18th April
It's been just over 4 weeks since my operation and although I'm healing well I had a really bad night on Sunday with huge stomach cramps which was either related to doing too much the day before or a disagreement with something that I ate. Lesson learnt, I opted to do nothing for the next 3 days and watch carefully what I was eating
With hopes of a stage 1 / 2 cancer being dashed during my histology consultation, it has taken a few days for it to sink in that stage 3 is a much more serious condition since cancer cells have entered the blood stream having affected my lymphatic system.
To see what I am up against I've been doing a bit of research on the Macmillan support web site on stage 3 cancer and the types of chemo that I'm likely to undergo including possible side effects some of which are not very nice however it depends on the person as to tolerance levels. Stats for survival beyond 5 years dramatically reduce from stage 2 (70%) to stage 3 (40%) so it is important that I give this my all to make sure that I'm one of the 4 in 10.
THE WAITING
The waiting for an appointment for chemotherapy is stressful because I just want to get the whole thing underway as quickly as possible. I have decided to try and push things along myself so on Wednesday I checked with Mr Brown's secretary and she has confirmed that a letter has been sent to Weston Park Hospital with a referral and today I have phoned Weston Park twice to get things moving.
Once I'm there I have a list of questions to ask to cross check my research including the possibility of returning back to work whilst treatment is underway.
The Joanne the Stoma nurse came yesterday and was impressed with the way that Bob was looking. Bob's reaction to the praise was embarrassing, squirting his mess into the basin of water. The nurse just called him a "Little Tinker". I'm afraid he just hasn't learnt any manners yet.
More good news is that my cousin who is critically ill has been woken after nearly 3 weeks in intensive care having made a little improvement - let's hope it carries on.
Oh and we won the quiz last night. must be because we had Col and Kev on our side.
