2008-07-01 — Newsletter — the first chemo-therapy

It is a month since I last sent out a newsletter and there have been some developments. When I last wrote I had just had the lung operation.

What was removed was confirmed to be secondary cancer (metastasis from the original mouth tumour — apparently a rather low probability of occurring and I have been very lucky in that it was detected almost by chance).

A return to my mouth surgeon doctor started up a plan involving a full body PET scan, a visit to the chemo department (a new Professor, Professor Kornek —she is blonde which makes a change for the generally balding ones I get).

The plan was to do a quick mouth operation to free my tongue and to let me speak and eat properly and then start on the chemo-therapy.

However before all this, the surgeon started a quick inspection of my mouth which turned into a bit of a flap with two assistants holding those dental mirrors on sticks inside my mouth while he prodded and poked with a sharp instrument, and then took out two smallish slivers of what looked like bone. This was not a painless event and it is possible that I uttered the F word while he was at it.

Anyway he bottled the extracted bits and they were sent for tests.

A week later the results came back — 'not a tumour or anything malignant' he said with obvious relief but signs of a bone infection which involves a course of antibiotics and means the operation has to be postponed — indeed also that the chemo-therapy must now come first.

This means my dreams of talking better — I had planned on asking for an improved voice (Richard Burton, or even better Alan Rickman) while they were at it will have to wait and instead the chemo-therapy may well result in my becoming instead a Yul Brynner with a speech impediment! But bald will be beautiful!

Anyway there will be four chemo-therapy sessions spaced out every three weeks. And today was the first one. It is done as an out-patient, arriving at 9:00 and today it finished at 14:00 — so five hours. They attached a tap to a vein in my arm and then pumped in four liquids. The first and last were some sort of electrolyte fluid (a litre each) — the third was, no kidding, a litre of Cooking Salt ("Kochsalz") so I am well seasoned. The second infusion (is that the English word) was smaller and was the real chemo stuff.

I have a set of medications to take over the next few days including the World's Most Expensive Injection — €1,900 for one dose — which I have to jab into my thigh. They anticipate some nausea and I have something to take if that occurs.

I am in good spirits though. The day's session went well and efficiently which is always a help and I am tending to dwell on other things which are coming up —some Webster University staff training I will conduct, a real course for the students, some work for the Photo Club, taking my web page photographs — I am definitely back in the land of the living after the setbacks of last year.

I do not have much mortality worries, and am full of confidence, though of course the severity of an illness such as this cannot be ignored. But rather than brooding on a possible life shortening I find myself concentrating instead more on getting full value out of each day. I am feeling very much more aware of quality of life rather than just quantity of life. However, despite all this I still anticipate keeping to my original plan of at least exceeding age 82 as by this age I will have received my pension for longer than I paid in to it, and I will have beaten my mother and my grandfather in longevity!

I have been collecting these newsletter plus the brilliant ones Chris sent out, and am putting them in Blog form. There are still gaps to fill but there is more detail than in just the newsletters — if you are interested and don't think it too much of a self-glorifying exercise by me (I am still not sure of this) then it is here http://just-another-cancer.blogspot.com/ — the first thing you see may well be this newsletter again — use the link Older Posts at the bottom to step backwards or use the dated links at the side.

Still missing but coming in a few weeks are my recollections of the period in intensive care — I was not going to write about that but it comes back on and off, and I'd like to set it out before it really fades. So that will be something to look forward to — David searching for the embedded hard disk in his back; David being blackmailed by one of the nurses; the all night party held in the intensive care ward; the trivial pursuit game in the next room where I heard all the questions and knew all the answers; and why the English volunteers ignored me. All good stuff and all totally hallucinatory.

Much love to all of you my friends. I am very aware of being in your thoughts and prayers and you are in mine.

David