Welcome / Introduction

Hello

This is the first post in this blog and in fact the first post I have ever written in a blog. Therefore you will need to bear with me, as far as the style and how I write! I hope it is useful as a way of people being able to find out what is going on with Steve.
In case you have not been up to speed with the past 2 months and god it feels longer than that! I thought I would summarize where we are. Apologies for the use of "we" but I often talk about Steves “journey” in the "we" tense as I feel so close to all of this that it is feels like "we!"

On the 19th May after several weeks of nagging I finally managed to get Steve to go and see Dr Carty (who for the record is the best GP ever!) Dr Carty was concerned as Steve had lost over 2 stone in weight over a 2 month period, he also had become more and more tired as the weeks went on. He wasn't sure what was the cause but asked Steve to have some blood tests taken. Steve being Steve didn't rush into this and it took another week for this to happen! The bloods came back with a worrying number of high and low readings. We then saw Dr Barker (Dr Carty on holiday!)who referred us to a Bowel Specialist. Several CT scans later and Steve and I were told on the 12th June that he had Kidney Cancer.
Following on from that and also several other CT scans Steve had his Kidney out on the 25th June. This is also marked the day that Steve stopped smoking!!
Unfortunately even though the operation went well, we were told that the cancer had spread and that Steve had secondary cancer in the lungs.
But good news was that his brain scan and bone scan were clear!
After lots of research and telephone calls we went to London to see Dr Larkin. Opps nearly forgot Steve came home from the Kidney Op but 5 days later was back in again with a blood clot on his lung! So spent another 5 days in hospital or as Steve sometimes calls it the Hotel! Dr Larkin is a top consultant and based at the Royal Marsden and inappropriate as it maybe I have to say is rather good looking!!
He talked Steve, Bryan (steves dad) and I through the options. In essence it boils down to two options. One a drug called Sutant and the other High Dose Interlukin 2 (HD IL2) Sutant is a new drug and one which can be taken orally and will be used to control the tumors in the lung. As it is so new it was hard for him to give us time scales on how long this would be effective for. HD IL2 is a in hospital treatment which carries a low % of success rate and quite awful side effects.
However it is the only treatment that can if successful (7%) can control the tumors for 10 years plus! Also during this meeting we found out that Steves cancer cells were made up of two cells one the more common type "Clear Cell" and the other Saromatoid Cells which unfortunately this is a rare cell and the Marsden have only seen 5 cases of this before! Only Mr Wright would have a bloody rare cell type! Dr Larkin advised us that the HDIL2 is run by a Dr Powles in St Barts and we should go and meet with him to discuss this option.

Dr Powles a rather eccentric but full of life character met with us and talked us through in grusome detail the HD IL2 treatment process. In short 1 week in hospital, 1 week at home, 1 week back in hospital. Then 8 weeks break with a scan half way through to see if it has had any impact on the size of the tumours. If it has then the cycle is repeated. The chances of success are slim (approx 7%) and the side effects whilst in hospital very grim! However as I said above the results are the best of all the other treatment options.

So that is where we are! 2 options and lots of doctors later and some tough decisions to make!

Oh and a summer holiday to fit in! I am sure or actually not so sure that Steve may or may not post some of his own thoughts up here but more likely it will be me adding new posts. Or I may add to my list of duties and become Steves secretary and write some words for Steve up here!