Friday 1 August 2014

More Appointments, More Birthdays

It has almost been 6 weeks since my operation and today was my appointment with my oncologist,  Dr Mitchell.  First we dropped Oscar at his friends house for the day and then Sidney at Granny's house.  We popped into work quickly to arrange my return to work in September, then it was off to hospital.

We were called through to the see Dr Mitchell quickly and in the room was Janette the specialist Upper GI nurse and instead of Claire, Stephanie was present.  Dr Mitchell came through and I told them about some of my pains and how I was doing.  They were very impressed with my recovery so far and were not surprised that I had been out running either.  Dr Mitchell prescribed some medication to help with digestion and also some extra vitamin supplements.  Janette took my weight and I was pleased to find out that I was 52kg, only 3kg less than my original weight.

It was then arranged that my second round of chemo would start the following Wednesday.   While we were waiting for the ward to confirm the day of chemo, Janette asked if I would be interested in being part of a RPH app, they wanted to video me and put it as part of the app which is planned to be downloaded by future upper GI patients.  I agreed and Janette said she would be in touch.  We also discussed about getting a gym membership arranged for me to help with recovery.   All in all a very good meeting with loads of positives.  They even agreed for me to keep running as long as I don't push it too far.

It was my mum's birthday on Wednesday but first I had an appointment in Manchester at St Marys hospital.   My mum came over to look after the boys and we wished her a happy birthday and gave her her present before setting off to Manchester.   We made it to the appointment just in time as one of the receptionists didn't know where we were meant to be going - genetics was on the 6th floor and there were good views over the city to the pennines and it was a clear day.

In the appointment we discussed my family tree and those of whom had suffered cancer.  The geneticist told us of a certain syndrome (Lynch Syndrome) which causes some genes to mutate and it's possible this may have happened, but unlikely from the information that I provided.  It was an interesting meeting with loads of info and it sounds unlikely that the my cancer would be genetic but they would do further investigation to be certain and hopefully be able to rule out the Lynch Syndrome.

We got back home and we went out for tea with my parents to celebrate mums birthday.  The last couple of days has been information overload, tomorrow I will be having a long day on my own so we went to bed early so I could get up to catch my bus in time.

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