A Visit To The Oncologist

This morning was my second visit to Christchurch Hospital Oncology Dept.  The first was 3.5 years ago when it was determined that chemotherapy was not indicated.  The oncology consultant I met today (Dean Harris) was a registrar at the time of my first appointment and he was quite upset at the apparent wrong decision made following my first surgery - not to have chemotherapy.  However I am still confident that it was the right decision at the time and that I was just unlucky.

We had a long discussion today, basically the situation is that without chemotherapy I have a 60% chance of survival for 5 years.  Chemotherapy would increase that by between 10% and 20%, but carries significant risk and side effects. Further, using a 5 point standard indicator for chemotherapy, I get a no on each point, normally a patient would get at least one yes in such an evaluation. Plan is that I return in 2 weeks for a final decision, following blood tests and also some thinking on the part of Teresa and myself as well as some more research and analysis by the oncologist.  We have been given a large amount of documentation to look at - homework I guess.

At the moment my thinking is not to proceed with chemotherapy, but this may well change as we learn more.

Recovery is slow, but steady.  I coped quite well with the long walk in the hospital, but I find that engaging with more than one person at a time is very tiring.

Tomorrow we go to the caravan at Glentunnel for a few days, weather is not great, but it will do both of us some good to get away.  Then meet with my GP around the middle of next week to discuss readiness to return to work, among other things.