So today we met with Dr Hosney Yosef our Oncologist at Ross Hall. Before we got there today I had done a bit of research on him and as well as having an OBE in light of services to cancer, he had also graduated from the University of Cairo in 1965. I have no idea what age Dr Yosef is but I joked with him asking why he hadn't retired. He just said that is was because of the shortage of staff in Scotland - wow I thought, this guy is dedicated.
The chat with Dr Yosef went as I expected. The only thing I think that was a bit weird was that he had a stethoscope and prodded me a little with it, I haven't seen one of those things since I was abut 7 years old. Anyway, Dr Yosef set me up with an appointment with the nurse tomorrow in a bid to start chemotherapy on the 29th of December under the EOX regime. In discussion Dr Yosef did say that this this treatment was about extending life not curing the cancer and without treatment I would be looking at 3 or 4 months. With treatment we are looking at (I heard a year) more than a year according to Carol.
We drove back to Motherwell to pick up the car and both Carol and I had lonely journeys back to our sanctuary in Blantyre. I got home and Carol had already been in tears. We cuddled again and let it pour out and I'm now sitting in limbo again after taking a couple of shots of morphine for the pain.
The internet is a wonderful thing. Before I got to the hospital today I was praying for EOX treatment. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between EOX and OXO cubes but it is easy, very easy to survey opinion, read articles and to do enough to understand a frightening conversation like the ones I have been having recently. In fact without exception, every session with a consultant I have had, I have almost 100% been there or thereabouts with the outcome of the session. It has actually felt like the sessions I have had have almost been marking my homework or more about reassuring me that my research wasn't in vein. So today again was like that feeling. In a way I was a bit downbeat about the whole situation to be honest. Dr Yosef offered to photocopy a sheet from the Macmillan web site about EOX and I said 'It's ok, I can see the URL from the print, I'll find it when I go home'. He looked at me as if this was some kind of magic and asked me what I did for a living. When I told him he was then relieved that I was trained to read the symbols. I knew I was sitting with a great man with over 30 years practise in treating cases like mine and I know the treatment he has prescribed is probably the best within the guidelines on the NHS but I just could't help but think that I could have probably have done this alone. Anyway, at this stage we aren't looking for miracles, just the normal process to get us to the next set of fences.
It's at this point that no doubt the reader will be asking themselves why I can write so openly about this at this point in time. To be honest, I have no idea if my mind has accepted the fact or if I am still partially in denial. I kinda think I am somewhere in between. As I drove home tonight I reminded myself that everyone dies, and that before we were born there was nothingness (ignore the reincarantion stuff at the minute) and when you die there is the same nothingness. It's natural and it happens to us all and the exception in my case is that it could happen 20 or 30 years earlier than normally predicted, but the end result is the same. With this thought I manage to get through the drive home, I manage to watch TV and I manage to function as I need. Without this thought I think I would go crazy so perhaps this is what is keeping me sane whilst we go through this process and in a way has helped me both accept the situation whilst probably leaving the actuality of the event on the back burner, to happen at some point in the future.
So anyway there is a new plan today. As Dr Stuart told us this is like shifting sands, don't hang your hopes and plan for one thing as no doubt things will change on a daily basis. We need to take one bridge and one day at a time and not try and plan any further than a few weeks at best. So the new plan is that we do chemo. With the plan there is also always hope and we hope that the chemo works as well as predicted (>50% best stat we have been told ever) and that the various tumours circling my body shrink and go into remission.
Peace out.
