Written before the appointment:
Thursday 29th February is the date for the CT results and for chemo round 6, but the last few weeks have been really rough for John. I'm not sure it is a good idea even if he wants to push on with it. He had the bowel blockage a few weeks back followed by a rough week of regulating his stoma output, losing a lot of weight, being exhausted. The last two weeks have been about mouth ulcers and a lot of pain whilst eating, restricted jaw movement and tiredness - there were days when he has barely been out of bed. The idea at the start of chemo was that it wasn't detrimental to his quality of life, seeing as his remaining life might be so short and we really want it to be good and enjoyable. Whilst you do (have to) accept some level of trade off, whereby the chemo is damaging both healthy cells and (hopefully) the cancer, we have spent the first 6 rounds (3 months) in an information blackout where we are living on blind faith that all the shit is worth it at the end. And when I consider that until he was admitted to hospital for the initial blockage back in November he was a fit, healthy, energetic man, these last few months have been utter shit squared for him, and I'm convinced it's 99% chemotherapy drugs that's responsible. And because it's a slow decline, and because once you've started you tell yourself it's worth continuing (you've got to believe), and because the alternative is leaving the cancer to grow and spread, you go along with it and you rationalise it and forgive it and you pray and beg that the results will go the way you want them to, even though the chances we were given were 50/50. We don't want to have wasted the last three months getting nowhere and for the pain and sickness to have been for nothing, in fact to end up in a worse position than before where the cancer has had free reign and all the options left suck, and we didn't even get chance to go out and have the adventures we planned - to have been robbed of three months of good quality time together to enjoy some form of our dream would be devastating, but for it to have been pointless as well would just crush us.
Now that we are home after the appointment:
The good news is that the chemotherapy is having an impact and shrinking the tumours back, so the hard work to date has not been without a benefit. Where we go from here is the main question. Removal of the underlying tumours is not an option so likely options are continuation with chemotherapy and monitoring, or take a break. It's going to be a balance and we will see how things are after the 6th dose of chemotherapy just now - if it knocks John for six then we are more inclined to take a break from it. It's a fine balance between quantity and quality of life. But for now, let's have a nice meal and watch a film!
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