A Different World

Yesterday morning I woke up happy and cheerful thinking that I would soon officially be able to put the nightmare of cancer behind me. I was slowly regaining my energy, the bladder irritation caused by the cystoscopy was fading and I had learned to manage the occasional flare up of discomfort and inflammation that was making walking around so uncomfortable. Also my nocturnal trips to the bathroom had reduced to only two or, at most, three a night.

In brief, everything was looking good. As I waited for my cab to take me to the hospital for my appointment the sun was out and it was a lovely warm morning but without the humidity that has plagued us quite a bit this last couple of weeks. My thoughts were on how I was going to enjoy telling friends and family how I was clear and that the rest of my life lay in front of me.

This morning I woke up feeling like a tired and defeated old man.

I suspect that my sleep last night was not very restful though I certainly had been asleep but today, if I sit in one spot too long, I drift off to sleep. I keep having to rewind the book I’m listening to as I’ve dozed off and missed a few minutes.

I did my usual shopping trip to the Village this morning but my feet were dragging and I didn’t enjoy it even though it was a lovely Summer morning and it took far longer than it usually does. I expected everybody to feel so sorry for my bad news but of course nobody was since nobody knew and they probably thought I looked damned miserable because I had drunk too much last night. So I felt let down that nobody in the whole world cared which is totally unreasonable of course.

I don’t have much appetite either. Yesterday evening I forced half my dinner down and threw the rest away which is pretty unusual for me. This morning I wasn’t hungry but I forced down a light breakfast and, later, some lunch.

So, as you can tell, I am feeling thoroughly sorry for myself but that can’t be allowed to last. I certainly can’t spend the next few months feeling as I did this morning with that huge dark void filling my head and the weight of the universe on my shoulders and adding at least a hundred years to my age. This afternoon I have cheered up a bit. Maybe I needed those naps to make up for poor quality sleep last night and maybe the improved mood won’t last but for now I at least had the energy to bore you with this bit of self-indulgent whingeing.

What A Bummer!

On June 1st I had my check up, a cystoscopy. The next day a member of the medical team said he had seen nothing that screamed “cancer” at him but naturally they needed to see the results of the examination of the biopsy samples to be sure. I was encouraged that they were not treating the analysis as urgent and I was greatly cheered.

OK, that procedure set off a load of irritation in my urinary system again and I was up five or six times during the night and swallowing a lot of pain killers but I was damned optimistic.

A couple of weeks ago Mr R’s secretary rang me to give me an appointment date to get the results and as that date was a couple of weeks ahead I was further reassured. After all, this is cancer and if there was a problem they would want to act quickly.

This morning I attended for that appointment feeling very confident though of course I knew there was always the chance of bad news and it was bad news that turned up.

There is still cancer in the lining of my bladder. OK, it’s nothing like the huge tumour that was there last year and there is no immediate danger but it can’t be left unattended.

We talked through various options or, at least, I looked at possible ways of avoiding surgery, but all other options closed off one by one. Dr. W. from the Christie had been involved in the discussions and had said chemo and radiation had done all they could.
There was a possible treatment using a diluted TB vaccine applied directly to the interior of my bladder in what sounded like a rather unpleasant procedure to be repeated once a week for about six weeks but even that would only delay not avoid surgery so I am left with the stark choice of radical surgery to remove my bladder, my prostate and a few other bits and pieces or letting cancer run its course.

Much as the prospect of major surgery and pissing into a stoma bag for the rest of my life is deeply unattractive the prospect of the rest of my life being quite short and painful is even less attractive so surgery it will be.
There is, it appears, no rush and Mr R wants to see the results of an MRI scan first to help guide his hand so surgery is likely to be in September.

I remember saying and possibly writing last year that I wanted to go to sleep until Christmas when it was all over. Well, I’m saying it again now.

Roll on Christmas when hopefully this will be all over.