Skip to main content

Here we go again!

On 1st June I had a blood test that reveal a raised CEA marker. At an appointment with Clinical Cancer Nurse Sue Roberts, she told me that the CEA number was 15, up from 3 in January. A CT Scan was expedited undertaken at Southlands Hospital.

At an appointment with Mr Baig, colorectal consultant I learnt that there were multiple peritoneal deposits. An appointment with Dr Webb, consultant oncologist followed on 21st July, and he ran through the scan images. Starting with the liver he showed that none of the deposits were affecting the organs. The 'deposits' shown on the scan were in the lower abdomen.

Dr Webb said that there would be an optimal window that had not been reach from the information available in July. As he said the chemotherapy makes patients feel unwell for little benefit.

A colonoscopy was next on 9th August and that showed a health colon with the resection scar that had healed very well.

A blood test on 22nd August showed a further rise of the CEA marker, up to 33. A phone consultation with a member of the Oncology team on 25th August brought the advice that chemotherapy should start. The treatment regime indicated by the profiling of the tumor is Folofiri, a combination of two infused drugs. This requires a PICC Line to be installed as the second drug is infused by pump over 46 hours at home.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chemotherapy Cycle 26

Tuesday 16th January 9:45 I arrived at the Amberley unit at Worthing Hospital for my 26th cycle of the FOLFORI chemotherapy treatment. While the process took longer than normal due to a delay in the drugs arriving, but it was easier than usual. As always I am interested in learning useful knowledge. With the clinical educator overseeing the nurse who was at the end of his training I learnt some interesting things. Training takes 5 months, patients can remain on the treatment for a great many cycles. They have had patients who have had 100 plus. The side-effects have been at a much lower lever than normal, wonderful.
Post a Comment
Read more

4000hz

I have taken a look recently on the iPhone App Store to see if there are any useful tools to restart a distraction program again. Having reduced the irritating high pitched whistle that I constantly have on both sides four years ago though distraction it may work again. Having quietened the tinnitus before only for it to be brought back by my car alarm going off while in it. Being exposed to very loud noise makes my tinnitus increase in volume, so another attempt at distraction seems worth the effort. The first app investigated was Tinnitus Finder by Desyncra for Tinnitus , its free to download. This app took me through a series of pairs of sounds each time asking which sounded most like my own issue. At the end of the process the app reported that the noise I hear is around 4000 hz. Armed with this knowledge I sent in search for an app that would offer a selection of sounds from White Noise to sounds of nature. The Beltone Tinnitus Calmer  offers up to five different sounds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My audiology appointment

About a month ago I had an appointment with an audiologist at the Royal Free Hospital in Bath. The purpose was to discover if, as the majority of tinnitus suffers do I have a hearing loss. I was taken into a sound proof room for the test. After being asked about my hearing and the issues I am having with tinnitus I was handed headphones to put on and a push button. The audiologist explained the test and with head phones he proceeded to test my hearing. This was done by playing sounds at frequencies between 250 hz and 8000 hz. Once over I was shown the results which showed that it is pretty normal across the range in both ears. So this meant that I am not a suitable candidate for a hearing aid. The audiologist suggested the Hearing Therapy should be something I should consider. I agreed and he wrote to St Martin's where the local hearing therapy team is based to ask for me to be seen by one of the therapists.
Post a Comment
Read more