The Cancer Strikes Back

Beware of technical knockouts...not the same as kicking it out to touch.

Unfortunately, 6 days after being told the cancer was contained and cleared, the doctors at Utrecht have revised their opinion on the Pathology results.

Its not 1 spot under tolerance but 2, there should be 5mm clearance and in 2 spots there’s only 1mm clearance from the underneath section of the tumour (tumours are like icebergs, more under than above and they cut around the above part) . That's not enough and so they want to do Radiotherapy to deal with that....damn. That means daily trips to Utrecht or Tilburg (can't do it in Breda) and some probable sore throat/gum discomfort for a while after.

I'd rather avoid RT for the moment and keep it as a big gun in case it comes back as a full tumour later, so when I go to see them I want them to convince me its the only option, since I still prefer the 1st option of a simple under local op remove a growth..why does 2 points make a difference?

More worrying though, it seems the cancer did in fact metastasise. One ( out of 23) of the lymph glands under the jaw, closest to the tumour, had the slightest signs of cancer in it which was so slight it was missed by the pathologist at Breda, but Utrecht found it..
Damn and phew I suppose. Damn because that could mean I have cancer cells flowing through my body looking for a new home, and phew because it means they’ve not let me go out into the world waiting for them to settle, it is still going to be possible to treat this.

This does make things a lot more uncertain, I need to discuss this in more detail with the doctors. It may mean chemo or it may mean a wait and see what happens approach but no point speculating till I have spoken to them and got a full set of facts.

Since this also means that this could be a long and hopefully not too hard road, I’ve decided to switch updates of my Cancer to a new blog…links to be added soon, so this will be “mostly” the last I shall mention it in here. This blog is meant for observations on life, not pondering on potentially bad things, so I’ll get all moody in the other blog and continue to post nonsense here.
Ahthankyew