Well so much for the end of Gerryscancerdiary, today is the 23rd of November and at 9.15 today I met with Dr Yulle at the Western General Hospital only to hear her say "I am afraid its back" the words none of us want to hear specially so soon, this was my first full scan since the end of the treatment in August. So this morning has been a bit of a dazed muddle for me, I texted lee from the hospital and she met me back at the house, after a coffee and a cry we put our brave faces on and I started to call family and friends while she went to the Airport to pick up a visiting colleague. Now I have told mum, brothers and sister and some key folks at Gore I have got the story pretty straight in my head, so for thouse of you catching up here is the summary situation.
Originally my tumour was on the left side of my chest, the chemotherapy got most of it but they saw a small amount left behind so hit me with more chemotherapy and radiotherapy focussed on the tumour area. Normally this would be enough to eliminate the cancer completely, however in my case a piece of the cancer migrated from the left side to one of the nodes on the right side (hence ducking the radiotherapy) and has been growing since the chemo stopped some four months ago. So it seems like the rest of my body is cancer free, the orignal disease has been distroyed, but we have one lymph node on the right side of my chest which is showing signs of the disease ie is a tumour rather than a lymph gland. Bummer !
So next step is I need to get the very accurate PET scan done to see if the cancer cells are really contained in the one lymph node or if there is activity elsewhere. If it is contained in one lymph node then there is a chance that specific targeted radiotherapy in this region may be possible to distroy the cancer, as I had a lower dose last time I have some "margin" left which we can direct at the offending tumour, to add too much radiation to my system needs to be avoided as the chance of creating other cancers becomes significant in the longer term.
On the other hand if there is found to be active cells in other parts of the lymph system, and these have survived five months of the standard chemotherapy and are on the move again we may need to move things up a notch. This basically means going for a very severe chemotherapy which wipes out my immune system completely, essentially nearly killing me but not quite. Then having killed all the immune system cells, including the cancerous ones, they put back into my body stem cells which were previously harvested from my bone marrow which grow a new immune system for me while I live in a bubble to avoid infection. The dangers are that either I get an infection, which could be fatal as I have no immune system, or they harvest cancer cells along with the stem cells in which case both will grow back together ( this is less likly as this type of cancer is localised and does not spread eaisly to the bone marrow).
So all in all a pretty grim day for a thanksgiving holiday, at the moment my sensible head is in full control and pushing me to do all the necessary things to deal with life which of course continues ( I have just interrupted this to help holly with her maths homework for instance ). It seems like the PET scan will take a week or so and then the doctors will get together on the 11th of December to decide the treatment plan. Treatment is likely to start just before or just after Christmas and to last for a few months depending on the type of treatment.
For those of you who are not in regular contact we have made progress on some of the dreams and aspirations from the last generation of the blog. I did in the end buy my beautiful Aston Martin, I should work out a way to post a picture on the blog, we have nearly completed the roof conversion on the house the last windows are going in and the painter is working away on the rooms, we were hoping to spend the holiday sorting out all our stuff into the new rooms and furnishing the house so that it would be really comfortable for the future, lets hope we can still get that done and I have every chance to enjoy it during my recovery.
Well thats all for now, I guess its enough for anyones day, speak to you all as things unfold.
Cheers
Gerry
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1 comment:
Thanks Brenda,
The thing we all don't get about life is that its not a matter of fair, a big part is just random numbers, if god fate or whatever believed in fair then the world would not be as it is. Perhaps surprisingly I find this more comforting than the concept of fair (though I totally understand and thank you for the intent and the feeling behind your comment which is I wish it had not happened to you bro!)
I guess what I am trying, badly to say is that this is genes and random numbers, no one is to blame (as this disease has no known links to diet etc). The only factor which seems to be a link is that my natural mother Pat died of this in her thirties and there is some, not very strong, family linkage.
Anyway thanks for the love, support and keeping mum in the loop, I do really appreciate it and it helps me be strong for those close to me. Despite my agnostic sentiments all prayers are welcome and I still hope to see you guys in Bangor at Christmas (treatment depending)
Cheers
Gerry
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