Life – Terror. Ecstasy. Fight. Denial. Flight. Failure. PAIN. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Hope. Love. Peace – Death.
I don’t usually post, specificity, regarding my own medical conditions. However, as many of my ‘closest’ will read my blogs it can be an effective way of keeping people up-to-date. It does feel a tad impersonal, this way, and or like I am asking for sympathy. It is not either. It is for information as many, friends, family, x colleagues regularly ask me, ‘how I’m doing’ and that I keep them informed.
On a personal level, contacting individuals to provide regular updates can be bad for me. When it is bad news it feels a bit like I am hearing the news myself again, reliving it? This way I get to present ‘news‘ just the once. So, apologies for this ‘mass’ information, John Reynolds, ‘sick-note’ post.
These past 6-12 months my overall health has gotten worse. Oddly my incurable prostate cancer has remained stable and is not a top priority at the moment! Good news.
However, for these past 6-12 months I have been experiencing additional, mounting symptoms; fatigue, often extreme. General all-round tiredness even after 9 hours of sleep, regular pain especially, my legs, lungs and chest and worse of all my skin which has been horrendous this past year. I find it more and more difficult to walk especially at a pace, even short distances, gradients are a thing of the past. It goes on and on …
My, already impressive, Medical CV has expanded, I now attend 7, separate, clinics. I have been undergoing, numerous, ‘further’ investigations, scans & tests.
Heart & Chest, Lung (yes they are different apparently) and also Prostate, just in case anything has advanced more suddenly than expected. I had a CT Cardiac Angiogram Coronary & Cardiac Cor Artery Calcium Scoring Scan last week along with a CT Lung PET scan within days of each other. Not great news to be honest. I got a call from the Lung Specialist Clinic (a nurse) Friday.
The positron emission tomography-computed tomography [PET CT Scan] shows a 9mm lump/tumour in my left lung that is not prostate cancer related. If it was prostate, i.e. spread (metastasised) to my lung (other organs), quite common at my stage of disease, it would have shown up on the PET CT, which uses a nuclear isotope dye, injection that literally sticks to prostate cancer antigen and highlights just minute amounts of prostate cancer. This suggests it is another, Primary Cancer. Better news is it was practically a whole body scan that revealed Zero Prostate Cancer anywhere else in my body.
I am having additional (lung capacity) breath tests tomorrow followed by a lung biopsy Wednesday [3rd September] to confirm or deny if it is a Primary Cancer of the lung. I am still waiting to hear from Heart Clinic about suspected congenital heart disease.
If it is lung cancer then it will be treated and current lung cancer treatment success rates are optimistic. It might mean me having to suspend my immunosuppressant Psoriasis injections which will be catastrophic in terms of my skin (chronic psoriasis) treatment and pretty shite.
Apart from that, I’m fucking boss and Everton are ‘still’ shit!
That’s all Folks!
#peace
Dying to Live 