Meeting The Oncologist

Wednesday 19th December, 2012

Today I met with my oncologist, her name is Doctor Thinn Pwint. I had to travel to Stoke Mandeville hospital for this appointment and this is also where I will be having my chemotherapy.
We went through everything and discussed how I'd been feeling and if I had recovered well from surgery. Doctor Pwint then went on to explain to me a little bit more about the kind of tumour that I have. She explained to me that as there are no hormone receptors that helped my tumour to grow that chemotherapy and radiation are the only options for me at this moment as taking tamoxifen for the next five years won't be of any benefit to me.
Now although my tumour has been successfully removed, there is a chance that there are remaining cancer cells floating around in my blood stream. This is why I need to have chemotherapy to kill these cancer cells before they attach themselves to another part of my body and turn into a secondary cancer. Doctor Pwint then told me that she had worked out my survival rate based on my type and grade of tumour and would I be interested in knowing. I agreed. I won't share with you the exact statistics as my family will be reading this but having chemotherapy ups my chances of survival in the next five years by 15%. It's a no brainer then really.
It was explained to me that my chemo regime would be three doses of FEC 100 followed by three doses of Taxotere. Also known as FEC-T. Although I have already changed this to FUC-iT. Here is a link telling you all about my chemotherapy


http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertreatment/Treatmenttypes/Chemotherapy/Combinationregimen/FEC-T.aspx


Now, because it's a high dose that I'm on and the regime kills all my white infection fighting cells too, I was told that for seven days after each chemo session I will have to inject my self in the stomach to boost my white cell growth. Here is a link explaining all about boosting injections.

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertreatment/Treatmenttypes/Supportivetherapies/HaematopoieticGrowthFactors.aspx

After I had signed all the consent forms agreeing for me to be pumped full of nasty stuff for the next four and a half months, Doctor Pwint asked if I had any more questions or concerns. I was happy with everything that I had been told but I mentioned that I had been having some shoulder pain on my affected side. Doctor Pwint had a feel of my shoulder and and checked to see if any of my glands were swollen and advised me that she thought it would be best if I had a bone scan just to make sure that the cancer hasn't spread to my bones. This is known as secondary cancer and it means the cancer then becomes treatable but not curable. Just another couple of weeks to worry about something else then. GULP!

My chemo was originally booked to begin on the 15th January, 2013 but due to a tooth infection and then a cold it was delayed....twice. My new chemo start date is now Monday 28th January. I'm scared.