Well yesterday it was confirmed that one of my liver tumours is active again. After 18 months or so of being stable (which I'm extremely grateful for by the way) the largest liver lesion has doubled in size since October last year. None of the smaller ones (liver, lymph nodes, pelvis) have changed. Just this bigger bugger. So it seems that I have to have another load of chemo. Which again, wasn't too bad at all for me, as Temozolomide is tolerated quite well generally. I'm just a bit (alright, a lot) disappointed that seeing how my type of cancer is supposed to be slow-growing and all that, it didn't give me longer before needing to take action again.
But it was something the doctor said that depressed me as well as everything else. She said 'The treatment for this type of cancer (phaeochromocytoma) is still very limited. There are no new treatments being discovered. There are no clinical trials even being planned'. Talk about feel chucked on the scrapheap. I know that because it's so rare it doesn't cause 'enough' deaths for the drug companies to make money from developing treatments. But Jeez, could you make me feel even more abandoned? Also, the Prof who was looking after me at St Bart's has decamped to Oxford. I stupidly imagined he would take care of us (my son too) until he retired. But no, - he went and we didn't even know.
So now I'm waiting for another appt to be sent to me to see the Oncologist. He is one of the few Oncologists that knows something about Phaeos. Let's hope he hasn't left and gone somewhere else too.
