I don’t actually know where to start in trying to articulate the last month. Maybe I’ll start with hell, and that will give you some idea.
A stage 4 cancer diagnosis is a hell of its own, but this one really honed in on everything I can’t bear (and deal with VERY badly!). That is a hell of waiting, no action, passivity, vulnerability.
February 14th. My Valentine’s Day date wasn’t one of fancy meals, roses or glasses of cold fizz, but instead a meeting with my Breast Cancer Oncology team to find out the results of my biopsy – what type of breast cancer had come back and what treatment would I be starting? Only that wasn’t to be the news. Instead, something that left us, quite literally, jaws agape. ‘This isn’t breast cancer. You’ve got another cancer, but we don’t know what it is. Yet’.
At that point, you could have scraped David and I off the floor. All my ‘worst case scenario’ prepping hadn’t come close to this one. Another cancer? Yes. Completely unrelated to my breast cancer? Yes. How? We don’t know. What is it? We don’t know, we have to wait for more biopsies. How long? We’ll see you in ten days.
Wait? Words I hate. More waiting, knowing all these tumours are in me and we’re doing nothing with them. But wait we must. My logical brain gets it. We must know exactly what it is to be able to treat it. No point in giving it breast cancer treatment. That won’t work. But giving it nothing while we wait? Urgh. No part of my brain could compute that one.
Ironically, the ten days of torture kicked off with a lovely family weekend away. A quick trip home from the hospital, load up the car (scrambled brains forgetting many essential supplies including dinner!), collect Charlotte and off we went. It was supposed to be a last weekend before chemo started but instead was a chance to pause, to try and collect our thoughts. An attempt (failed) at processing some of what we’d learned over previous weeks, but also a dose of fun and making memories, our little gang of three. We managed some of that, even if my prevailing thoughts for the weekend were centred around my death. It was bizarre, I could actually see it. Over and over, unrelenting. Not one to recommend, I have to say. But there were also smiles, memories, cuddles and time together.
And so, home. With no chemo to start. Signed off work. Left with only my thoughts. Eight days to go. Waiting. Like I said, a special kind of hell. Torture.
But somehow the days passed. A bit of a blur. We did get information and a referral in to the right team. A meeting with a Professor, no less, to learn my fate.
And then the news that has bewildered us and seemingly medical staff too – I have developed a rare, and completely unrelated cancer. Bile-duct cancer this time, with the primary tumour in my liver, spread to my lungs and bones (and possibly quite a few other places too, but who’s counting by this point?!). No one knows how or why I’ve managed to get two cancers by 44, one of which is going to kill me. But I reckon I’ve done pretty well with those odds. Should have stuck a tenner on it.
The prognosis isn’t great. It turns out it would be better to have had my breast cancer return. But we hold on to hope. Stats are relatively unknown – I’m well outside the usual age bracket for having this disease (yep, 30 years too early) which we hope holds me in better stead. Treatment combinations are also relatively new so there isn’t a huge amount of data to rely on. And without hope, what is there?
A diagnosis, however shit, does mean a treatment plan, though. And those I can get on board with. Doing something? Much more up my street.
When you get to stage 4, it’s all about treating. Trying to minimise the tumours and symptoms. There is no more talk of cure. We talk of treatment lines, each one being pursued until they stop working or we run out of options. The Prof’s advice, to start with Treatment Line One – eight rounds of a heady mixture of two types of chemotherapy plus immunotherapy and bone strengthening drugs, given every three weeks with a cheeky ‘top up’ round of chemotherapy added in every second week, just for fun.
And so we’re off. Round one is done. Seven to go. Scans after round four to check it’s working and we’re killing those cells. Trying not to think about that, but obviously failing miserably.
Wish us luck!
