It ain't that kind #1 (23 Sep 2012)
It ain't that kind: 18 months on (20 Mar 2014)
It ain't that kind: two years on (31 Aug 2014)
It ain't that kind: two-and-a-half years on (19 March 2015)
Various new problems, appearing over as little as the past three weeks - such as a suddenly swollen left arm, and a spreading metastatic rash over the left collar-bone - brought me to the hospital on 27th May for a CT scan, and a solid case review the day after.
These confirmed what I'd have to be stupid or in denial not to know already: that things have finally started rapid escalation (new lung nodules, as well as the obvious stuff I can see). That's one bit of bad news. The other (a strong clinical consensus of the duty consultant oncologist and my regular oncologist) is that third-line 'salvage' chemotherapy would be very unlikely to give any benefit. What's more - in hindsight - they were of the view that the benefits of my two earlier chemo treatments were "modest" - never as radical as I thought at the time. Largely, it seems I owe the two-and-a-half energetic years after diagnosis to having an indolent (i.e. slow-growing) form of CUP in lymph nodes nowhere vital.
I said even before the case review that I was game for more chemo if it should be clinically judged worth doing, but if not, I wouldn't take offence. The latter is how it is. And even though I can't pretend it's not a major blow to come to the point where the options run out, I'm OK with that part. From now on, we go with symptomatic treatment only (of issues such as cough, inflammation, and pain). It's definitely late game now ... and perhaps very late game.
I'm not going to alter the tone of JSBlog and soul-search about that. But let's just say I'd so much rather be chilling out with Clare after a long cliff walk, sitting in a sunny tea garden on a clifftop at Shanklin with a visit to my Dad to follow, than sitting here writing on a Vodafone Smart Prime 6 like an updated M. Valdemar from Poe:
He spoke with distinctness—took some palliative medicines without aid—and, when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocket-book.- Ray