Walking through fire

I didn't expect to be writing a blog post today because I was due to have chemo treatment number 3 on Tuesday, which pretty much wipes me out for at least a week.  But... a regular blood test at the weekend showed that my neutrophils (type of white blood cell) are too low, so my oncologist has postponed treatment for a couple of weeks to let my cell count recover. I'm not unduly worried by this and it's nice to have a bit of breathing space! It also gives me an opportunity to update the blog and today I'm going to share the first of several blogs (I hope) about some of the things that have made me who I am. My passions and interests and with them some memories of special times and people. So this blog is going to be all about my interest in science, and particularly in biology and  the brain. Growing up, discussion of scientific ideas was very much part of family life. My father was a physicist, and both my older sisters studied science subjects at A-level (and went on ...

NHS gold service I could not have had better service from the NHS throughout the last six months. They say the NHS is the nearest thing the British now have to a collective religion. I'm a card-carrying member of the Church of England - but I can see the truth in this. Actually I think the whole idea of the NHS has profoundly moral - even theological - underpinnings. It's based on a belief that each person has value in and of themselves. It is one of the few areas left in our collective life that is actively egalitarian. It is about need, not about some kind of perceived 'worth'.  As I said in my first blog, I've been pretty healthy for most of my life, but my husband has had different health problems and issues and I've sat next to him in many a hospital corridor or waiting room, plus I've had two kids and been in and out of casualty and Minor Injuries over the years. Reflecting on my experiences recently, I realise that as a cancer patient, I have been on ...

I arrive at the chemo unit in good time just before 9am on Tuesday 22 December, just under a week ago. Pleasant winter day, not too cold, not actually raining. The chemo unit is a big airy room set out with comfy chairs and a central nurses station. Nice windows looking across the fields to the Hampshire countryside. A few others arrive - they've clearly been doing this for a while. I feel like the new girl at school, shown to my place in the classroom, not quite sure what's going to happen - except of course, that it's probably not going to be nice. The chemotherapy treatment I'm having is called FOLFIRINOX and consists of three different cytotoxic drugs (cyto = cells, toxic = well, you know... so cytotoxic drugs kill cancer cells. Unfortunately they also kill other cells too). There's a fourth drug in the 'cocktail' which improves the effectiveness of one of the others. They will give the drugs through the PICC line in my arm (little plastic tube which goe...

So since I last posted on this blog, things have started to move. On the one hand I feel like I can't start treatment soon enough after more than a month of tests, appointments and uncertainty. On the other hand, as things gather pace and the days tick away, the reality of the situation is sinking in. If I'm going to wake up and find this is all a dream... well that's going to have to happen very soon. Please? Last week they put a PICC line in my arm. PICC stands for 'peripherally-inserted central catheter' - in other words it's a tube that goes through a vein in the arm into the central vein just above the heart. They use it to administer the chemotherapy drugs. Provided it's looked after, it can stay in place for months or even years - in my case, it'll likely be there for at least six months. I guess I will get used to it, but at the moment all it does is make the skin under the bandage itch, and act as a constant reminder of why I need it. (And ...

Lots of friends have been asking me what's been happening so here's an update. I last wrote just over a week ago when I was waiting for (and rather dreading) a gastroscopic ultrasound. This is a procedure where they put a tube down your throat and into your stomach and then do an ultrasound scan of the pancreas through the stomach wall. They can also take some biopsies of the pancreas at the same time. Sadly I seem to have typed 'gastroscopic ultrasound' so often that my phone can now autopredict it... I'd had a gastroscopy (ie the tube but without the scan) a few weeks ago and was really not looking forward to this. But the reality is rarely as bad as the dread, and the procedure all happened without any hitches last Monday afternoon. This time I had conscious sedation which was a big improvement. Note to self: don't be brave, take the drugs on offer. Then on Thursday I had a PET scan. This is the one where they inject you with some radioactive glucose. The can...

 So... this week has mostly been about waiting. ... When I last posted, I was in self-isolation, waiting for a gastroscopic ultrasound, which was due to take place on Monday afternoon. Mid-Monday morning, we got a phone call from Alex, the wonderful Macmillan nurse, to let me know that they'd decided to cancel the procedure. After a weekend holed upstairs away from the family, with no hugs and minimal conversations, all at a distance, it was a tough one. She explained that the MRI scan results on my liver were still a bit inconclusive - in other words, they still weren't sure if the liver lesion was a secondary (= bad news) or not. So they wanted to send the images down to the specialists in Southampton to look at before proceeding. Precautionary principle, makes sense to me. And at least I could get downstairs, have lunch with my husband and hugs all round when the boys got back from school and college.  Next date in the calendar, Alex told us, would be Wednesday, when they w...

So my first post was rather starkly titled 'I have cancer' - because that is the reality I've been trying to get my head around for the last few days. But I thought in this second blog I'd try to explain why I've decided to write a blog and what kind of things I'm hoping to write about. I also want to give a quick update on what's been happening. The first thing to say is that writing and communicating generally is part of what I do for a living. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about what words to use to engage people with issues like global poverty and international trade and climate change. So I guess it's natural for me to want to write things down. And while it's occasionally OK to get a bit personal in a work blog, nobody really wants to hear about me particularly so it feels a bit of a luxury to be much more personal. A bit self indulgent maybe, but hey, I feel I can allow myself a bit of slack. I constantly nag my colleagues to be c...