Health Update–Round 5

This post is somewhat overdue but lately I’ve been totally focusing with getting on with life and trying to ignore this cancer stuff as much as I can. Its not denial per se but rather all about being super positive. Having said that I’m living in a three week cycle: crap week followed by recovery “weak” followed finally by good week. Just completed round five on Tuesday of this last week. It was a real bitch, on Tuesday night I started being sick every hour or so and by morning it was every 15 minutes. Back to hospital, where they fixed me up with some intravenous anti-nausea stuff. That thankfully settled me down and the rest of the week has gone quite well.

I had a CAT scan a few weeks back and the tumour has shrunk considerably as was expected.. Doc expects that the what little is left (2cm) is just dead tissue. I suspect that these last two treatments are primarily “for luck” or “to be sure”. Next step in the cycle is a more intensive scan after round six, this should highlight any tiny spots of cancer and hopefully there will be none. Doc is recommending that we nuke the dead tissue with some radiotherapy as a best practice precaution, this means passing me over to the radiotherapy dept who will use the next scan to mark out the location of the remaining mass but placing tiny tattoo marks on my chest . I’m still unsure how that all works especially being so close to the heart or even how long it will take but for the time being ignorance is bliss and I’m not planning to give it any thought or worry. Once that’s all said and done I’ll be in remission and will be closely monitored starting off six monthly and gradually dropping off. After 5 years if there is no reoccurrence than I’m “cured” and given my age, condition and circumstances the statistical likelihood of getting there is pretty high, around 90%.. Health update – done and dusted.