Cancer

West Kirby

Clatterbridge Hospital this week. It all went wrong yesterday when I managed to turn up a day early, total brain fade as I had the right dates in my phone, but it did give me a chance to have a walk along the Dee Estuary at Hesswall.

Dee Estuary

I should have realised when I woke up this morning with a horrendous stabbing pain below my shoulder blade that today was not going to be a good one. I think I have been expecting bad news from Hospital, Cancer doesn't just go away it can lie dormant and it can be very slow growing but it is always there. My latest CT scan has shown a significant growth in the primary tumor on my Kidney and also several other growths have appeared on it, they were probably always there but now four years later they are showing themselves. Short of saying the Kidney has had it, my Consultant was quite honest, six months or a year and it will have had it.

So what happens next! I have now come off the Clinical Trial, its been nearly two years so enough is enough, I am quite pleased to be drug free and have a chance to get it out of my system. Around Christmas I will have another Scan and at regular intervals my bloods will be checked to see how the Kidney is functioning. Early next year I will have to make a decision on what other treatment I start, not something I am looking forward to as the side effects are pretty horrendous and its debatable if any of the regular treatments do any good. I think it is a case of waiting to see how long the Kidney lasts and then once it is showing signs of failing removing it and going on Dialysis, this could be sometime later next year, but Kidney Cancer is so unpredictable, so who know's.

The thought of having another Severn hour operation to remove the Kidney and all the complications and pain that will come is something that fills me with dread, and on top of that to then have to go on Dialysis gives me no confidence for the future at all, but what is the alternative? 

I feel like I am back to three and half years ago when I left Hospital and there seemed little point in making plans for the future. I am lucky I have survived these past few years pretty well and generally have enjoyed myself, so all I can do is see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow and then just take each day one at a time, right at this moment the pain in my shoulder blades is so bad that I have no reserves of energy to deal with anything else which is maybe just as well.

West Kirby