A bit of hope

I should start with a bit of background. My husband was told he had oesophageal cancer on 30th December 2022. After the staging lap at the end of January we were told it was T3 N3 M0 (poorly differentiated - the worst kind) the tumour was 11cm and had invaded the top of the stomach. Due to skip lesions higher up the oesophagus they didn’t know if they could operate. After the FLOT cycles the skip lesions were gone and they were hopeful that the standard approach was still an option. The surgery was on 12th June. It took 11 hours! They found that while we were waiting for the chemo to start the cancer spread and wrapped itself around the aorta and invaded the diaphragm and was also stuck to the pancreas. They restaged it as T4a N2 M0. They managed to remove it all, but the margins were not clear where the stomach was pulled up. He had his next 4 doses of FLOT and this was followed by 25 doses of chemo radiation in December 2023 - January 2024. He tolerated all of his treatments well with no major issues.

They did a CT scan 4 weeks ago and we had the results yesterday. No visible signs of disease. We understand this doesn’t mean he is cured, but he is well now, we are making plans for the summer and Christmas, something that we didn’t think we would get to do. No matter how hard you think it’s going to be, there is hope. It may seem there isn’t in those darkest days, I never dreamed we would get to now, to the oncologist saying “I hope we never have to meet again.” We know that immunotherapy is an option if it comes back, but for now we will focus on life. I hope that this gives someone out there a little light in the dark, just keep moving forward one step at a time.