It's been over a week now since I had day two of my first chemo cycle and the anxiety begins to build. Is it working, is it worth continuing with the treatment, should I cut and run? Questions rattle around my brain like shrapnel from a bag of grenades.
I know there is no chance this treatment will have had any effect on the tumour markers yet. I know that, it's too soon. I know that the treatments are cumulative and it will take time for them to get a grip of whatever is happening inside me and slap it into submission, thereby buying me more time to live my life. I know this isn't a cure I am getting, it is a palliative treatment aimed at giving me more life. How much more life is anyone guess, but at least no-one has actually named an expiration date yet. So, unlike Philip K Dicks replicants from Bladerunner/Do androids dream of electric sheep, whilst I have an incept date for 1965 I don't have a shutdown date. I think I am grateful for that at least.
Anyway, I crumbled today and rang my consultant to find out what my latest AFP result is. I shouldn't have done it, I wouldn't have done it had I been thinking straight. All that shrapnel confused me for a moment and I picked up the phone. My AFP has risen to 210, from 190 over a seven day period. Damn!
Is that bad? No, it isn't, as the treatments aren't expected to strike to the heart of my rising AFP so quickly. But, you do foolishly hope don't you.
You have to sometimes.
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1 comment:
Just to let you know I love you more today than yesterday. Love forever Ray xxx
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