Got the results back: para aortic metastatic germ cell tumour, seminoma.
Given the range of possible outcomes I’ll take that as a win - it should respond well to chemo
The tumour is physically impinging on my left kidney, and so to prevent that failing, and to make sure it’s working properly during chemo, I need to have surgery before chemo starts. That’s just simple day surgery (no need for a knife) – and I’ll spare people the graphic details, but it’s simply a stent to allow the kidney to connect to the bladder. This will be my first ever surgery, and my first general anaesthetic. My life is a lot of firsts at the moment. The GA almost worries me more than the chemo.
After that it’s 3 cycles of BEP on a 3-day regimen (9 weeks in total). In as an inpatient on the first cycle so they can keep an eye on me, and on daily self-administered blood thinning injections as they’re worried the size of the tumour will make me susceptible to blood clots. I can cope with any of the temporary side effects (nausea, soreness, fatigue, baldness) but it’s the permanent effects that worry me more – has anyone experienced the hearing loss?
All in all a good day, relatively
