23 December 2023
Blimey – December already!
I didn’t realise it’s been two months since my last blog post, and while I’ve felt not much has changed – and it hasn’t really, I have at least made some gradual progress.
The treatment regime for pneumonitis has got me out of the worst of the problems and the lung inflammation has subsided. But I’m pretty certain there’s still some lasting damage to what was my good lung – and I’ve got more lung function tests lined up during February 2024 to try and quantify the situation.
The smart money at this stage seems to indicate I’ll be on supplemental oxygen long term. And while I’m getting more used to being hooked up to a machine and I can get out and about, it isn’t much fun at all really.
Still, on the bright side the last CT scan that I had in mid-November shows that the tumours in my right lung are still ‘stable’ – that means no growth (or disease progression as the medics say) since April, a good 6 months or so. I’ll take that as a win any day!
And yes, that’s given me another Xmas to celebrate – which is four Xmas’s since being pronounced Stage IV incurable, back in September 2020
I feel I can now share some history of prognosis discussions over the past few years:
In September 2020, the expected survival for my cancer of between 9-14 months. Skipped past that.
In Jan 2022 it was 50/50 I’d see the year out. Skipped past that one too!
In May 2023 it was just a matter of months. That took some getting around in my mind, but I reckon I’ve dodged this bullet also.
Because here we are at Xmas 2023 - I’m still doing okay and working on milestones for 2024 😊
Anyway – the clinical trial is stopped and won’t resume. I won’t be able to have any immunotherapy treatment in the future because of the serious risk of inflammation of one or more organs. So, as there’s currently no disease progression, I’m on observation only (no drug treatment), with CT scans until things change. Then it’ll be the 4th (and final) palliative chemotherapy – but hopefully not for a while yet.
