The Trials

Following on from Jo’s incurable diagnosis, we have been waiting for some contact from the Royal Marsden on whether Jo is suitable for a new trial.

It had been a week and we were yet to hear anything, so impatiently I decided to give the Marsden a call to try and find out how long it might take and just to check we hadn’t got lost in the post, after all the Oncologist had said it would be in the post on the Tuesday and now it was Monday and we were getting very anxious for some news.

When I rang them, they were unable to find any record of the referral, so back I went to our Oncologist’s secretary, who informed me disappointingly that the letter had only gone out to them earlier that day. So it should be with them the next day.

Thankfully from that point on things started to move quickly, Jo has an old school friend who works at the Marsden, who started to chase it up and the Marsden’s secretary then got in contact direct with our Oncologist’s secretary and got the file sent via email rather than wait for the snail mail. So by Wednesday we were in the system.

On Thursday I had another mail from the Marsden secretary to tell me it was being looked at and Jo’s friend also was keeping us updated as well, we were told we would hear something on Friday.

So Friday arrived and late in the evening we got a call from our local Oncologist to advise that one of the trials was not available to Jo and one was possibly, but after a discussion between himself and the Marsden they wanted to see how our current treatment is working and if it doesn’t then they would look at it again.

So a bit disappointing but at least the option still exists. Emotionally the wait for news again is often harder than the news you get and Jo has particularly found it tough. We have tried not to put too much reliance on getting a trial straight away and we still remain hopeful that one of the options we have will keep us going until something new turns up that can help more long term.

Apart from that Jo’s skin metastasis are continuing to spread but the Oncologist did advise it would take a little while before we might start to see improvement. The Cancer in the skin looks sort of like Chickenpox with lots of small little red lumps that go across her chest and stomach, they aren’t particularly sore but they are itchy and the Chemo nurses have advised she uses an anti-histamine cream to reduce the itchiness, which so far has worked pretty well.

The Cancer in the skin, isn’t skin cancer, it is still breast cancer, that has spread to the skin, which would be the same if it had spread to any other part of the body. So for example someone who has breast cancer that has spread to the lung, would not have lung cancer but in fact have Breast Cancer with Lung metastasis. The key is where the Cancer originally started.

To keep us occupied and improve our spirits during the week and despite it being still in November we put our Christmas tree up and the outside lights were lit. Jo loves Christmas and we decided if there was any year to start early this was the one.

So the weekend has arrived and we will spend tonight at a dinner and dance with a number of our close friends from our Village at a local hotel to celebrate Christmas. We are both really looking forward to it, so we better get our glad rags on and get ready to party!!