Cancer Redux

I’m doing this blog, because my previous blog about my cancer which is here, has been so useful. For remembering dates, procedures, issues. Maybe this one will be too, in the future but I hope not!

I’d grown somewhat blasé about my annual CT check up this year. It was due mid August but when making the appointment, after the one in 2018 I delayed it until after this year’s film festival. Also in June this year Joe and I decided to take up the offer of a ticket to a Ring Cycle to be held in Berlin. Originally this was to be next year but when that sold out very quickly Clare found us tickets to one this year – to take place from the 2nd to 9th of October. Airline tickets acquired and paid for on the 4th of July, deposit for the opera tickets and associated activities paid on the 8th of July. We were all set.

And in the meantime I went off to have my annual CT scan of my lungs on the 30th of August 2022. Ho hum these days. I know not to wear any wire or other metal so I don’t have to take my clothes off. In and out very quickly.

Then my appointment with Dr A a week later on the 5th of September where he told me the good and bad news. Good because we are alerted to any cancer arising very early – bad, ‘cos who wants to have more cancer!

The CT scan has revealed a new cancer in the lower lobe of the right lung – the same area where the first one was taken out in 2019. Dr A surprised that a new cancer has emerged there. In any event it needs to come out – this time he will take out the whole lower lobe of this lung. About a third of the lung.

And here on my left lung is one of the shadows they have been observing the whole time and been concerned about – unbeknownst to me. I should now have a PET scan to see what’s going on there.

Joe and I are a bit shell shocked. Goodness – and here we were preparing for Berlin. And not only the opera. At my suggestion we were adding a few more weeks in Berlin after the opera finishes on the 9th of October and then a week in Amsterdam and a week in Paris before flying home via two nights in Singapore. If we’re going all that way, I said, dreading the 24 hour flight, we might as well make the most of while we’re there. Joe has been steadily making all the arrangements – having decided to go, I don’t want to hear about any of it. I’m not a happy traveller. But I have been reading up on things German – Frederick the Great, the German Romantics, Berlin itself. I’ve blogged about those books here and here.

Have the PET scan and I’ll see you next week when we can decide what to do says Dr A as he busily set about making arrangements for blood tests, breath tests and the PET scan. Not wasting any time. Tucking thoughts about Berlin and arrangements made, deposits, tickets paid for etc we set off to do as we were told. I had blood tests that day – which I forgot about , so had another set when I came back to have the operation.

Then off I go to St V’s for a PET scan on the 9th of September 2022. I can’t remember a thing about it! I was vaguely reassured when my appointment with Dr A was deferred from Monday the 12th to Friday the 16th of September.

Shouldn’t have read anything into that! Joe couldn’t come – can’t remember why not. I met Eleanor for coffee in Gertrude Street and we thought of questions we needed to ask. She is much better at that than me. As it turned out in the appointment. Which is where we were told that yes – see that pesky yellow light on the right – an odd thing the lungs on the screen are reversed, left is on the right side, right is on the left side of the screen. Yes we did. A teeny, tiny bit of yellow. Maybe that’s me making the teeny, tiny bit up after the event, but I do think it was very small.

We now needed a biopsy and Dr A would discuss with his colleagues what treatment would be recommended for the left lung. He started to make an appointment for the operation on my right lung for the 3rd of October. But Berlin! I cried. We’d talked about this and decided we would just go to Berlin for October if that worked. That works says Dr A. So the operation was set down for 31st of October. A fair compromise said Dr A.

In the meantime I had the breath test on the 19th of September. I was cross with Joe, all this time he has been suffering from a cold – probably why he didn’t come to the appointment with Dr. A. I’ve been worried I would get it and everything would be turned upside down – all our overseas arrangements and my medical ones. I felt I did very badly at the breath test which upset me. The technician refused to say. I seemed to start coughing every time I had to expel breath forcefully. I thought I’d done very well at my first breath test but in the event have never see the results of any of them.

A bit of retail therapy on the way home restored my spirits. I bought an outfit for the opera after seeing it in the window at Black/Orange! And wore it as you can see here. A little levity in my cancer blog!

I had the biopsy on the 21st of September 2022. This was not without incident. Dr A had made the appointment immediately after I saw him on Friday the 16th. That afternoon the doctor who was to undertake the procedure – I have suppressed his name in my memory, cannot recall it at all – rang me to take me through all of the risks associated with a biopsy. He was very loud spoken. He ended with the warning that this was a life-threatening procedure. Okayyy I thought, but what can I do about that. He was especially concerned about air getting into the lung.

