No not my end silly peeps. OK, I have my future dates all sorted out now, so that means there is an end in sight to the treatment, although obviously there’ll be long term follow up appointments.
Today I saw the Consultant Oncologist, Dr Bishop, as I’d decided to take part in the trials that I wrote about last time. that meant going in to sign the consent forms. I did a questionnaire on general health and how I felt etc and will do more of these at points during the next ten years.One of the questions was “Have you found difficulty in finding a bra to fit you?” with a note saying this wasn’t applicable to male subjects. All the questions had tick boxes, Not at all, a little bit, quite a bit or very much (not exact wording but close enough)
I’d not met Dr Bishop before as she was away last week, but she wasn’t quite what I expected- young, bright slightly punky red hair, jeans rather than the tweed skirt I’d somehow imagined. we had a good chat about the treatment generally, as she was making sure that her colleague had explained everything. All fine and I signed all the forms, agreeing amongst other things to gift the projects a sample of the breast tissue taken from the tumour and a blood sample (huummm just realised this means I’ll have to give some blood at some point). I wonder if this solves my Christmas present problems (“Oh thank you, you shouldn’t have. No you really shouldn’t have”) We discussed iPads and Apple generally and agreed that whilst Apple products were things of beauty, iTunes wants to take over your computer, your life and your first born. And somehow we also discussed Sky and Rupert Murdoch and I told her our household maxim which is “I’m not giving that bastard Rupert Murdoch a penny of my money” – rather than “what would Jesus do?” try the Rupert Murdoch one along with “Think the opposite of the Daily Mail”
I asked her what radiotherapy is so I could put it in my blog for my geeky friends, she did start explaining but my eyes glazed over at “cathode ray”. She did write down for me 6mv (which is mega volts) photons linear accelerator. Which all sounds quite Dr Whoish, or even a bit Trekkie. Dr Bishop didn’t ask for my reasons for doing the trial but she did agree when I said I understood it was just to hoover the last bits up as that it had been removed surgically. Bit like when you break a glass, you pick up all the big bits but you still need to hoover up the little bits that you can’t see.
So dates for my diary- I’d had a phone call yesterday and then the letter was there today when I got home,the planning session is next Tuesday 27th and then the radiotherapy starts on Thursday 5th. I did ask when I would find out which of the three trial groups I’d be in, and they said they’d ring up and let me know then, so I went and had a coffee and a few minutes later, Gwynedd the research nurse told me I’d be in the 3 week group ie the standard procedure. I can’t say I’m bothered one way or another, a bit of a pain having to go there every week day for 15 days straight but I’m only down the road and by then the boys will be back at school so it’ll just mean getting up as usual. (I’d asked for the appointments first thing which means before 10am) Plus I should be back driving then.
So by my reckoning my last radiotherapy should be 25 September.
I keep saying that I don’t want anything unusual, have no desire to be a medical mystery, I want the straightforward medical problem cured by science and medicine. But I am a little bit unusual in that I had a phone call from my GP, Dr Romachney on Wednesday evening, just wanting to know how I was and how things were with me and my family etc. etc. I mentioned this to Dr Bishop and it turned out she’s with the same practice and said they were very good and very patient focused, but that it was probably because I was a unexpected result to a referral. I think she meant that I am quite young to be diagnosed and probably 90% of the young women they refer with breast lumps turn out to be nothing, so a whole load of hospital notes about surgery etc isn’t what they expected to get back.
One of the bonuses to talking to the Dr R is that I’d made an appointment for next Tuesday as that’s when my current sick note expires. Anyway he said he would write a sick note for another 8 weeks, which would cover my radiotherapy and give me some time to get over it. So that’s me off until 22 October. It’s very stress relieving to not have to worry about work and/or getting sick notes every couple of weeks.
So apart from that my life has been in the bubble to the extent that I find it hard to remember what day it is let alone the date. I did go and see a couple of my tenants the other day, on a friendship as opposed to work basis.And ended up on a laptop trying to sort out a techie probelem ;-). I had a lovely evening out with work friends at The Plough and we didn’t talk about work much. 🙂 (we’ll need another couple of nights out, folks)
I’m still reading, still haven’t got off page 1 in my What To Read Next book but have read a lot of stuff nonetheless. Its a mixture of low and high brow stuff, well medium to low brow I suppose. Same with TV, alternating lots of interesting documentaries with old sit coms. And one brilliant thing about ITunes, and yes I know I was slating them, but there’s a whole load of lectures, free from ITunes Uni. So I’ve been watching/listening to a load of lectures on autism from the Yale Child Study Center.(sic) Really interesting stuff, but I have the advantage of the students in that I can pause the lecture.
I’ve also been scanning and rereading old letters written to me in the 80’s, fascinating stuff, to me anyway. And going through old videos as ever. How will I have time to go back to work?
Another month of appointments then, and then hopefully That Will Be It, apart from the follow up stuff.
Trivia time- tomorrow (24th) is 24 years since I met John. That’s more than half my life ago. Here’s to the next 24 years.
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