I tell people I am getting chemo every two weeks, but that is not entirely true.
I am often tempted by my innate tendency to divilment, to write things that are not fully veracious, just for the giggle. I could tell people I have been cured by angels, or that I take ivermectin every second day, or that tequila slammers have been the key to my recovery.
None of those things is true. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am not actually getting chemo. I am getting cetuximab, which is a monoclonal antibody and therefore known as a targeted therapy, rather than a chemotherapy.
Collectively, the various gunks that they administer to knobble cancer are called Systemic Anti-Cancer Treatment, or SACT.
As in, your cancer gets sacked. Out on its ear. (Unless you have ear cancer, in which case out on its something else).
Redundified. Severanced. Forcibly quitted.
Or, if you are of a more medieval mindset, pillaged. Ravaged. Destroyed.
That is the plan anyway.
"Medieval" comes to mind when I feel the teeny but acutely painful paper cuts around my fingernail as they greet an unexpected drop of lemon juice or try to press on an unyielding remote control button. Persistent, consistent, insistent shoots of pain all day and night, from pathetic little scars that look so insignificant.
This is the main side effect from the cetuximab. Other little joys include ridiculously long eyelashes which brush off the inside of my glasses, and a lovely pustular rash on my face, back and chest. I may have mentioned this before, but don't at me, as they say.
It doesn't cause my immunity to drop or make me particularly tired. It takes about 4 hours to administer and I pop into the lovely "chemo" ward people every two weeks where they sort me out. (I think the chances of them changing the name to the SACT Ward are small).
I had scans before Christmas which show a sustained improvement in my liver tumour and nothing new anywhere else, so all is good.
I have come to accept the likelihood that I will need to stay on some maintenance treatment into the future; like, looonnnggg into the future. I was ferociously lucky to get away without it before. Nearly every other Stage 4 bowel cancer patient I know has needed some kind of ongoing therapy to keep them ticking over. I was special but now I am definitely not.
It's fine, like.
It messes a bit with my thoughts about returning to active duty as a GP. I will have to ponder that.
For the moment, I am delighted to keep working with the wonderful people in the National Screening Service, while the wonderful people in the Mercy University Hospital are still working to keep me alive and well.