So there I was on the 21st being poked and prodded having a cannula inserted while another chap went through all the risks associated with the procedure and had me sign something to say I understood them. I’m in the room with the scanning machine – now all familiar to me – everyone very nice, getting me hooked up to whatever, arm above my head, all tucked in on the trolley ready to start when they ask me what I do? Fatal question, who knew! I’m retired, love it, off to Berlin next week. Well, Dr ? basically goes berserk – What?! You can’t get on a plane a week after this procedure, it’s fatal, you could have air in your lungs, you probably will have air in your lungs you can’t be on a plane in mid air, does your doctor know about his? And off he went to ring Dr A.

It seemed as though everyone in the room held their breath. They had all told me this doctor was very conservative in his approach. I meanwhile was thinking of a section of the Yeats poem Easter, 1916 which I was trying to recall word for word (unsuccessfully – but it calmed me) I have passed with a nod of the head / Or polite meaningless words, / Or have lingered awhile and said / Polite meaningless words, / And thought before I had done / Of a mocking tale or a gibe / To please a companion / Around the fire at the club….. I recognised this was going to make a good story. Even while it was somewhat upsetting.

Dr ? returned, unable to contact Dr A. Well he demands gruffly – cross because I haven’t taken seriously his dire warnings about the life threatening nature of this procedure- are you prepared to proceed?! Be it on your head if your lung explodes half way across the ocean is what I heard. What was one to do, Yes I said, We can always cancel Berlin (if things go awry – I thought but didn’t say). And so the biopsy went ahead. No dramas. It seemed to me to be quicker than the first one I had.

Back in the room where one has to lie flat on your back for hours – to avoid the catastrophe of air getting in the lungs – I gradually succumbed to a migraine. Bright lights, no water all day, not to mention the drama with Dr ? A very nice nurse closed my curtains and brought water but it was too late. You are x-rayed after the biopsy – to check the state of the lung, air or no air. Dr? had proclaimed that I would have to come in next week and have a second one before getting on the plane to Berlin to be doubly sure things were okay. But subsequently I was told – by him, muttering somewhat – that I wouldn’t need to do that, the lung was fine! My nice nurse (who’d been in the scanning room) said Well, if Dr ? says that you can rest assured everything is fine!

The whole kerfuffle did sow a tiny seed of doubt about the advisability of flying exactly one week after and over the next couple of days I contemplated ringing Dr A but didn’t. So a glorious month in Berlin – Joe having spent the weeks beforehand undoing all his beautifully planned arrangements for Amsterdam, Paris and Singapore – travel tickets and restaurant and hotel bookings. I’ve blogged lots about the holidays starting here.

While in Berlin I woke to see Dr A’s rooms had tried to ring me during the night, so I woke early one day and rang them. All was on track for an operation on my right lung on the 31st of October. So when I got back I had a PCR test which came back negative – thank goodness given both Clare and Joe had contracted Covid while we were in Berlin. Another lot of blood test – which I shouldn’t have needed. You never hear anything about blood test results – nor what they do them for.

Dr A had warned me – briefly Eleanor says after looking at her notes, but clearly I had over stated the likelihood in my head – this operation might be a bigger deal than the last one and may even require more than keyhole surgery. So back to St V’s for the operation on the 31st of October 2022. I was ushered straight up to the first floor at St Vs which is where the operating theatres are. Better than having to wait all day up on level 8 which is what happened last time. First up, I was placed in a cubicle nearby. Here I am all set to be taken into theatre – you can’t see it but I have the heated blanket keeping me warm.

Joe and Eleanor were able to be with me until I was taken to the holding area outside the theatre.

I was waiting outside the theatre for a little while and may have slept or just closed my eyes. When I opened them I saw Dr A reading my file. He’d come into the cubicle beforehand – any questions? No. He came over and said, How was Berlin? Great said I. And then nothing much to remember, although I was awake when they took me into the theatre, I’d rather be out of it really. Anyway here I am up in the ward after a very quiet night in the ICU where I don’t recall seeing Joe and Eleanor, or of being cross about something which is what the nurse told them.

Everything went as planned. Exactly like the last time. Dr A told Joe he used the same incisions as last time. So no extra holes in my poor old body. Here I am with Eleanor. I was in hospital for three nights this time, rather than the two I was in last time – so a little longer to recover.

I see Dr A next week to talk about next steps which I’m keen to hear about. In the hospital I was told not to think about that until after I’d recovered from this part of proceedings. A bit hard to do. Here’s the view from my window. Until next time!!

And here I am safely home, in my usual spot reading on the couch with my trusty hound beside me!