I saw the oncologist yesterday, but the appointment didn't produce anything conclusive. The news in detail was neither better nor worse than what I'd already been told. It is - so far as is known - cancer of unknown primary, with metastases in the chest and neck lymph nodes. They're going to do an ENT endoscopy (a look to see if anything's hiding in my sinuses) but meanwhile I'm booked for a few cycles of a standard catch…
The Hooken landslide, East Devon
It's one of those peculiar syndromes that you can you live near a place for years, and never get around to visiting it. We'd seen pictures of the Hooken landslide in East Devon Coast and Country magazine a while back, but never gone to see it. Yesterday promised good weather, so Irene and I took a day out.
We took the infrequent local bus to Branscombe and had lunch at Branscombe…
A diagnosis of sorts, and a prognosis. Rather quickly after my PET scan on Friday, the liaison nurse phoned with a summary of the findings (we said it was OK to talk about it over the phone).
It's ain't good. Although it's still unclear where the cancer started - there's no major primary tumour they can see - it has spread to a number of my chest and neck lymph nodes. To summarise: it's looking strongly like 'CUP' (Cancer…
On Saturday, Irene was off at a course, and I went to get another tattoo. I've had it in mind ever since being diagnosed, and had got as far as printing the design and keeping it in my wallet for reflection. But as I was in town to visit the library, I dropped in at my regular tattoo shop to check the feasibility and get a costing. As it happened, they told me that it was fine apart from a trivial change to the punctuation…
After Tuesday's mess-up, I'm pleased to say I got a very rapid replacement PET scan appointment for today, at Plymouth. It was a rather longer journey - about two hours by train and taxi - to the Peninsula Radiology Academy near Derriford Hospital; the mobile unit parks at the back.
I'm sure many readers will know the setup. But for those who don't, a PET scan works by the fact that cancer cells use glucose…
