Taming Cells

Apologies for leaving you hanging.  My Radiotherapy completed itself so quickly that I barely noticed, to be honest it was quite nice to get out and drive (not queue) across Bristol for a few days.  At first I was fine, the skin reddened quickly, however, I thought I was going to be one of the side-effect free lucky ones.  I had plans for the month of feeling fine before I went back to start my new job with the Cabinet Office.  Unfortunately the plans remain a pipe dream.  Last week an overwhelming fatigue hit me so hard I couldn't believe it was real.  I was waking up having slept relatively well given the inflammation in my chest wall, but by the time I was up I was magnetized to the sofa without even the energy to pick up the tea Jezz had made for me, I even ate lying down.  Fortunately my day with the most energy coincided with the wonderful VE celebrations and we were able to join our street for a lovely sunny day of safely distanced chats with ne...

I am about to head off for session 2 of my radiotherapy.  In terms of attendance this is the forth trip out (horray - the traffic is amazing!) to the Genesis Care unit at Aztec West.  This is the shared private Chemo and Radiotherapy facility for the South West area.  It is essentially boutique hotel meets healthcare with the service to match. The three radiographers; Ali, Dana and Kim have been amazing, we had a shared nightmare last week over the cover because my GP surgery hadn't sent a form to the insurers, the insurers had to have the form to do some underwriting checks and without this I couldn't go into the CT scanner to have my scans which would enable the radiotherapy to be planned.  I had 4 days of admin hell, continual calls between three organisations, lips to be bitten with my GP, kind Radiographers making many of the same calls to help me chase.  At one point I was in the CT scanner, tattooed (yes) in three places with my torso covered in tape a...

Taking the giant leap into trusting science over convention has left me feeling somewhat anxious.  It is a risk, yet as the saying "in for a penny in for a pound" goes, it has not stopped me from taking another (albeit lesser) new-thinking risk on my Radio Therapy. The standard of care for post-mastectomy patients is to have three weeks of Monday to Friday radiotherapy.  My main tumour was almost as big as my boob so there was very little space left to cut cleanly around it.  As such the chest wall will need Radiotherapy to kill any cancer cells which may have been left behind.  From September the standard of care was about to be amended to offer the option of a higher dose, five day alternative to the three weeks of running in and out of hospital.  The situation with Covid-19 means that this change has been accelerated and I have opted to be amongst the first elective 5-day, high-dose patients. 6 months ago, at this point in my treatment, I would have been...

It is brilliant news for once ...the tests have confirmed that Chemo would not give me any additional benefit over that which the hormone treatments will give me and so, I am not going to have Chemo!! These curls are going nowhere!! The type of Chemo I was due according to fully published science included a guarantee of hair loss, spending the best part of 5 months going in and out of a neutropenic (low white blood cells/immuno-supressed) state and all manner of other horrors to boot. The test results from the US have indicated that my risk of recurrence based upon the physical characteristics and the genetic characteristics of the two tumour samples sent over there, were 12 and 14.  These are low to intermediate scores and large trials are currently underway to assess the benefit of Chemo for node positive patients (like me) with scores from about 11 to 20.  The results have not yet been published but there have been indications supporting the hypotheses from other trial...

Ok so none of us knew what it would be like until it was our turn to Lockdown, but I never expected it to become some of the most pleasant days I have ever experienced. Jezz developed a persistent cough a few days before lockdown and having coughed over Steff and I over the weekend we decided to lock ourselves down as one "household" of three people, this means that Steff doesn't have to be downstairs in the garden flat being lonely and can hang out with us whenever she likes.  We have all had some kind of illness but no fevers and it is unlikely to have been Covid-19, and if it was we were all very lucky indeed! My operation recovery has gone pretty well, a couple of appointments over the seroma (that fluid build up which was drained a few weeks ago) and some phone-call physio to check my left mobility and my "good" shoulder were OK.  My good shoulder is not OK, it hurts like hell, but I am doing my best with it and it has helped the bad shoulder get on with re...

Bristol seemed surprisingly normal yesterday, I expected to see less people, more space between them and the signs of them taking care.  I didn't see this at all.  To be fair, I was back on the Oncology outpatients floor but I would have expected even more precautions there at such a time.  Jezz and I sat rather too long in an (admittedly quiet) outpatients area watching the Comins and goings of people and their germ spreading behaviours.  We made a game out of all of the Consultant names on the board, our favourite was Dr Comins in Room 4, we were desperate to hear him/her ask someone to "come in", we were like 12 year olds stifling giggles, I shook my head and bit my lip when a nurse asked me if I had seen a missing patient I just wanted to say she had been asked to "come in" to room 4.  I am re-counting this only because we have come a long way since the 2nd January, sucking on wine gums full of pre-consultation fear. The situation has normalised amidst the l...