Beaten cancer, definitely

It has to be the best day I’ve had since this whole horrendous cancer nightmare began.

Yesterday was pretty perfect. I should have written about it last night but fatigue and a certain England football match, not necessarily in that order, got the better of me.

I have my third session of chemo today which will take me to the halfway point of my treatment so I saw my consultant yesterday afternoon. Let’s call him The Professor. Now he isn’t any ordinary consultant. He’s very senior and not only that he’s also one of the leading experts in the country on my kind of cancer. To me basically he’s God.

And he was able to tell me that I really am going to live!

We already knew that every bit of the cancer which could be seen by the surgeon was removed from my body. The pea and all his uninvited friends are long gone. After starting chemo a few weeks ago I had a very important blood test. It was to establish if any cancer was still lurking inside my body. Or more worryingly if it had come back since the big operation.

The Professor beamed at me as he delivered the incredibly wonderful news. The killer disease has been successfully treated!!! This is offically the second time that I’ve beaten cancer. You could say it’s Me 2 – 0 Cancer. I now need to think about changing the name of this blog.

For anyone interested, my CA 125 is now 10, well within the normal range and way down compared to when I was diagnosed.

A wave of relief and joy and surprise swept over me. I’ve been totally focused on the chemo and I’d forgotten that I was due the result of this test. It was an amazing moment. This confirms that I definitely no longer have cancer.

After some very happy swearing I opened my notebook and started to go through a list of questions I wanted to ask about the chemo. It’s the kind of pad that I’d normally use for work. Now I use it for this job.

We spent ages taking about the terrible side effects – mostly the pain and the tiredness. There’s not a lot that can be done about the exhaustion apart from resting.

But The Professor who speaks with a slight Scottish accent did have some more good news. This time I don’t need to have the dreaded post-chemo injection to boost my immune system as it’s still quite strong The jab gives me the worst pain. Ever. Without it I’ll be able to cope much better with all the other stuff.

There was one last question.

“What about my hair?” I asked The Professor. “Shouldn’t it have fallen out by now?”

“I was going to say the same thing. How come you still have so much?” He replied with a smile.

I ran my fingers over my scalp and a few hairs came out but not many. He thinks that I could be one of the lucky few to not lose all my hair thanks to the freezing cold hat that I wear during treatment. If it doesn’t all disappear by next week, then I really might not go bald.

On the way out The Professor gave me a massive hug. It was a great day at the office for both of us.