My husband was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer at the GOJ last month and was told it was “treatable but not curable”. He had virtually no symptoms and went to the GP as soon as he did. But the CT scan showed a few spots in his liver and a few lymph nodes, so it’s obviously grown quickly. His cancer is T3 N3 M1. He’s having chemo fortnightly for 6 months (FolFox - 2nd ones last week) and immunotherapy every 6 weeks for two years (1st one last week). Being told that the immunotherapy will last for two years feels almost like good news as it means that they must think his longevity is at least that long… But apart from that I/we just don’t know what to expect nor how hopeful to sensibly be. What does “treatable but not curable” really mean in terms of what life may be like?
This lack of knowing what it might mean makes me just feel so lonely and don’t know what to expect or say/do for the best. Rather unbelievably, my husband’s diagnosis came a year and a week after my diagnosis of breast cancer. We think that my surgery and radiotherapy was successful. Last week, I had my first annual mammogram, and today they telephoned to say that the mammogram was fine. That should have been good news (because it is), but when I got the news, and then again when I told my husband, it might as well have been that I’d been told and then shared something totally inconsequential like “it’s good news it’s stopped raining”… I’m struggling, not just with my husband’s diagnosis but maybe with ‘survivor guilt’…
