Full battle mode.

I have been putting off writing this and my fingers are very heavy on the keyboard as I do so. Paul had a call last week from the transplant doctors and they said that the result of the PET scan has showed that the cancer is back. There are signs of activity in the nodes above his heart in the chest area. To say we felt like the air had been punched from our lungs, like the world has slipped on its axis is, well, not a very good description of how we felt, or rather, feel. It’s so shit!

The upshot is that they will have to give him more Chemo to try and get him back in remission again before they can do the transplant. So he goes in next Wednesday now for the chemo as an outpatient. He will be back in the hotel for a bit, then home and then back in the hotel while he is neutrapenic. They would probably have got him in last week if he hadn’t caught a cold and cough which is still rattling about a bit. He has been prescribed Tamiflu as a precaution and antibiotics, though he doesn’t have a temperature so hopefully it’s just a standard cold that he can shift by next week. On the positive side his lungs are looking much better apparently so they are back to considering the ‘Full Body Irradiation’ transplant as they think he is much better shape to withstand the treatment. But he needs to get back to a point of remission so please all chant for that.

It’s really highlighted the sheer, brutal aggressiveness of his cancer. It’s so disappointing, perhaps we have been too complacent, too happy, we have taken our eye off the fiend and it’s slipped back slyly. I know when he goes in next week he will have one of those conversations with the doctors that will not be light and optimistic but leaden and grave. At least we have had so many of these now that we know what to expect and can take them with a shovel of salt.

I need to get back into defiance mode. A couple of days ago I had one of those shivers of untainted positivity that can be so few and far between. I was hanging out the washing and Cass was on the computer with Paul playing 'Robot Rage' and Kitty was lounging on the chair with her thumb in her mouth and there, for a split second, was my parallel life, the one that was and will be again. I felt confident and sure that this is just a setback and that for the first time in a few days I wasn’t faking the optimism.

I’m taking a new stance though in my mental exorcising of the demon. I have often found myself screaming at the cancer in my head telling it to fuck off etc. But have decided that if I perhaps tell it politely but firmly that it has made it’s point, we are fully aware of it’s awesome power and ability to regenerate and are well aware that it could have the last word. But that it really has overstayed its welcome now and that the ‘big’ thing to do would be to back off and let us rebuild our lives. Well I'm willing to try anything.

Paul said yesterday that it’s hard not to feel guilty when the bad thoughts close in. I agree but I also think we need to feel those things so that we can move on from them. This time it will be harder to muster the energy as disappointment is an emotional leech. But it will happen, we have no option. Paul says this too – there is no option, no other ending and I believe him, I truly do, even if he finds it hard to believe it himself from time to time. It's back to full battle mode.

So chant, pray, wish cast spells - just do the business again people. Will keep you posted