Skip to main content

Oncologist consultation

 I have a quarterly appointment with my oncology consultant, Dr David Webb or one of his team every three month. Last week my appointment was with one of his team and two Mcmillan nurses, Sue and Jo. The oncologist asked how Iam coping with the treatment having had 20 chemotherapy infusions. I told her that I continue to tolerate the drugs very well and am managing most of the key side-effects well and continue to search for solutions for the others.

She then told me that the recent CT Scan showed that the two growths remain stable, and the Blood CEA marker has recently fallen to 2, the lowest since November 2021. Most pleasing. She then asked if I wished to have a break, which I declined an ordered a further 12 infusions.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tinnitus, starting the journey

A few months ago I thought I could hear a noise from a radiator when trying to go to sleep one evening. The noise was so real that I felt that it must have been an actual sound. As the central heating was not on I came to the conclusion that the sound was in my head. That incident was an early sign on my journey to being a tinnitus sufferer. A visit to my GP prompted a response of 'Oh dear' when I told him that I thought that I was suffering from tinnitus. After inspecting my ears he told me that there were three approaches that he could offer me: Do nothing and learn to live with it, see an audiologist to check if I needed a hearing aid or undergo hearing therapy. I chose the audiology appointment as my preferred first step.

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.

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.