Cancer Update

This update isn't good news, unfortunately. The latest information from the oncologist is that this cancer is stage 4 and not curable. The best I can hope for is that the chemotherapy will shrink the tumours and prevent them from growing. The treatments are indefinite, meaning I'll need them for the rest of my life to keep the cancer in abeyance. My CEA number has dropped (see Cancer Redux for explanation) but the number will never reach zero. Even people without cancer don't have a zero CEA. It seems I've had the wrong impression about this cancer and its treatment all along. I was so upset during the first appointment with the oncologist that I just couldn't take in everything he was telling me.

The side effects from the treatments have been pretty bad and I'm very ill in the week following a treatment; vomiting, diarrhea and constant nausea. The drugs they give me to counteract the side effects don't really make any difference, so I've just had to find other ways to manage all the unpleasantness. During the second week following treatment, I start to feel better and even recover my appetite and I was extra lucky on Christmas day to be able to enjoy Christmas dinner at my brother's. I've only lost 3 kg so far and certainly don't look like a cancer patient. I still feel as healthy as ever and haven't experienced any symptoms of the cancer so far. When I heard that treatment would be ongoing, I was pretty distraught but now I realise that lots of people live with cancer and view it as they would any chronic disease, which is how I'm trying to look at it. It's like someone with MS or diabetes - always there but manageable. I just wish there was an end to it and to all the appointments. My brother was able to take me to the chemo appointments until before Christmas but he won't be able to do that anymore so I'm back to having to rely on Handidart, which is a nightmare because of all the waiting involved. I could use taxis but they're too expensive, even though I live very close to the hospital.

When I first found out about this cancer, I was talking tough about kicking its ass but that was before I knew it had such a firm grip on me. Even so - I'm not going to let it win. I'm a tough old bird and I've come through a lot in the past three years so cancer doesn't have a chance in hell of getting me this time. I'm focusing on getting healthy again and will try to continue to live my life as it was before October 1st. Unfortunately, cancer brings with it a deep depression that's hard to shake, which I remember from the last time. This, more than anything else, pisses me off because I worked hard for two years to get a handle on the stroke-related depression and now feel like I'm right back where I started. Just more fighting, I guess. I was able to reach a point after the stroke where I felt normal - even happy again and I'll just have to do it again this time. I'm lucky not to have something debilitating like the stroke was so maybe it won't be such a hard slog to get back to feeling like me again.