Janus 14

Janus 14

I’m about to do some navel gazing. I looked it up and it means daydreaming. But the sort of navel gazing I am going to do is literal. 

Yesterday I had my long awaited meeting with the hospital surgeon who operated on me. I was expecting he would tell me that either I had no extraneous cancer complications or that I had some, and that chemo would deal with them. 

His first comment was, “I really didn’t expect to see you looking so well.”

Why not? I thought.

He then examined my wound.  “It is nearly healed, but the district nurses shouldn’t have been using these large  dressings. They are keeping it wet and stopping it healing.”

So, he told the nurseto put some silver nitrate on the top bit, and put just a small dressing on. And it should be left uncovered for a lot of each day so it has a chance to dry out. 

Then he got to the crux of the meeting.  “You had a very nasty cancer, and it was blocking your colon but also wrapping around the small intestine.  And when we tested the lymph glands we found cancer in 18 out of 24 of them. And your blood cells had cancer in them too.”

My daughter interjected, “Does that mean she has stage 4 cancer?”

“Well in some ways of labelling it, yes. The cancer went through all the layers of the bowel, and into another organ, and into the lymph glands and blood vessels.  But all sorts of factors go into this labelling system and I don’t think you should worry too much about that.

“I was expecting you not to be so well,” he repeated,, “and was expecting to have to tell you that you are not well enough to have chemo.  But now that I see you, and how well your wound is doing, I think maybe you could cope with chemo after all.  So I will write to the cancer specialist and ask him to see you and he can decide what should next be done for you.” 

As he would now not be the person in charge, he said good bye, and we both thanked him because he really had saved my life. 

I then had to have a blood test to see how much I have of a certain hormone. If it was too little, that would mean I wouldn’t be a good candidate for chemo anyway.About 4-7% of people have it too low. 

According to the website, my chances of surviving a year went from 91% if there hadn’t been any progression, to 65% for the four levels of involvement.  Chemo raises the stats by a small amount only - another 7% or so. 

Anyway, back to navel gazing.  I pull my trousers down a bit and clamp my shirt up a bit, and expose my wound.  The navel itself looks like a vertical slit  - a tiny mailbox. The  top bit of the wound is in two parts - both coloured grey from the silver nitrate - and shaped like New Zealand.  There is a bit of discharge which  doesn’t drip out but looks like it would like to, in both parts.  My stoma, which I have named Effie for effluent, is very near, and makes a lot of noise - popping and dripping and oozing.  But Effie has been good for the most part, only having one big spillage in the last two weeks, “and that was the nurse’s fault” she insists.