Steve started Radiotherapy today up at St Barts, the treatment lasts for 5 days and takes about 20 minutes each time. However due to the fact London is so busy! Traffic wise the whole trip takes about 6 hours! 6 hours most of which is sat in a car, which at the moment is really painful for Steve. His back is really sore and its so hard to get into a comfortable position.
This week has been a busy one, with trips to St Bars, Harley Street and Guildford hospital.
Steve had to go at the start of the week to be "measured up!" for Radiotherapy. We have been told, that due to the location of the tumour, that it is going to be a challenge! Typical, why nothing can be straightforward is beyond me!
Oh well we are told that we have one of the top guys on the case and that it is an interesting challenge for them. We haven’t been to this part of the hospital before, surprisingly as I thought we had been everywhere!
The building is incredibly run down but it didn’t take away the spirit of the place, given the nature of radiotherapy and the fact people have to have it on consecutive days and some for many weeks, it felt like a family lounge rather than a waiting room. People swapping papers and stories of what they had been up to, since they had seen each other the day before and nurses chatting away, as though they had known each patient forever. I felt like a distant cousin, who had only shown up for the tea and biscuits! It was a calming enviroment but sad one at that, again Steve looked the youngest by about 30 years!
Steve went off for his treatment, whilst I waited and was introduced to everyone, as I will see them all again tomorrow and every day until Wednesday when Steve finishes his treatment.
It makes for such a long day and one which completely tires Steve out. He is exhausted by the time we get home and the pain, is so difficult to manage.
We also have been to see two separate doctors this week, one in Harley Street, Simon and one in Guildford called Prof Pandha.
Both doctors specialise in the same field, i.e Kidney Cancer but we wanted to see if Steve could be treated locally, as the journey too and from London is exhausting for Steve.
Simon (Harley Street) was a great guy and knew all about Steve from Tom and so asked minimal questions and spent most of the time explaining what would be the next steps and how his thinking is about managing this disease. Steve got on well with him and I did too. He was just like Tom just a bit more organised! Which I did say to him! :-)
The next day we saw Prof Pandha and he was equally a nice guy, if not a little older. Strange comment I know but I have this thing about younger doctors! No not in that way! But that they seem to treat patients and particularly their family different. They seem to be more inclusive and also open to try and do things abit different. That said Prof Pandha was incredibly knowledgeable and he is based in Guildford! A mere 5 miles from where we live, so none of that terrible London traffic. He asked many, many questions and told us that he had received the biggest fax he had ever received on Steve. "Well alots been going on!!" I nearly said but thought better of it.
Prof Pandha will now be Steves doctor, with Tom playing a role in the background looking at the scans and notes etc.
Prof (as I now will call him) wants Steve to try Afinitor straight away, so as soon as Steve finishes the radiotherapy which is Wednesday, then he wants him to start on Thursday.
We have been given all of the info to read on side effects etc..... and mainly they are the same as Sutent but without the hand and foot condition, which is a bonus. It appears that you take Afinitor every day and dont have a break as you do with Sutent. And then are scanned every couple of months but I know better than to expect things to go according to any plan, so its a watch and wait situation.
On the plus side, the weather has been so beautiful that when we went up to London for the meeting with Simon, Steve and I were able to buy some sandwiches and go and eat them in Green Park, on the deck chairs which was lovely. So nice to be doing just the smallest of things together, not talking about any of this but simply enjoying the moment.
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