Close encounters with the oncologist

...of the nitrile-gloved kind. (At least she had short fingernails.)

So - I've had my first consultation with the oncologist. Apparently, my tumour is fairly small. Mr Botty-Slicer of St Thomas's Hospital cut most of it out last December, so there's just a 2cm thing left in there. That makes it a Stage II squamous cell carcinoma. Get me with the lingo, eh?

The oncologist is, I think, eastern European. I could be wrong, but judging from her accent and the fact that I can neither spell nor pronounce her name, that's what I'm going with.

She is lovely.

She spent ages showing me my scans and explaining treatment options to me. My body contains enough kidneys to feed a family of five, so they won't be able to use the standard radiotherapy / chemotherapy treatment on me. It might kill off the only one of those kidneys that I actually need. (I'd be quite happy for someone to take the other ones away and keep them in the freezer. Seriously - they're just taking up space.)

The doc explained that, instead of the usual cocktail of chemotherapies and radiation blasts, I can only have very focused blasts and probably only one of the chemotherapy types (and possibly not have any chemo at all). The usual treatment has a 90% success rate. It's difficult to say how much my chances will be affected by the less severe treatment plan I'll need.

The alternative, I was told, is to have more surgery, which would result in me needing a colostomy bag. I considered that option for a good 12 milliseconds before saying "Dear God, no - are you barmy?'

The colostomy option awaits me if radiotherapy is unsuccessful. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I don't need that as a new party piece - not least because I never go to parties.

We ended the consultation with her examining me, because no consultation about this condition is complete until someone's poked you in the chocolate starfish. Like I say, at least she had short fingernails.

I hope this doctor is going to use antibacterial hand-wash before seeing the next patient  

Next stop: CT scan on Friday, when they will be tattooing the place they need to point their ray guns at.

New year, NEW DIAGNOSIS!

Hmm. It seems I didn't write a single blog post last year. Not to worry - I have a new subject, bursting with enough humour for a series of posts. WARNING: may also contain trauma. Hopefully the latter will be short-lived (and I'll be long-lived.)

I've got anal cancer. I'm seeing the oncologists this Thursday, who will - I hope - give me some indication of when I'll be starting radiotherapy. I'm looking at five weeks of butthole irradiation, accompanied by a low-dose chemotherapy pill. Apparently, this won't cause my hair to drop out. Which is good, because (a) it's winter and I need head coverage, and (b) I don't have the cheekbones for bald. 

Those of you scooting over from my Facebook page will know most of this already. In fact, these posts will primarily be for those of my Facebook friends who asked me to write updates.

I won't have anything to say until after I've seen the oncologist. In the meantime, here's a picture of me, indicating the location of the mutant cells.

They're in there somewhere, the little buggers.