No more chemo

That's the good news. Looking forward to growing my hair back and regaining my appetite.

And the bad news? 12 months of chemo and radiation have failed to destroy the cancers. Last week's CT scan showed that the disease has progressed in both liver and lungs and there are now some lymph nodes involved. My CEA reading is again elevated - I wasn't told by how much.

The oncologist has given me "months". I intend to make the most of whatever time I have left.

Four Months

It is exactly four months today since I was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer and began the journey of treatment to attempt to contain it.

I cannot believe how the time has passed. Of course, the regularity of medical appointments of various kinds has assisted. When every fortnight has four regular demands: blood test one day, oncologist meeting and four hours of chemo the next, pump removal two days later, PICC flush and dressing seven days after that, it does tend to make the time pass quite quickly. Then it all starts again.

I have been rather mimsy the last two days. Mimsy is a word our family borrowed many years ago from Lewis Carroll's poem, Jabberwocky ("all mimsy were the borograves and the mome raths outgrabe") to describe a state of mild sadness and depression. The condition requires family members to tread lightly and definitely NOT to offer gratuitous cheer. It generally passes quite quickly with minimal effects on both the sufferer and the family. I am hoping that the start of cycle 6 on Wednesday will bring an end to it for me.

How I found out I had cancer

Readers of my other blog have read all this before, so feel free to skip today's entry, but I thought that I should include the beginnings of this battle.

I had no symptoms of bowel cancer until I got a dose of gastro (camplyobacter) in early November 2009. When I went to the GP she ordered a blood test for kidney and liver function as well as the stool sample. Strong antibiotics cleared up the gastro, but I didn't feel completely well. I was very tired and felt nauseous. I went back to the GP and she ordered another blood test. This showed that one of the liver function markers had deteriorated markedly in three weeks and that another marker was now less than normal. She ordered a CT scan and I had it that afternoon - Monday December 14. I was to see her late Tuesday afternoon, but I was called in to the office in the early morning to receive the bad news: colon cancer and liver metastases - lots of them.

We are fortunate in that we have top of the range health insurance (and have had it since we were married 44 years ago) so I was able to see a colono-rectal specialist at a private hospital that day. He booked me in for a colonoscopy on Friday and made an appointment with an oncologist for the following Monday. The surgeon said that if the cancer was not obstructing the bowel immediate chemotherapy would be the best option, in preference to surgery and then a six week wait to start chemo.

I had problems with the prep for the colonoscopy - I vomited up the first dose - so I was admitted to hospital and the preparation given under supervision. From there all went well, and the colonoscopy showed a single tumour which was not causing obstruction. No need for immediate surgery.

We were booked to go on a 16 day cruise to Indonesia staring on January 4th so that had to be cancelled. Again, thanks to the travel insurance we took out, we will get a full refund of our fares. However, it is taking the cruise line a while to refund us the portion we were entitled to, and we need that before we can claim the remainder. I also need a letter from a doctor to explain the cancellation.

Tomorrow I will write about what happened when I saw the oncologist.