Hello everyone. I am about to start 5-weeks of radiotherapy with 2 sessions of Cisplatin on Day 1 and Day 16 on Monday 13th Oct at 11:00. I had Stage 1b Grade 3 uterine cancer successfully removed via a hysterectomy with no spread outside the womb.The only slight complication is I had an out of hospital cardiac arrest in Feb and now have an internal defibrillator fitted. All the way through this process I have encountered delay (98 days between referral and the operation) with my ICD being cited as the excuse. I was told by one consultant that I only had a 50:50 chance of surviving a general anaesthetic! I had to argue with my gynae consultant and beg for a hysterectomy which I finally received in July. At one stage they were considering "managing the cancer" without a hysterectomy.
On Friday (yesterday) at 17:30 in the evening I received a telephone call from the chemo department asking me to get to the hospital at 08:30 because someone had only just realised there was a problem with my appointment timings. I had pointed out the clash of timings to my oncologist at an appointment on Wednesday and she told me not to worry. The chemo will take 6.5 hours, taking me to 17:30 (if all goes well) and my radiotherapy appointment is at 15:30! I was also advised on Friday that cardiology would need to deactivate/reactivate my ICD before every radiotherapy session, even though it will be low dose surface guided pelvic radiotherapy, and my cardiologist told me last week during a face-to-face appointment that there would be no requirement to deactivate the unit. Although they aren't saying it, the issue is that cardiology finish at 17:00 and the chemo unit closes at 18:00.
I've had my emotions turned completely upside down. I had hoped for a quiet weekend to spend some quality time with my husband before embarking on this next phase. Instead I am worrying because I cannot get to the hospital for 08:30 - we told them we couldnt get there for 08:30. I'm anxious that they will not commence the treatment because someone, somewhere didn't do their job properly! It's been a complete shambles so far and my trust in the oncology department to make sure they are providing me with the right treatment has completely evaporated. All I seem to have done is advocate for myself since being diagnosed - I'm so tired with it all.
