Treatment plan

Today as promised, Lynne rang me with the full MRI results and the treatment plan that they've discussed and now starting putting into action.

The tumour is Stage 3T - which although bad isn't as bad as Stage 4 (which is advanced bowel cancer and can be fairly untreatable by that stage generally).

So they've decided, to give me the best chance of getting shot of it, to go for a combination of Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy at the same time for a period of 5 and a half weeks (much longer than I'd anticipated as I was expecting 5 days of combined Radio/Chemo but in my case longer is necessary). Lynne tells me this is the 'Gold Star Treatment' :-))

Then there will be a six week break where nothing much happens - this is apparently to get the loose Radio/Chemo out of my system before they re-scan me.

Then it's surgery, removal of rectum/anus and permanent colostomy bag :-( and then possibly, and solely dependent on what the actual tumour shows them once removed, an intensive course of IV Chemotherapy.

Once all that's done, I should be given the 'we've got it all' news - and will then be checked every 6 months or so for any sign of it showing it's ugly face again!

So now I know my treatment plan.

Tomorrow I have an appointment at St. Thomas' Oncology department to discuss the Radiotherapy/Chemotherapy plan and organise my 'pre-assessment day' during which I will be tatooed (so they can line up the Radio in the correct place each time) and get all the info I need about possible side effects to the treatment.

Lynne told me today that the Chemo may well result in complete loss of appetite (like I'm not struggling with that enough already !!...) and suggested that because I've already lost weight that I will need to eat very high calorie foods such as cream cakes, HagenDaaz ice-cream and all sorts of stuff that Doctors normally tell you is very very bad for you - so I guess there's some advantages to all this eh :-) She said 'leave the healthy stuff alone and concentrate on high cals/high fat foods and we can sort out your diet getting back to normal once Chemo is over'...Sounding OK so far then, LOL!

Report back more tomorrow once I've met the Oncology team at St Thomas'.....