D Day + 7: Thursday 19 August 2010 - Good News

 C telling his sister the good news

Having had the appointment with Mr O brought forward, we duly arrived at the clinic for 3.50 and went in to see him.  (He still reminds me of Trevor McDonald, and I still think he - Mr O - is a really nice chap).  Thankfully he started the conversation with "Well we have some good new for you..." which was a relief given the sense of numbness that C and I have been suspended in all day.  The MRI scan results show that, although the tumour is very large and basically his right kidney is now the tumour, not kidney any more, there is a gap or 'plane' between it and the liver, its nearest neighbour in organ town, which means that they can whip the bugger out and remove most of the cancer with it.  Phew; now I can go ahead and buy new stripey pyjamas for C's stay in hospital - something I've been teasing him about and will now have to produce.  He's going to have to go over the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth for the operation, which should be within the next month - when we asked Mr O for timescale he said he anticipated that "...the kidney will be in a bucket inside of the next four weeks."  Gotta love the man's turn of phrase - he also told C that his chances are good given that he is "young and fit" - which is very flattering for a 54 year old; apparently in medical terms you are not 'old' until you are over 70!
We came out of there on a bit of a high; it's good news, the best we could have hoped for, and we are feeling very positive.  It would be easy to forget that C is still very ill, and that he will be going 'through the mill' over the next few weeks - however we must keep a realistic handle on this and not get too complacent; he will still need immunotherapy after the op to deal with one or two small areas of cancer which have spread to his liver and lung, and although he won't be 'cured' there's a good chance that he will go into remission and have a better prognosis.
Nos 1, 2 and 3 arrived to be told the news and everyone was pleased; such a welcome change to the news we had to give them this time last week.  And so life will go on at the moment, in the same way it has so far; we just have to prepare for a short notice call to go over to QA, so I'd better get on and buy those pyjamas.....