For the last six weeks I have been largely silent on social media whether on Facebook, my blog or on X,Blue Sky or Linked In. The reason is I am now at 78 facing the biggest battle of my life and I don't know the outcome.
The previous year was bad enough, losing my wife Margaret just before Xmas, finding out I had a melanoma on my back and re-organising my social and professional life. But the melanoma was defeated and I was enjoying being cancer free again.
Then at my last check up at Mount Vernon hospital my prospects were shattered the melanoma had turned up in my liver.
Now Mount Vernon is at the cutting edge of medical technology to treat cancer and I was offered a proven treatment using immunotherapy where they inject two drugs into my blood stream to stimulate my immune system to turn on the cancer. The first month was fine I hardly noticed it but just after Christmas after the second treatment I became extremely ill. Excruciating pains turned up at night,I was sick,listless and almost zombie like. Mount Vernon called me in for a battery of blood tests, an MRI scan and found my liver bloods were abnormal and it had made the cancer worse.
The treatment was cancelled. Instead they proposed another treatment of targeted chemotherapy taken in tablet form that would attack the melanoma. But there was one big drawback. I would get much better only for the melanoma to return later. on it an average life expectancy was just another six to 12 months. The news was brutal.
I had taken a taxi to Mount Vernon on the way back as I got home I fell out of the taxi and gashed my head on the concrete pavement. The taxi driver called an ambulance and I was taken to Watford General Hospital.
I stayed there for four days. It turned out after a CT scan and a physio check no damage was done. But then I discovered without my knowledge that the two hospitals - Watford and Mount Vernon collaborated over the weekend to start my new treatment while i was there, they stabilised me, brought my blood sugars down, did regular checks. They also banned me from going home to live by myself instead my daughter and family took me in and I am growing in strength again day by day. Two days later the oncologist from Mount Vernon rang to say only after three doses of the new treatment my liver blood results had suddenly reversed themselves and were now normal. I could tell he was both pleased and surprised.I await the next development
