It may come as no surprise, but cancer can be a right twat of a disease. Just when you think things are going well (or at least are not going overly badly), it finds yet another way to kick you in the balls and ruin everything.
This time last week I had travelled up to Miami, had spent a lovely day wandering about South Beach, including checking that Brucie was still riding the tram at
(it's a long story that maybe 2 people would find funny, trust me though, it is funny), and then had snoozed by the hotel pool, waiting to check in. I had gone solo to the Fillmore to meet up with friends (who had been golfing) for the 3rd night of New Order's residency, and had a cracking time at the gig. Being sensible, and also aware that my wife was arriving in the morning, I didn't join the rest of them for a late one at the Hard Rock, and instead was full-on rock and roll and in bed by midnight.
The next day my wife arrived, we shopped and then met another friend for dinner, drinks and the 4th night of the residency. As good as they were the previous night, I think they topped it on Saturday. I was happy as a pig in muck. Come Sunday I had to mill about the airport for a while before heading back to London, arriving Monday, and made my way back down to the house.
The purpose of the trip was a meeting with the oncologist, routine blood-work, and then picking up the next batch of pills, before flying out on the Friday. Surely nothing could go wrong with that simple plan?
Wednesday came around, and my sister and I headed to the hospital. It was the first appointment of the day, and generally blood-work isn't ready until the end of the meeting, but I didn't think anything of it. We had the meeting with the oncologist, I went over the various side effects from the past few weeks, and on the strength of that, the dosage was to be dropped by 20%. No worries, not like I haven't been there before. I had to get my chemoport flushed, and then we had to hang around for a revised prescription to be prepared (the package had been put together assuming 100% dosage). All fine. The oncologist then called me back in, and that's when it started to go to crap.
On her computer monitor was a graph that looked like a profile of Mount Everest, I didn't have to be Poirot to work out this was not a good thing. She explained that this was the historical change of my key liver marker. The spikes from last summer looked like base camp's foothills compared to the current peak. She explained that given the extreme elevation, treatment would be suspended, and I needed to have follow-up tests next week. She noted that it might be the trial drug that had irritated the liver, but equally possible it might be something else. They just didn't know. The problem there was I was due to be on a plane 48 hours later. We agreed to have blood drawn back home, but then the issue was getting back in time if all was good. That was where it was left, and me and my sister headed out.
We agreed that no way should I travel, and I called my wife and she concurred. I then had to cancel flights and try and get appointments set up for next week. By the time I got home I was feeling very, very low. The issue being I had no idea of 1) what was going to happen next week, 2) when I could travel next, and 3) what was actually up with my liver. I called my wife again and had a bit of a meltdown. These past months I have tried to avoid wallowing in a trough of self-pity, and generally I have succeeded. However, this one hurt, and it carried into Thursday. Other than my boss, I didn't reach out to any of my friends with an update, which is most unlike me. Some heard via my wife, and made contact with me, but even then I couldn't face a call with any of them.
Today I travelled up to my support group, figuring it could only help to share the crappy situation with others. And it did. It was good to catch up with the various people there (my last meeting was the start of December). If nothing else, it showed that however bad my current situation was, there are others having it worse, and I tried to offer words of support to others.
So, for now I am in limbo. I'll be here for some weeks until after a CT scan in early February, and then need to await the results meeting. Fingers crossed I get cleared for more pills, and then can travel. The alternative is reverting to mainstream chemo. Fingers crossed.