The cancer ‘journey’ 8 years on. Are we there yet?
We hate the ‘cancer journey’ phrase but there is a sense in which it resonates. Living with cancer is a bit like looking at the GPS on a long journey, watching the remaining miles coming down as one drives wearily through the night to get to ‘there’, to read ‘you have arrived’. Of course the ‘destination’ is remission, stability of disease, and for Husband a series of journeys not just one. This cancer will keep re-activating, forcing a change of course. Still, Husband is in remission, with lowering protein levels in his sights and the miles are coming down at the moment.
Husband doesn’t remember how ill he was 8 years ago, 7 years ago, 6 years ago and indeed more recently. But I do. I remember him being anaemic, with his haemoglobin at 7.2, grey-skinned, unable to take the stairs as he walked to get a transfusion. I remember seeing his skin change colour from that transfusion, that brilliant amazing transfusion. I remember him shivering as his body fought the shock of the splenectomy. I remember him going through chemo. Twice. His body coped far better than we’d expected but the chemo didn’t keep the cancer at bay as long as we’d hoped. Doctors were concerned that he’d had had so many treatments with rather short remissions. Then he was offered Ibrutinib. He took it a little nervously, aware of potential side effects, but his body adjusted well. Now, 18 months on, ‘the numbers’ are still going in the right direction. And we are so very grateful.
We first visited the cancer unit eight years ago as we tried to get to grips with the seemingly impossible “You have a blood cancer. It can’t be cured.” But today we find ourselves looking at blood numbers that we could not have hoped for eight years ago. The proteins are down to 9.8, haemoglobin up to 15.5, platelets 380, white cells 7.9. We cannot hope for cure because as yet there is none for this indolent cancer. But we can hope for years together and right now Husband feels good and has a normal life (in between his six-weekly hospital appointments). He is immunocompromised so we have to be careful. We wear masks in supermarkets, we don’t go to cinemas or restaurants, we are cautious as to who comes in to our home. It’s eight years since we faced the doctor like rabbits caught in headlights. We were so afraid. But right now Husband is doing really well, hiking, gardening and grumbling about Christmas. The dog and I couldn’t be more pleased!
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