Good news
I just came back from the oncologist.
My blood tests show the cancer markers are stable. Exactly the same as last time.. which seems a little suspicious to me.. maybe they entered in the last lot again?
But what it means is that I don't have to have chemo. The progression of the cancer is zero for the moment.
No progression is pretty great, actually.
I DON'T HAVE TO HAVE CHEMO. Not yet, anyway.
The fatigue I'm feeling is partly the cancer itself, and partly it's the anxiety I'm feeling. Several symptoms are down to anxiety, such as heartburn, headaches and insomnia, he said, though I do know that the steroids I'm on cause insomnia too.
He suggested I see the counsellor for some relaxation techniques. Hmm. I already know some, and I"m doing them. Perhaps I should get a refresher. I might head up to the local Buddhist Centre on Saturday and take a class.
Oddly, he said he had no idea how many liver mets I have and he said he doesn't care, because it makes no difference to my treatment. However, I happen to know it makes a difference to my prognosis. Really odd that he would say that, I think. I'll ask the radiologist on Thursday, she may be more forthcoming.
He also said that it's not the liver cancer that kills you. It's the amount of a particular chemical in your body, and how your particular body chemistry reacts to it. He spelled it out as cachins but when I googled that it came up with rubbish, so I suspect I wrote the word down wrong. If anyone knows the right chemical name, do let me know.
I also told him.. just as feedback, I said, how horrible it was to feel dumped after getting the news. We ended up in reception, shaken and shocked, standing there making appointments, with no place to sit and collect ourselves or cry or whatever. I said: just even a quiet place to be and cup of tea would be good, or even a counsellor on hand.
He said the problem is there is nowhere for anyone to actually go. They have no rooms for that. They don't have too many people getting terminal cancer diagnosis - less than one a week, he said - so that makes a dedicated quiet room difficult to arrange in a short of space building. They're planning a new dedicated cancer building to be put up in the next two years. I commented that that's a lot of women going through that process in the meantime, and he said: Thanks for the feedback, I'll mention it to the next board meeting.
So yeah.. that was worth doing.
My blood tests show the cancer markers are stable. Exactly the same as last time.. which seems a little suspicious to me.. maybe they entered in the last lot again?
But what it means is that I don't have to have chemo. The progression of the cancer is zero for the moment.
No progression is pretty great, actually.
I DON'T HAVE TO HAVE CHEMO. Not yet, anyway.
The fatigue I'm feeling is partly the cancer itself, and partly it's the anxiety I'm feeling. Several symptoms are down to anxiety, such as heartburn, headaches and insomnia, he said, though I do know that the steroids I'm on cause insomnia too.
He suggested I see the counsellor for some relaxation techniques. Hmm. I already know some, and I"m doing them. Perhaps I should get a refresher. I might head up to the local Buddhist Centre on Saturday and take a class.
Oddly, he said he had no idea how many liver mets I have and he said he doesn't care, because it makes no difference to my treatment. However, I happen to know it makes a difference to my prognosis. Really odd that he would say that, I think. I'll ask the radiologist on Thursday, she may be more forthcoming.
He also said that it's not the liver cancer that kills you. It's the amount of a particular chemical in your body, and how your particular body chemistry reacts to it. He spelled it out as cachins but when I googled that it came up with rubbish, so I suspect I wrote the word down wrong. If anyone knows the right chemical name, do let me know.
I also told him.. just as feedback, I said, how horrible it was to feel dumped after getting the news. We ended up in reception, shaken and shocked, standing there making appointments, with no place to sit and collect ourselves or cry or whatever. I said: just even a quiet place to be and cup of tea would be good, or even a counsellor on hand.
He said the problem is there is nowhere for anyone to actually go. They have no rooms for that. They don't have too many people getting terminal cancer diagnosis - less than one a week, he said - so that makes a dedicated quiet room difficult to arrange in a short of space building. They're planning a new dedicated cancer building to be put up in the next two years. I commented that that's a lot of women going through that process in the meantime, and he said: Thanks for the feedback, I'll mention it to the next board meeting.
So yeah.. that was worth doing.