Spot on his lung

Well, since I wrote last Geoff has been looking (I suppose I should emphasise the 'looking'!) so much better. His beard has grown back, which is lovely. It's so good to see my husband with a beard again, - it was gone for so long after the radiation treatment. His eye is not so noticeably droopy. Inside, he feels frustrated that he is not better better. He's BETTER but not well if you know what I mean. Anyway, so we were going along - me starting with projects again (a swing, mosaic, sorting out the garden, a new front door) - but scan-time was coming up. So, after the usual six-month scans on Friday, Geoff went in to see his oncologist (Dr Davids) on Monday, and was told there is a spot on his lung (6mm) that looks suspicious. It could be a blood vessel, but is greyer and not in line with the other blood vessels. It was on the previous scan, but then was only 4mm. So possibly another operation. Geoff is feeling slightly adrenalinish, I'm feeling depressed. So that's where we are now. He was looking so much better. Sure, he still doesn't have enough saliva, he has suppurating sores on his head that simply will not go away and he can't lift his right arm because the nerve is cut, but he sounds and looks well, most of the time. We are just both finding it relentless and tiring.

Tuesday 30th January 2018

I was looking back at the first post I did, and see that that was only written 18 months after Geoff first had cancer. So we have been battling bits of cancer since 2014. It's a hell of a long time! This weekend I was feeling quite despairing about the effect the radiation has had. He says his tongue feels like biltong and the inside of his throat is lined with little blisters. He slept all day Saturday and most of Sunday. I thought this is it, he has to be hospitalised now. But he said no, he is seeing the doctor on Wednesday so will wait until then. Things go alright if he is feeling okay, but as soon as he gets depressed it is awful! UPDATE: Well, I went along with Geoff to the newest plastic surgeon (well, to Dr Landau at Kingsbury Hospital) and he had Geoff's file with him. What do you know? His first op for the first pleomorphic sarcoma was in 2011, says Dr Landau. Well, it just shows you, I don't know where the time goes! What? We've been battling cancer for seven years? And now the radiation is making its insidious self felt. 

Not a good day

Oh I am despondent today. And because (according to Catherine's kvetching circles!) I can't complain to Geoff, I've decided to moan here: just look at my poor husband's radiation area!

This is his reddened, sometimes almost blackened, skin where the radiation has taken place. (He has the last bout tomorrow: the thirtieth session).  It's painful and itchy at the same time. The red circle is where his skin comes off when I put a plaster on: he has places where the skin comes off, and then even with the soft papery sticking plaster you can use after surgery, the skin pulls off when I pull the dressing off. So it feels like a never-ending spiral - you remove a plaster, and oops up comes some skin, and there's a raw spot. Then the blue circle marks a surgery area that hasn't healed: this was part of the cut performed when the original salivary gland was removed, and, since mid-October, (and it's now endish-January, so about 90 days later) it still hasn't healed. So that needs a plaster over it. Then the purple part is where there's a hole instead of proper flesh, that's where the salivary gland was removed. And the yellow circles are where his hair isn't going to grow again. I don't know, it's just horrible, watching bits of my husband being taken away at a time. Never mind the facts that his face is swollen, his eye keeps tearing, his taste buds are gone so he can't enjoy anything he's eating and he can't swallow anything whole anyway because his throat is swollen so much that he can hardly swallow water or pills! It's just a disaster altogether and to try and keep cheerful through all this is sometimes just too much!