Highlights of the week

10. Saw my CT scans – the before and the after – thank god I made the decision not to see the before, until the after was available – very bloody big it was, no wonder I had a grand mal seizure. Surprised it didn’t kill me on the spot. Unfortunately the printout isn’t of good enough quality that I can scan onto the blog, but suffice if to say – bloody hell.

9. They are taking me off the steroids – obviously they do this in stages as I believe it can kill you if you just go cold turkey – or maybe I’m being a tad dramatic. Anyway I’ve gone from a daily dose of 24mg Dexamethasone to 12mg. On Monday I go to 8mg and the following Monday to 4mg. Mum & Dad are pleased – I was getting rather argumentative, stroppy and aggressive – but since I got the argumentative and stroppy off Mum she can’t really complain too much – hehe. The aggressive wasn’t much fun though (and is still there a bit). Add to that the desperate hunger and weight gain, I was really feeling rather out of sorts. Looking forward to some weight loss and getting my face back.

8. Late night visitors had to con their way into the hospital this week – very successful they were too. So I have gained two extra brothers and one sister. But guys don’t think that you impressed me enough to get yourselves into the will :o)

7. Marina Erakovic has been fantastic this week, winning her first two singles games to get into round 3 at Wimbledon. I really think it is possible that she can win the next round against Tamarine Tanasgarn from Thailand. Pity she lost out of the doubles, but at least she can concentrate on one thing now.

6. Cool weather – I love storms and rain – and the hail is just an added bonus.

5. Was released from hospital today. Skipped around the ward a little too happily and loudly – forgot that everyone else was stuck there for the weekend – ooops sorry about that!

4. I visited the house renovation today and there is only one word for it – wow! Darling flatmate (DF), builders, labourers, plumbers, electricians, and the outstanding support from my ex-work colleagues and numerous others, has meant that the house should be ready to move into in the next few weeks and I’ll be able to spend some good quality time there. It was all quite overwhelming; it kind of doesn’t seem real actually. Poor DF has done the entire organisation without me. The only bonus for DF is that she gets to choose everything – fortunately she has good taste, so I’ve got nothing to worry about. To assist I’ve loaned her my Cancer Card, which has many more magical powers now that it’s been upgraded to Cancer Card Plus – plus meaning terminal, which I think will even hold sway with the doctors and nurses – but best not push that one till it’s needed. Anyway it’s getting a good work out by DF – the housewarming party is going to have to be huge.

3. I have organised most of my affairs now – it is so liberating to know everything is set right. It’s provides me with such a sense of calm that I have to recommend that you all do it. Now would be good.

2. Have been doing a marathon viewing of ‘House’ lately – am half way through Season 2 and somehow I had missed half the episodes first time round, so all good. Just love this show, it must easily be the best character ever invented for TV. Haematologist III said that it wasn’t at all realistic and I’m sure he’s right, but realistic would be incredibly boring to watch if ward rounds are anything to go by. Anyway, I watch House for the character, not for the medical aspect. I’d go so far to say that I might even love Dr House – I’ve never fallen for a non-person before – very weird. Oh well I’ll just say I love Hugh Laurie instead shall I :o)

1. Gosh the pressure to come up with a number 1. Thinking, thinking, thinking – oh I know, hair isn’t falling out. I cut it back in anticipation of baldness, but it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere at the moment. Oh well at least it’s easy to manage short.

Bugger!

Well what a difference 3 hours makes in one's life. I literally met with my Haematologist at 8.30am on Tuesday the 20th to be informed that the latest CT scan had come back well and the cancer was still away. At 11.30am I had a seizure and was rushed to ED, followed by a CT scan of the head to find that the cancer has spread to the brain and is approximately 5cm in size. Fortunately my trading partner Marc was with me at the time and was able to get me to hospital rather promptly (poor bugger).

As you can appreciate a tumour in the brain is not good, treatment is difficult through the brain barrier, so I have to say that the odds of full recovery is only about 2-5%. The initial diagnose from the admitting doctors gave me a survival time of 3-6 months. However, they have been a little more positive than this since and we will look at this time frame again after my next CT scan in a couple of weeks. But in essence it is terminal.

I have had one chemo treatment already and another coming up in a week on the 9th of June. Following this I receive another CT that will show if I am responding to the chemo (or not). If responding then it is full on chemo (probably with steam cell transplants) and this should extend my time frame - no idea how long, it is just going to be a wait and see kind of thing.

So the first week I was fairly shattered emotionally and was suffering a very sore neck and was rather fuzzy brain, but feel much better now and the brain functions reasonably well (well no major complaints). So I'm back at work for this week and will drag my laptop into the hospital for the week of the 9th.

Sorry for the rather frank diagnose, but that's life and hopefully that chemo can get through to the tumour and I can push out a few more years - we shall see.

PS: that isn't my head scan - still haven't seen it. It sits deep in the left side of the brain and will probably cause right side motor skills problems, but shouldn't effect my personality too much :o). Well that's the theory so far.

Help! Cancer Card Expired!

Now 2007 was not the best of years for me. Cancer came up on me through the end of 2006 and smacked me to the ground by the 19th of March 2007 when I was hospitalised, informed two days later that I had aggressive stage IV Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and chemotherapy had to start pronto.

But every cloud has those proverbial silver linings. The first being, I finally knew what the hell was wrong with me - I wasn't a hypochondriac after all. And second, I suddenly was a signed up member for the all powerful, all conquering cancer club and best of all, they issued the card of all cards, the lord of the cards, the card to rule us all - the Cancer Card!

I was put onto this card whilst reading Cancer Vixen that a friend so kindly brought for me early on in the treatment process. It is a very funny autobiographical cartoon book by Maria Aocella Marchetto, a New York cartoonist who went through breast cancer and documented her experience with great humour and accuracy - I highly recommend it to all cancer sufferers.

Anyway back to the Cancer Card. Its main benefit is that it gives you the ability to pull it out at any time* and wave it around and say "no-can-do I've got the Cancer Card". It enables you to get around doing all sorts of obligations and nuisance of normal life. Things such as boring cooking, doing the boring dishes, boring cleaning, going to any & all boring functions, staying at any boring functions, taking part in any boring conversations. In fact the old Cancer Card gets you out of doing anything boring at all if you don't want to – work included. Fan-bloody-tastic, should have got cancer ages ago!

The mysterious thing about the Cancer Card is that its power increases the sicker you become, so after about your 4th course of chemo its power will probably be at its peak and provides many, many a free-pass. The only thing Cancer Card can't actually do is cure cancer.

But I noticed a disturbing thing the other day - mine had vanished! No I hadn't left it in the car to be stolen by the local yobs. But ever so slowly, as I got better and better, its power had diminished. It's like a muscle, the less you use it, the weaker it becomes, until eventually it withers & dies.

And bloody good riddance too! Good riddance to the cancer, to the Cancer Card and to 2007!

* Cancer Card is only of significant use if you have friends & family around to pick up the slack and help you along - so make sure you don't piss them off too much.

* Cancer Card doesn't work at the hospital - they're on to us. Step on to hospital grounds and you walk through a barrier that suspends the power of the card until you leave again - tricky bastards these medical bods are - but love them we do.