Decision made – Christmas – Back to work

Today (Friday 20th December) Kerry drove us to Manchester to visit the Christie Hospital as I was referred by Colo-rectal Surgeon Omer Aziz to Professor Mark Saunders.
All in all it was a pretty quick meeting, we discussed the abnormality in my left seminal vesicle, my losing faith in the Newcastle surgery team (namely Paul O’Loughlin) and the next steps.
His plan was:-

• Starting January 7th
• 28 session chemo-radiotherapy sessions. (Totaling 5 weeks and 3 days. Weekends off)
• I would be having a pill form of the Irinotecan chemotherapy I had in pump form for 3 months.
• It would be in Manchester.
• Then pass me back to Omer for surgery

A quick check on Trainline.com, an on the day ticket return is about £75-80 X 28 days, (£2,240)
Even if we could organise some book in advance discount, I shouldn’t imagine we would save that much.
Kerry checked some Rent/AirBnB etc and ‘rent’ ranged from £700-3000.
We are NOT putting that mileage on our car either, plus the diesel costs, yeah, that’s not happening.

So as we do not have an invisible pot of money and that we had to make a decision there and then, it isn’t possible to have the treatment at The Christie.

What does this mean I hear you cry?

Well, firstly, it would mean further delay I am afraid to say.
Mark does have colleagues in the North East and recommended a chap by the name of Ian Pedley He is going to refer me. However this does mean that I will have to go up for another MDT with Ian’s team. This usually means more CT/MRI’s no doubt. However, they need to agree the new plan with Kerry and me.
I can work and receive this treatment. Which leads me on to my next point…

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Christmas, let’s have Christmas and forget I have cancer for a couple of days.
I am still going to be contacting my employer. Preparing them for the bad news. I’m coming back baby! Well, with their permission.

I look at it this way:- I am going to have another couple of weeks to a month of waiting, then I am going to have more time to wait to have scans and have them reviewed by the MDT. If I do need further MRI or CT scans, I can have the time off for Doctors appointments. As for the actual radiotherapy sessions. They don’t take long either.

When I am passed to surgery and I do not have any illusions on them not still having to take the lot out as the Newcastle team suggested, it’s going to be done by Omer in the Christie. I will need recovery time and I will need a week or so off work and then get back to work again.

If I need further chemotherapy down the road, I will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I will need a long time to recover from the radiotherapy before the operation would be on the cards anyways.

So, yeah. All in all, not all of the news I wanted to hear, some positives. That and being told there’s about a 50% chance of impotence. Yeah, not the best day in my cancer career.
I cried on the drive home from Manchester, I think I let it sink in that this cancer is going to kill me some day. It’s just going to keep appearing and appearing until it turns up somewhere they can’t remove it.

I haven’t given up the fight, Christ no! It just gets a bit too much sometimes and this was one of those times.

Anyways, As I said, let’s have Christmas.

So to one and all, I hope you and yours have an amazing Christmas. May your turkey be flawless and your roasties (My favourites) be on point.
If you don’t celebrate. Happy Holidays and have fun getting up to whatever you get up to. I hope that’s amazing too 🙂

Me and Kerry are doing a Cheese-mas this year, Kerry the veggie and I cut back on my meat intake dramatically, I rarely eat it now-a-days. We didn’t see the point of doing a full dinner with all the trimmings for just us.
We’re having Nachos and Chile con queso with our Christmas day films. (Elf, Die Hard, Muppet’s Christmas Carol and National Lampoons – The staples of a Merry Christmas)
There be rumours of a mac and cheese for later in the day, boxing day etc and a cheese board of EPIC proportions. It should significantly reduce our big Tesco shop this year. As per usual, Kerry is fully in charge of puddings.

Merry Christmas

Cam