Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Big fan of Dr Summers.  Like her a lot.  She is very approachable, understandable (not too much jargon) and gives you the information you need to make decisions.  She also spent about an hour with us yesterday talking through everything.

I'm not sure we learned anything particularly new yesterday but she was able to fill in a lot of the background detail that hadn't been filled in before and to answer our questions where we had them now but hadn't thought of them before.

For instance, I shouldn't drink alcohol on the day of treatment nor the day afterwards but otherwise could drink as normal.  Yay.  The treatment has "positive results" (which covers the range from the tumours actually shrinking to "no change" i.e. the tumours haven't actually grown) in about 50% of cases. The seems to me fairly good odds and enough to convince me that I should at least start the treatment.  I can receive treatment either at The Christie or at Wythenshawe.  Not made up my mind on this yet.

Starting the treatment means committing to at least the first three Cycles since no changes would be expected to be evident before this point anyway. Week One (of the three week Cycle) will have a full day in hospital (8 hours) followed by a one to two hour visit in Week Two.  Week Three is free.  Days 8 -14 are the days that my immune system will be at its weakest and so I may have to restrict access during this period.

There are lists and lists of side-effects but I don't think everyone gets them all and some people get none.  From memory, last time I had cisplatin I was quite sick (so will get anti-sickness stuff up front) and had some abdominal pain (that sounds familiar).  But I don't remember anything else.  And this time I will be having two drugs - cisplatin and something else whose name I've forgotten so things might be different this time round.

I wil be having blood tests all the time and scans from time to time to monitor how the treatment is progressing.  I'll let you know what that shows.

Apparently I am "young & fit" (no, I didn't know either) which means that I could expect to be at the top end of ranges (i.e. potentially more than 12 months prognosis) but since there's no way of telling how I will respond to treatment (if at all) no promises are made.  She advised me to start thinking about how and where I want to spend the end of my life so that any arrangements can be made in good time and any necessary research (e.g. on hospices) can be carried out.  I'm thinking though that I would like to be in a hospice as I get towards the end as they will have all the necessary drugs and facilities to make things as easy and painless as possible.

I will also need to get a flu jab (arranged for tomorrow) and have my pleural catheter removed (arranged for next Tuesday).

And that's all I've got for you for the moment.  Looking forward to seeing the lovely Sarah from Leeds later on for a drink.  Will report back on news from over t'Pennines tomorrow.  J x