I went up to see the orthopaedic oncologist in Newcastle yesterday and her team. I flew up from Heathrow which was very exciting as the last time I flew out of Terminal 5 it was utter, utter chaos so it was nice to meander round and be able to look at things properly. It is a bit of a pompous terminal though, with everything slightly ‘luxe’ so you get the impression you are walking down Bond Street. Plus, the shop assistants are as snotty as the one’s on Bond Street who sneer and glare at you as soon as you dare to walk into their pristine designer boutique, which of course you wouldn’t be able to afford anything in! Given my recent financial straits, I can barely afford the air that I breathe so the snotty cow was right when she gave me a ‘in your dreams’ look when I saw a very, very nice pair of perfectly impractical shoes that I like for in excess of £200.
I arrived in Newcastle and got the Metro into the city centre where I walked straight to the hospital as I was a bit pushed for time and I thought I was going to be late to arrive and discover that the appointments were running about 20 minutes late. I wandered outside, had a couple of cigarettes, mooched down to the flat (which is less than 5 minutes away from the hospital) to check the post, sauntered back up, had a few more cigarettes, went back inside and magicaly it was my turn.
I had a full body CT scan which shows that the there is no evidence of any cancerous or abnormal cells anywhere else in my body. I also had some radioactive dye injected into my leg to see the extent of the bone damage. As they suspected, the tumour has stayed within the confines of the bone and therefore hasn’t spread into the soft tissue. This is all very good news as it means that the only issue to deal with is the tumour in the leg and there are no complications.
The bad news is that I will need chemotherapy to shrink the tumour before they can operate. They reckon 3 or 4 intensive cycles should be enough but the chemotherapy for osteosarcoma is incredibly aggressive and intensive and can wipe you out so much that it is completed as an inpatient session, not as an outpatient. My first question to having chemo was “does this mean I will lose weight?”, which the oncologist just replied “it’s a probable possible, but you don’t need to and I don’t think it should be your first concern”. Apparently that isn’t the question most people ask when faced with the prospect of chemo, they usually ask about hair loss, or nausea and vomiting, or fatigue, or their future fertility, not weight loss. I always have said that my brain works in a funny way.
I’ve been researching the chemo drugs I’m going to be having as part of my regime; cisplatin, doxorubicin and methotrexate. They are sound quite high powered and so I will have to have folinic acid during the methotrexate stage of treatment and IV fluids to flush the cisplatin out of my system. No wonder you stay as an inpatient. A cycle of chemo is 5 weeks though, so if they do manage to shrink it within 4 cycles, that’s only 20 weeks (plus recovery time) from start of chemo to surgery.
I think I’m being quite pragmatic and realistic about it all. I am getting fed up with people being overly sympathetic and telling me that although it appears awful, that I will get through it. No shit, I mean I have no option but to get through it. The boyfriend said last night that if he could undergo the chemo for me, then he would, until I pointed out that it would be fairly pointless as the tumour would still exist in my leg. I also met the Macmillan Nurse yesterday who is an absolute love and I have an appointment to see her specifically to talk things through in the middle of next week.
Despite all of this though, the news hasn’t really sunk in. I said this to the boyfriend and he asked me how long it took me to realise and accept I am bipolar or have BPD. I said I didn’t know but it was quite suddenly as I was glad there were reasons behind my behaviour. He said that if I could accept and realise a mental illness where it is all in my head and nothing physically to show for it, then in time I will accept the cancer as there are physical elements of it. I guess he is right.
Ruth
Fighting The Urge 