Latest medical news

Dear all,

there’s some good news to report  from yesterday’s crucial meeting with the oncologist. There has been no spread or growth of existing lesions in the lungs between the scan of April 02 and that of of 26 June. Yippee!

Today I start a trial 4-week course of a daily dose of Sunitinib (Sutent) which is designed to prevent cancer cells dividing and therefore reproducing. It can even shrink existing tumours. However it doesn’t work with everyone and some people cannot tolerate the side-effects. Assuming I can tolerate them, we will know if the medicine is  working at the next 3-month scan.

I’m impressed by both the oncologists that I am working with at Chelsea and Westminster. The lead one works closely with world-renowned colleagues at the Royal Marsden, including Professors Larkin and Gore. Her deputy is just about to be made a consultant after  completing his PhD on renal carcinoma treatments at Cambridge. So he’s fully up-to-date. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I am returning to some of the alternative medicine thingsI was trying, notably a modified version of the alkali diet which I suspended after the operation in order to get as much protein down as I could. Having discovered that a daily teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda alakalises the body effectively (think Eno’s liver salts as an ant-acid – pretty much the same compound), I can continue to eat chicken and eggs to my heart’s content. I think I am at last beginning to regain a little weight.

It’s now exactly 7 weeks since the operation. The wounds have healed well though I still have some stomach discomfort and can’t really lift or twist. The biggest downside remains tiredness. I’m informed that I lost 70% of my normal strength and energy as a consequence of the operation and can only expect  to regain 5% a month until I achieve a 90% recovery of former strength and energy levels by next May. So it’s going to be a long slow process; but with patience and all the support I’m getting, I’ll get there.

One of the down-sides of this loss of energy is that I can’t do the blog to the level I’d like to. Besides the last few weeks have been intensely social (as well as exhausting) owing primarily to the presence  of various brothers who have provided a great boost to morale. I’ve focused on spending my energy on seeing them and have had little to spare for other activities. When I’ve tried to write a new post, I quickly feel overwhelmed by the effort.

However, I intend to post a photographic record of the main events of the last few weeks very soon

Until then, I send you lots of xx