So here we are, seven weeks to the day since C was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and we finally get an appointment with an oncologist. This was with Dr Madhava, who comes over to the Island every other Thursday, to hold a clinic at St Mary's. It's all down to Sonya, our Macmillan Nurse, that we got to see him this time around or it could have been another fortnight wait - not something I think we could have contemplated - plus she got blood test results and the biopsy results organised in time so Dr M could have them to hand. Our appointment was at 9.30am; being punctual, as we always are, we arrived in plenty of time (9.17 according to the car park ticket) and found the Outpatients Department, checked in, and waited. And waited, and waited and waited. Forty-five minutes later (so now it's 10.15) one of the nurses called us and put us in a side room - which had two chairs and an examination couch in it, so we weren't too sure where to sit; was C supposed to bet on the couch??? - where we waited again...for another 15 or 20 minutes while Dr M was on the phone (which incidentally we could hear). Then he came in and we had to go over the whole history of how the problem came to light, C's symptoms, what he's had so far in terms of scans etc (is this not all in his file?????)...and then Dr M's phone rang and he went off to take the call. At this point I'm starting to feel like I'm in some sick comedy show, where you sense there is bad news, but no-one is taking it seriously and things keep happening to avoid you being told...get the idea? We can even hear the nurses outside the door talking about what they did last night/are doing tonight/will do at lunch time etc, which puts a weird commonplace slant on the whole situation. Dr M comes back - having had a fairly in-depth discussion about a patient's treatment, all of which we could hear as the door was open this time (bit worrying that he was saying they couldn't try a certain treatment as the funding wasn't there - felt sorry for the chap he was talking about) - and thankfully Sonya arrived too. The upshot is that Southampton General are not happy about doing the nephrectomy (removal of the kidney) due to the spread to liver and lung, so there are two options: (1) embolization, which involves cutting off the blood supply to the tumour or (2) crack on with chemotherapy to eradicate the spread and see if this will also reduce the tumour. Having sat around for seven weeks we opted for (2), which seemed to be the choice of Dr M and also Southampton General. So there we are - we finally have a plan! We've got an appointment to go up to the Chemo Unit on Monday afternoon to have some 'education' on the treatment, and also to hopefully pick up the drugs so we can get cracking.
Home again in the autumn sunshine; so glad that the weather was nicer as it does lift your spirits! I went off to meet up with Hannah and Tina before choir, and Rom was home with C, with No 2 expected later on, as usual - chip shop dinner tonight I think!!
Met with Hannah, but Tina got delayed after a meeting at the school she works at, and having to coax a pupil back in!! We ordered her meal and she managed to put it away and have a quick drink in record time before we had to go!! Hope she didn't get indigestion...
Choir was amazing - we tackled 'Gaudete' for the first time, and it sounds great!! I think that fact that it's in Latin has thrown a few people, but if we can manage to nail an eight part, unaccompanied version of Over the Rainbow, and perform it in a national competition in front of a theatreful of people and three judges, I guess we can do practically anything!!! There are some lovely pieces we're doing for the Christmas concert - Hannah has also suggested that we resurrect 'Santa Baby' from last year; I'm in two minds about this! On the one hand it is a good 'comedy' piece, with five of us dressed in tacky Santa costumes, fishnet tights and what Vicki calls 'FMBs' (I had no idea what that meant...but basically it's black boots; work the acronym out yourself!) doing a few choreographed moves. On the other, we've done it once and I'm wondering if we can do it again with the same 'panache' as last time!!!!! Time will tell...and we've recruited Hayley as Claire Q left recently and she was one of the originals. Yes folks, there's something for everyone in these concerts!!!!
Went to the pub afterwards and spent a great hour or so catching up with peeps and generally relaxing and winding down. We are becoming a regular feature on Thursday nights down there - I'm not sure we're always that popular though, as we take over a large table which they've already set up for meals, so by the time we leave they have to do it again...which frankly must be so onerous for them, laying out knives and forks and serviettes.....meow!!!
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