Doctors are great for so many things but a straight answer is not one of them. After my chemotherapy finished I had decided (stubbornly) that I was absolutely cancer free and excited yet nervous to get my pet scan results which in my mind would prove me right and let me get on with my life and work out my new normal.
My parents and I went to the hospital for the big news appointment and I could tell they were just as nervous as myself, but I was excited to be told that I didn’t have it so I could crack open a bottle of bubbly I had waiting at home, as I said before I was positive I was right.
Once into the appointment the big dog of the department (he’s the head of oncology and haematology cancer) gave me the news I didn’t have any cancer left in my body (well none showing on my scan but your body could still carry ultra minuscule cells which don’t show up but this could be the same for anyone…) SO YAYYYYYYYY! BUT he wanted me to have radiotherapy!! WHAT?! You guys said chemotherapy and if clear I was done?! Now my news to me was bitter sweet. These are the questions and the way my thought process went…
Do I have to? What does this mean? Do you think I still have it? Why now? What difference will it make in the future? Do I have to? Seriously! WHY?! Have I not done enough already?! Is it worse than chemotherapy? How much do I have to do? What are the side effects? Will I be able to do it and work? Can I still get on with my life and do this? How does it effect my future? Why do you think I need it? Why didn’t you say before? This isn’t fair I thought I was done! When will I have it? How is it done? Do I still have to come down to the hospital? Do I have to stay? How long for? And when? Is it necessary? Do I have to? Seriously why? When will it happen? Can I still do the things I booked?
As you can see a lot of questions and “do I have to?” comes up a lot. In short his answer was that he wanted to protect my neck from ever having this cancer grow back in my spine and making it any weaker than it is now and to try and prevent that from causing me to be paralysed. Basically dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. It doesn’t mean for definite it will never come back there, it also doesn’t mean a different cancer could come back there but it gives a higher chance that this specific cancer won’t come back in my neck if it gets blasted by radiotherapy as well. Radiotherapy is also not something they tend to try and get ’youngsters’ to do as there is a higher chance of some kind of cancer coming back in 40 odd years time from the radiation so they only suggest it if they really feel it’s necessary for the patient. Side effects wise, tiredness, potential lose of hair where the radiation hits, tender skin or red skin like it’s sunburnt and others but these are the main ones. On how long and when, I will only find out once I am referred to the radiotherapy department.
So after the appointment we went out for a little dinner together and toasted to being “all clear“, afterwards we went home with the news and although good news I didn’t feel I could open the bubbly as I didn’t feel like it was a clear win but I did happily tell everyone the news and so did my parents. After all that, all I had to do was to wait for the next lot of letters with the appointments to follow…
