take three different mood balancing drugs; I take 50mg sertraline in the morning, along with 75mg pregablin. Then in the evening, another 75mg of pregabalin, followed by 2 lorazepam. Day to day I try to carry on; I try to have a normal life to help me to feel normal. I want to look after my wife, Rebecca, and the dogs and do household jobs and DIY, but I am not normal. All day and all night my dying body is fighting three different types of cancer, and I get tired, and things hurt. For the last year and half, I have been pumped full of poisons to try and shrink or stop the growth of my cancers and these poisons have, of course made me feel very ill – I have completed ten rounds of radiotherapy, fourteen of chemo and twenty of immunotherapy. To describe how you feel after a chemo infusion is difficult as there is nothing to compare it to. Pains come and go and appear in different parts of your body. Post-Immunotherapy is similar but with added aching joints and bones. I do have days when I feel so much better, which is great, and I can get on with things and feel like me again for a short while, but you always have it in your mind that you are dying and at any point something can change drastically for the worst. So, I have made friends with Time and am squeezing in as much as I can to try and do all the things I ever wanted to, such as watching cricket in Barbados or getting married in Las Vegas, within the constraints of energy and finances, of course. I hope to try and fit a lot more in – the bucket list is on the fridge. It strikes me too that the people I loved pre-cancer are loved even more deeply now. It also means, however, that I don’t want to waste my time on irritations and ignorance. I have a much shorter fuse with tedious people who moan and worry about things that really don't matter; I can’t really be bothered to engage with new people, and I think I may be turning into a bit of an intolerant bastard. I feel lucky to have outlived my prognosis and the drugs trial I am on does appear to be helping. I travel a round trip of one hundred and sixty miles every three weeks to be stabbed, to have bloods taken, to be prodded and examined. Every six weeks I am scanned. This will continue for however long I can manage it and, while I am grateful to have this treatment, it is pretty arduous. It may be giving me more of my friend, Time, but it uses up a lot if it too. Please bear with me, I may seem happy and well when you see me, but a lot of it is a front. I am ill, I feel ill and I am tired, and it seems that dying isn’t fun or easy. I know that, sometimes, this grumpy bastard can be short with people or even rude. I am sorry. Finally, thank you to my darling Rebecca, who looks after me, supports and joins in with my bucket-list completion and will make sure my wishes are met when the time comes.