My readers (if there are any) may be relieved to hear that the muse of poetry has abruptly departed, so what I have to impart today is in prose. But it's not prosaic - it's good news. I had a CT scan last week to assess how well the last six months of chemo had worked on my pesky little lymph nodes, and on Thursday my husband and I went up to the Christie to see my lovely consultant, Dr Saunders.
The scan showed that my 'marker lesions' (those they are using to monitor the spread of the cancer) are generally stable. I was hoping to hear that they had shrunk; however, they've just changed shape. Two of the three are the same size, and the third (in my neck) has grown a teeny tiny bit. Dr Saunders seemed to think this was the best result we could hope for, so we must take our cue from him and be glad. I am very lucky because anal cancer is nearly always aggressive if it recurs after primary treatment, but mine isn't. That may be as a result of the mistletoe injections, my particular genes, or just plain luck, we don't know, but it's nice to think that I'm a very unusual case, if not unique! Some of my friends say it's because of my positive attitude, but I distrust this concept now. Many people who end up dying of their cancer have had a positive attitude, but it didn't necessarily benefit them. While I think that being negative and passive is an actual disadvantage, I don't think the opposite can definitively be said for being positive, even though I've always been so - but then that's the kind of person I am anyway. And now I can look forward to a much longer life that we had assumed, looking at the statistics, a year ago. It just shows you shouldn't necessarily rely on statistics. As Dr Saunders told me in the beginning, response to treatment is a bell-shaped curve, and we just don't know where you are on the curve. As it turns out, I'm at the bottom end - for now - or should I say the top end?
The Christie will continue to monitor me with three-monthly scans, but in every other respect life will carry on as normal. There are a couple of minor kidney issues (which to be honest we didn't understand, even though Dr S drew diagrams and tried to explain), but he didn't seem unduly worried about them and I don't have any pain in that area I also have ongoing bowel problems related to my treatment, but he has made some recommendations to help me with those - and I'm glad to say they do not at present include a colostomy.
So we are off on holiday to Corsica next weekend with lightened hearts. Though I have to say I'm a bit less thrilled than perhaps I should be. Is this normal, I wonder? I was well aware that the cancer wasn't exactly going to go away, but I'm a bit surprised that 6 months of chemo hasn't at least diminished the extent, and that the radiotherapy I had on my neck didn't quite finish the job. I had in fact felt a tender place on my neck a couple of days beforehand, so I wasn't overly surprised to hear that it's grown a bit. One does become very in tune with what's going on in the body. As my husband pointed out, the real test will be the next scan, in September, when we see what it is doing without any treatment. That was encouraging, when he said that, I don't think! Hey ho, I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm just happy that the sun's out (yes, even here in Wales!), there's no sword of Damocles hanging over my head right now, and we're off on hols.
With best wishes to everyone going through treatment and suffering, and thanks to everyone here who has supported me recently, especially the lovely Miss Sparkle! I may not keep this blog up over the summer - life will just continue, I hope, on its smooth path.
