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 …
I seem to be having lots of "5 years ago today......" moments this week. Following my recent NET Cancer Day awareness blogs which culminated in blog post I woke up on NET Cancer Day, my memories of that 18 day stay in hospital from 8 - 26 Nov 2010 are not only reminding me of how important that particular treatment was, but also how surreal it felt at the time. Some of it is still a blur, particularly the early…
One of the most discussed and sometimes confusing subjects on forums is the staging and grading of Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs). Mixing them up is a common error and so it's important to understand the difference despite the apparent complexity.
In the most basic of terms, stage is the spread of the cancer and grade is the aggressiveness of the cancer. They are totally different things and an understanding…
The internet is full of blogs and articles about a subject which is described as 'scanxiety' - the joining of the words 'scan' and 'anxiety'. I also noted some authors using the words 'scanxiety' and 'anxiety' interchangeably which in my opinion is clearly wrong.
‘Scanxiety’ - I just don't get it ......or more accurately I just don't get overly anxious about scans…
My recent hospital visit brought back some memories as I walked past the Acute Admissions Ward. I thought back to my emergency weekend stay there in July 2010. I've blogged about my diagnosis before but not about this 'incident' which occurred almost immediately prior.
I was well into the 'diagnostic phase', having had all sorts of tests including a liver biopsy. I vividly remember thinking these…
