Yesterday I was supposed to start chemo …

Since my operation in May I have been pretty much been living in limbo. It wasn’t so apparent during the first couple of weeks that I was recovering from surgery, but as soon as started feeling better I also started realising that this was just the first step. I still had to find out if the tumour that had been removed (along with a metre of my colon) was malignant and, if so, whether the cancer had spread.

Two weeks ago I was told the tumour was indeed malignant and a week later I had a CT scan to see if I was ‘clean’ or not. And yesterday I found out that I’m not. Or maybe I’m not. The CT scan showed a small lesion in my liver that may or may not be cancerous. [editor’s note: gaaaaaaa!!!]

I was told I would need a PET scan and if the lesion turned out to be malignant I would then require more surgery, followed by chemo. But in the meantime I was still scheduled to start chemo this Friday (I’d put it off for a couple of days so I could meet nursemyra at the airport today without feeling ill). But it still didn’t make sense to start chemo and then stop it for surgery – if it came to that – and then start all over again a few weeks later.

And so I went down to the nuclear medicine department to see about getting a PET scan. Happily I know some people there so it turned out that I can have a PET scan this Saturday and get the results back by Monday (yay!). And when I told my oncologist this she immediately agreed about putting off the chemo till next week, until we find out if I’m going to need more surgery or not.

So if all goes well and I only need the preventative chemo (fingers crossed!) then that will start on the day after daisyfae arrives, which would also be better timing.

Meanwhile, I’m back in limbo.