Good News !

Well after much waiting my husband finally had his first face to face monitoring appointment seven months post surgery …I finally got the chance to ask the question I’ve wanted to ask for ages ! ‘At what stage are we at now as the oncologist was hesitant to commit’ ? …How delighted and surprised we were to hear that the pathology results had confirmed that my husbands OC diagnosed in August ‘22 was not as advanced as originally diagnosed and to hear the words that this had been re-staged at ‘early stage ‘ From T3-N1-M0 to T2-N0-M0 …Taking all the results into account and the two adjuvant chemo cycles post surgery we were told that ‘It was unlikely the cancer would come back ‘ and ‘everything was looking really positive’  …WOW !! …

My husband asked if the OC was at an early stage when diagnosed why were his symptoms so severe ? ( He couldn’t drink or eat orally for five months and relied totally on his JEJ feeding tube for nutrition and fluids)  …She explained although the tumour was at an early stage it had immediately blocked the junction between his oesophagus and stomach as it had grown in an unusual way ..Growing more from behind and not from the side as a usual presentation would  do ..This in turn had worked to my husbands advantage and his body had immediately reacted to the ‘tumour growing inside him …Alerting him to a problem and the cancer then being caught earlier …( I’m still insisting it shouldn’t have taken 6 months though !!  ) …She explained this is why they asked him to donate his oesophagus and other tissue removed during his oesophaghectomy to the Cancer Research bio bank as it wasn’t a usual presentation and it could be beneficial in OC cancer research . 

She’s referred him for an X-ray to see what is going on with his hip and  knee  joints ..It could be arthritis brought on by the chemo. but she assured him it isn’t cancer related …His weight has stabilised at 10 stone 11lb which although his BMI says he’s still underweight he’s come a long way since twelve months ago when he was under eight stone  So we’re happy with that too 

We’ve learned more today than throughout the whole the curative intent process ..We walked out of the hospital on cloud nine ..Obviously another four and a bit years to go to be given the definitive ‘all clear’ but nevertheless happy with the outcome so far .This has been a good psychological boost for my husband and hopefully he will be ready to come off his anti depressants soon 

What a journey eh !! 
Wishing all on this group all the best in your journey ️‍

regards J