Pat asked me to post this update from Leigh,
Hello everyone,
I am so happy to of made it home for the Christmas holidays with my family and have had a relaxing time being pampered.
It is time for me to take a back seat for a while and recover from the operation which for me is really hard to do. During the preparation of the Christmas dinner I was eager to get involved but was banished from the kitchen.
Doctor’s orders are to have two complete weeks of rest and then slowly build up my walking and activities.
It has been confirmed that the tumour was a metastasis from the original bladder cancer from two years ago. The neurologist surgeon was very happy that they were able to remove the entire tumour. The plan of action now is to have preventative radiotherapy to zap any microscopic cancer cells that might be hanging around.
Starting tomorrow they will make a mask for me that will be necessary when they start full brain radiotherapy on the 8th of January. Treatment will be 10-15min sessions for 10 days in total with a few days rest in between.
Possible side effects from the treatment can be hair loss, tiredness, itchy scalp and nausea.
I have been banned from driving again for 6 weeks which is when I have an MRI scan and neurology appointment to check the progress of the radiotherapy.
I am so very thankful that the tumour was operable and that I have no further metastasis in my body which is very positive. My oncologist has said that because of this they are still aiming for curative rather than palliative treatment.
This will be my last update and for those that are interested to follow my journey through treatment I welcome you to follow my blog. I started a blog two years ago when I was diagnosed with bladder cancer which helped me greatly to express my feelings.
The initial diagnosis is the start of the blog and I will be starting to blog once more shortly a kind of part two to the journey. The link to my blog is:
bladdercancerjourney.blogspot.com/
I would like to thank you all from my heart for all your kind words of support, messages, texts, cards and flowers I really appreciated them all. I would like to wish you all peace, love and good health in 2010.
Kind Regards
Leigh