#Im still here how to#
#Im still here plus#

#Im still here how to#

But wrong ideas about cancer and how to treat it can lead to needless worry and Survival Outcomes in Metastatic Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Patients receiving Concomitant 225Ac-DOTATATE Targeted Alpha Therapy and Capecitabine: A Real-world Scenario Management Based Long-term Outcome Study To a certain extent, it can be the case with treatment too. false hopeĬertain popular ideas about how cancer starts and spreads – though scientifically wrong, can seem to make sense, especially when those ideas are rooted in old theories.

Although the story I am attaching says “Neuroendocrine Tumors” throughout, with that prognosis The trouble with the NET is that it can spread ……. He found a top hospital that directed him to an established clinical trial. Given 6 months to live, he refused to accept that prognosis and looked elsewhere. 48 hours before diagnosis – click here.Ĭurtis Crump: “If I’m going down, it won’t be without a fight.”Ĭurtis Crump: Credit MD Anderson Cancer Center Curtis Crump has an amazing story to tell. Don’t be cavalier with a cancer diagnosis – click here.Ĥ. Diagnosis – I’m no longer in control – click here.Ģ. I remain thankful to still be here and I’d like to think another 11 years is possible, but I’ll settle for my state pension start date of 30th October 2021 as the next line in the sand. That brought new challenges, but I adapted well to that situation, as did my close family. The most radical change was stopping work in 2014, I was fortunate that I was in a position to do so, at an age when it became feasible – some don’t always have that luxury. There’s no doubt it was an event that changed my life although I tried to hide it for the first few years, seeking normality but eventually settling for something new, something different. My son and his family were the next on the list. In fact, we stopped off at our daughters which was on the way back, they live close to the hospital. We headed home to discuss how we would tell family etc.

#Im still here plus#

I was also to await a nuclear scan appointment plus some other tests. Chemo was mentioned but looking at letters that followed, he may have meant Everolimus or a TACE. Surgery was mentioned and I was to be referred to a NET expert surgeon based in Southampton. I don’t remember much except that it was one of the hottest days of the year and felt quite underdressed as I turned up in T shirt etc. I got a copy of course! Chris and I went home to consider the events and I rested for the remainder of the day before returning for the 4pm appointment.

He gave me a letter which I was to hand to the Oncologist when I met him later that day. He had looked at the scan conducted the day before and compared it with the one from 8th July – they compared nicely apparently. I met a nice gastroenterologist who was leading a party of other doctors and healthcare professionals around the ward. I was discharged after the doctor’s rounds. You can read my no holds barred summary with some humourous memories by clicking here. But the 2 days prior to meeting an Oncologist in Bournemouth on Monday 26th July 2010 were spent in the very same hospital after being admitted for severe shoulder pain. During what seemed an endless round of tests, a liver biopsy ( Grade 2) provided the concrete evidence. My return to UK set the ball rolling and the ‘eureka’ moment came on 8th July with a CT scan (“ what are you doing this afternoon”). In some ways I was happy not to know about the plethora of medical issues going on inside my body while I sipped piña coladas on the Barbadian beaches. In May 2010, some abnormal blood tests were discovered and in June 2010, I went on holiday such was my indifference to the whole affair. The lead up to my diagnosis was a rocky road, albeit I travelled that road fairly swiftly compared to some. Some of these issues remain today, a bit of it threatens one of my ureters – you can take a quick look at my clinical history here. And, unique to serotonin secreting Neuroendocrine Tumours, it had caused a dense fibrotic reaction in the general area of the mesentery and in the retroperitoneal cavity near major blood vessels including the aorta and inferior vena cava, an issue which itself was life threatening. I was fortunate that my cancer was not that aggressive although it was aggressive enough over an unknown period of time (probably years) to have grown inside my small intestine and mesentery, reached an army of lymph nodes and settled in my liver and beyond including, strangely, in my left armpit. However, as things progressed, as treatment was administered, and as I got used to living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, I eventually became more confident this was a possibility. A milestone I was not certain at the time I would reach. I finally made 11 years since I was diagnosed on 26th July 2010.