As I write this, I'm well into the 5th anniversary of my 18 day stay in hospital for my first major surgery treatment for metastatic Neuroendocrine Cancer. The surgery on 9 Nov 2010 had lasted 9 hours but according to my surgeon Mr Neil Pearce, I tolerated it well. My first week was quite tough and I outlined how this went in my blog 'patient experience' part 1. If you've not read it yet, please click on …
2 years ago today, Chris and I were half way along the 84-mile route of Hadrian's Wall in Northern England. Some people saw this is a charity walk and a chance to make some money for a good cause. However, it was MUCH MORE than that. Much much more.
A few months before this trek, I had come to a crossroads and I was unsure which direction to go. That anguish and a thousand other things were contributing to a degradation…
When my diagnosing specialist suggested I had Neuroendocrine Cancer, he also told me not to go online whilst we awaited the results of the liver biopsy. I completely ignored that and went online! I very quickly discovered why he said that because the Neuroendocrine Cancer information online in 2010 was indeed scary, despite me being a very experienced user of computers and the internet; and despite me being to some extent…
6 years ago today Chris and I flew off to Barbados on holiday. Both of us were looking forward to a nice break after a hectic start to 2010. When we got back, we both agreed it was the most relaxing holiday we had ever been on. It was heaven.
However, whilst I was lying on a sunbed soaking up the Caribbean sun drinking ‘pina coladas’, Neuroendocrine Tumours were growing in my small intestine, spreading into…
"I'm only as good as my last scan". I received this comment last week in response to one of my posts and I thought it was a very pragmatic thing for someone to say. The timing is good as I'm off for a CT scan later today :-)
A NET patient under surveillance has regular tests at determined intervals but the one that is most likely to indicate disease progression, stability or regression is a scan. Markers…
