Stephen

When I was in the Christie for my first overnight infusion I met a chap called Stephen. We talked a lot and his courage gives me hope.

His treatment regime began with chemotherapy but instead of the infusions I am having his was placed directly into his bladder. From what I remember reading this form of delivering chemotherapy is used in the early stages of a cancer where it’s the lining of the bladder that is affected. However in his case for whatever reason the treatment was ineffective and he had surgery to remove his bladder about a year ago. Since then he has been coping well with a stoma or, at least, he was until a couple of months ago it stopped passing urine and secondary tumours were detected. As a result to avoid kidney damage he was fitted with a second bag draining his kidneys directly while these new tumours are dealt with.

He has now had three cycles of chemotherapy and his stona appears to be working but they intend to continue with a couple more cycles.

Anyway he and his wife visited us yesterday and Ann and I both found the talk helpful. As Stephen said, he is one of the unlucky ones for whom removing the bladder is not the end of the story.

I expect we may meet up again next Wednesday when we both begin our next cycle.