I have cervical cancer stage 4a. It is in my lymph nodes, stomach, bladder etc but not in any distant organs. I have had 3 out of 4 sessions of chemotherapy. Cisplatin and paclitaxel. I'm due to start radiotherapy in early December. I have an MRI scan on November 2nd. Worried about the results of this. I feel like before I go in to radiotherapy I need some really positive results that the chemotherapy has helped. Not just a "your tumour appears like it might be smaller' but like some actual real positive results to inspire me to tackle the radiotherapy head on.
Then I'm scared about the radiotherapy. 25 sessions. Over Christmas too. I'm scared about the burns and the side effects. And I'm terrified none of this will work. I'm 36. The survival rate of stage 4a is awful. I'm terrified I'm going to be so ill and it will all be for nothing. I really need a confidence boost of a successful scan to motivate me now!
Hi DebDebW
I’m not sure how much they will be able to say after the scan, but I would take anything that says a tumour reduction as being a positive.
I had 32 sessions of radiotherapy and finished on a Christmas Eve, and I had no burns at all. I did have diarrhoea and radiation cystitis but was given medication to help and these side effects cleared up quickly after my treatment was finished. You need to be told about all the side effects so that you can give informed consent, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have any or all of them, so try not to anticipate what hasn’t happened yet if you can. Things might not be as bad as you imagine. My main symptom was fatigue-I felt exhausted.
The problem with statistics is that they are by their nature out of date when they are published as they relate to the previous 5 years. They include elderly patients and those who have other illness. But unfortunately once you read them, you can’t unsee them. However, everyone is a unique individual, so personally, I don’t read them as I know it won’t actually help me.
When I had my recurrence so soon after successful chemoradiation I was very scared-I wasn’t re staged as my consultant doesn’t do that (it’s just called recurrent cervical cancer) but it’s effectively stage 4-my cancer became very aggressive and spread all over my womb and bladder very quickly. It was hard to think positively as I was more frightened then than I had been at my original diagnosis.
However, I put my trust in the doctors treating me, and I am more than 6 years out from my original diagnosis, and more than 5 years out from my recurrence. I decided to do everything in my power to get through what I had to do and imagine a positive outcome. I stopped thinking of the negative “what ifs” and flipped it to the positives-what if this works and goes well for me? I completely get that this is very difficult to do, and I’m not saying I was positive all the time, because that’s not possible, but I didn’t let my head stay in a negative space.
I know this is really hard, I completely get that, but try not to let the fear overwhelm you. I took things a day at a time, focusing on what I knew at that moment, not what might be ahead, and got through that way.
Sarah xx
