I’m incredibly proud of my extremely resilient 90 year old Dad. We’ve had a difficult few years after loosing my Mum and his wife of over 60 years to cancer just over 2 years ago. He became poorly and was diagnosed with Small Lymphatic Lymphoma. He took it in his stride and after successful low level Chemo treatment for 6 months ending last October he’s been doing really well. He is still very independent and looks after himself and determined never to be admitted to hospital which he adamantly resisted when his health was at its worst. But as life would have it, he has recently had a diagnosis of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the skin. He noticed a small irritating lump in June and although he had a 2 week referral from his GP, it took just over a couple of months before it was removed. It grew quite rapidly into a bulbous lump over 2cm diameter which he was so relieved to have removed. He had the diagnosis confirmed last week and is being referred to Radiology to prevent reoccurrence as it had attached itself to his nerves! I have a multitude of questions: would this rate of growth be considered as aggressive? If he is given Radiotherapy how is this likely to affect him ? Will he cope with the treatment as well as the Chemo and the benefits out weigh the negatives? Is it worth him having it? How likely is it to reoccur with/ without further treatment? Given his determination to not be admitted to hospital as an in- patient I need advice to help to guide him down the right route and understand what additional support he will need.
Hi and welcome to the online community
It does sound like your dad is very resilient with all he's dealt with over the last few years. So I'm sorry to read that he is now having to have treatment for a squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).
I was diagnosed with melanoma four years ago but my treatment didn't involve radiotherapy so I don't have the experience you're looking for.
As the community is divided up into groups I'm going to recommend that you join us over in the Skin cancer forum where you could post your question.
To join just click on the link I've created and then choose 'click to join' on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post questions after selecting '+New' or '+' (depending on the device you're using) and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'.
When you have a minute, it would be really useful if you could pop something about your dad's journey so far into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar diagnosis. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
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"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
