Results Day!

Tuesday 20th March 2012

Today is the day we have been waiting for since January - is the treatment working?  Will we have a few months or a few years?  Everyone is on tender hooks.  Thankfully John and Sue are over from France and Oli has the day off work, so Dylan has plenty of babysitters.  Both my brother and I are in Reading to attend the consultant appointment with my parents.

The decision has been made for Mum to have her subsequent rounds of chemo as an outpatient, so she is also having a PICC line inserted in her arm today which means she can have the treatment at home without being attached to a massive drip that she needs to wheel around after her.  Instead she will wear a 'bum bag' within which will be a small bag containing the concentrated chemo drug and a battery operated pump which will pump the fluid through the line in her arm.  I make the assumption that the treatment must be working if they plan to continue with the subsequent three rounds. I have convinced myself that we will get good news today.

Mum's consultant appointment is at 10.30am and the PICC line appointment is at 11.00am.  As per usual, the clinic is running behind schedule so we are told to go and get the PICC line done first and come back to clinic afterwards.  This only increases the nerves and anxiety as the time increases drastically before we are likely to see the consultant. 

Mum is allowed to take one person in with her to have the PICC line inserted and she chooses me.  I'm trying to be very strong for her and I am so proud about how brave she is being.  I had a minor operation a few years ago on my finger when I got a shard of china from a plate stuck in it.  I cried like a baby on the operating table because I was so scared!  Mum does not shed a tear although I know she is terrified.  The line is inserted under general anesthetic and I think, like anything, the thought of it was much worse than actually having it done.  She did brilliantly!  I, on the other hand, sat on the chair in the corner of the room with a lump in my throat, trying not to cry.

We then made our way back to clinic and are called in straight away to see the consultant and Mum's Colorectal Clinical Nurse Specialist, Liz.  You can feel the tension in the room as the consultant takes his seat.  He immediately says "It's good news!".  He says it's obvious from the results of the CT scan that the cancer in Mum's liver has reduced in size by approximately 50% and he says she is responding very well to treatment.  We all breathe a sigh of relief apart from Mum who begins to cry.  She is devasted that she is not being told she is cured.  I think she had been expecting a miracle and was gutted that she didn't get it.  She asks Liz if she thinks she will be cured, to which Liz responds with the initial prognosis - the cancer is too advanced to be cured and the treatment is only to prolong her life for a little bit longer.  Mum is inconsolable.  It's not good news after all.  Mum and Dad leave the room, whilst David and I ask if we can see the scan pictures for ourselves.  We are taken into the doctor's office and we look at the pictures.  The decrease in size is enormous!  The doctor says that on looking at the pictures again it could be even more than 50%.  This is of no comfort to Mum, as the realisation is beginning to set in that she is not going to beat this.  David and I try to encourage her by telling her what we've seen.

We leave the hospital and send a few text messages to tell our family, who are also on tender hooks, that the treatment is working.  Immediately the replies start to flood in - "What brilliant news!",  "Fantastic!", "Congratulations!".  Mum is unable to share in everyone else's delight.  I head back to Guildford and we have a bottle of champagne with John and Sue to celebrate.  I feel empty inside!