Cancer: Second TACE Procedure

14 August 2023. Well, I sort of knew this was coming. The cancer has grown very slightly (only 1mm) but has changed inside and therefore the consultant thinks it's time to repeat the operation I had just over a year ago. Targeted chemo delivered directly to the tumour via a catheter from my groin. Should be being done next month sometime and will be another 2-night stay in hospital in Leeds. Oh the joys...

17 August 2023. Bloody heck that was quick. I now have a date for my op which will be done on Friday 8 Sept. Hey ho here we go..

10 September 2023. Hi all, got back home tea time yesterday. Sore, tired and with a new sporty 8 inch by 2 inch bruise from groin up my side. The procedure this time was performed by a female doctor with an all-female crew helping. The chatter was mainly all about what goes on in the female halls of residence for student nurses. Enough to make your hair curl. Well perhaps not mine, most of which went down the drains in the 1970s...

The procedure went well until I refused to stop bleeding in the recovery room. It had just about stopped and they had called for a porter to trolley me back to the ward. "You can eat and drink but no making merry..." I was told. This came as a blow: the Recovery Room Assistant is the most beautiful girl in the world... The Porter arrived just as I had to cough and the doc took a look and told his assistant "send the porter away, he's going nowhere..." Then concern about a haematoma and more pressure to stem the blood flow. An hour later they called another porter and I coughed again...

The assistant (still the most beautiful girl in the world) exclaimed "Oh my god... do you *like* it down here?" Anyway this time I made it back to my ward but all the bouncing and going over bumps as we moved down corridors from one building to another started it off again. The most beautiful girl in the world had come with me and prodded briefly at a spot that, had it not been for the anaesthetic, I might have found quite interesting - or painful... By now I had missed lunch and a set of meds and was feeling decidedly whoof.

I had to spend one hour flat on my back with no movement, never a good position for an asthmatic. Another hour propped up at 45 degrees - still no moving and then able to sit in chair but not move much and if loo was needed I had to hold the incision point to put pressure on. Try going to the loo and holding your groin at the same time...

Tea time came and I tried my best. Took first pill, swigged a slurp and threw up all over the place. Another night came of beeps, clatters and someone shouting "Help! Help!" A family in the next room was sitting over a dying relative and arguing about who should get what... Yep... They actually tried to shoo a doctor out who had come to see how the patient was doing. "We are trying to have a meeting in here!" an indignant voice came. I'm glad to say the doctor shooed them out instead, but they were soon back and yakking as loud as ever, shouting at each other where there was a particularly desirable heirloom to be gained. You could almost see the tombtone: "Here lies xxxxx. His last words were "XXXX Off!"

I was experiencing what I hoped was horrendous heartburn. I went looking for a nurse and asked for some antacids. "I'll have to check with your nurse..." An hour later (2.30am) I rang my alarm bell. Same one appeared. Probably a nursing asst. "All the nurses were busy... I will go to see again now..." My notes must say I have angina and heart problems, so how is this not urgent? Half an hour later I press alarm again and just ask for a glass of milk which wonder of wonders arrives in about ten minutes. Settles me down enough to get a bit of sleep until a distant voice cries "Help!" Help! I'm pi**ing myself!" Well do it quietly, Wet Legs, I'm trying to get a wink of sleep in here...!

Saturday I have all the usual tests done, blood sugar, pressure, pulse and temps. For the latter they put a clamp on your ear. I measure high. "I've been lying on that side," I say. It's only about 5.30 so I've only had 2 hours sleep at most. The other ear measures perfectly. It is gone dinner time before a doc comes to confirm if I can go home. Son in law Eddie brings Fran and I totter to the car and get in, gracefully banging my head on the door frame. And now home being nursed by Miss Franny with the added entertainment of being able to watch my side flutter as nerves jump and hold battles inside... I'm back folks. No driving or athletics until Wednesday and I need to get to the GP in the week to have liver blood tests done to send to Leeds. Another MRI in 6 weeks. Hooray for the good guys!

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer: More MRI Scans, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

April to July 2023

17 April 2023. I got my feedback from the MRI scan taken just a month ago. Nothing has changed much since the previous MRI. Stability. I'll settle for that.

4 May 2023. Went out for breakfast yesterday with David and Jeannie, a good catch-up over food. Came home to find copy of letter sent from Leeds hospital to my GP. These always give more info than you get over the phone. Phone conversation had said "not much change" in the size of the cancer and there wasn't - only half a centimetre. But it was half a centimetre bigger... ho hum. Too small a change to do any more about it yet, fingers crossed for the next MRI which will probably be end of June or early July. We have a few trips planned between now and then, let's hope for some good weather then. Haircut today - I want to make sure it doesn't keep getting in my eyes... Afterwards we were watching a documentary on Bruce Lee and I make all the same noises getting up off the sofa but for entirely different reasons...

18 May 2023. Diabetic 6 monthly check-up this morning. The nurse told me I was "perfect". I may have mentioned this to Miss Franny with something of a smug look on my face...

12 July 2023. Trip to Leeds for the MRI yesterday. Graham picked me up around 8:30 and we drove over the A59 past Clitheroe, Skipton where we stopped for a cuppa and then Otley where we got held up by roadworks a couple of times. Got to the hospital with time for a quick bite. Didn't have my iron pills as the MRI can make metal objects suddenly whizz off at 400mph and the thought of the pill suddenly shooting out of my side put me off a bit... Went into Radiology a bit early hoping for a quick getaway.

I was taken through almost straight away - I still hadn't finished filling out the forms denying all types of previous operations or implants including some that made my eyes water just reading about them... Got sat down in a small cubicle, answered all the same questions again but verbally, had a canula and tube put into my arm then someone called the nurse and there was to be a ten minute delay.

Twenty minutes later, still sitting in the same chair but now on my own I felt something on my arm and the tube had dropped out of the canula. Gingerly attempted to put it back then went in search of nursey who put it back properly and said the woman who had been in the MRI machine had had a problem with the injected dye not working properly. Ended up going in ten minutes late.

Lay down on the machine and was asked to lower my trousers in case the zip was metal - I certainly didn't want that suddenly zooming off anywhere near at 400mph... "I'll get a gown to cover you," said nursey.
"I have undies on and they're just plain - they won't betray any character traits," I said cheerfully.
That gave her a laugh, "Well I don't think anyone's ever said that to me before..." she said

The next half hour in a tube is best forgotten so I won't dwell on it. Came out and sat in chair to have canula taken out of my arm. A pad of gauze placed on the spot and was told to hold it. My head was still pulsing - how does it do that when it's your liver they are taking images of? Looked down saw that the tie strings of my pants had come undone and without thinking reached down to tie them, causing the gauze to fall off and the next thing is Nursey goes "Oh!" and my arm feels wet and there's blood all over the place... I'm a bit of a bleeder...

"I'm going to run if I see you coming here again!" exclaims nursey, "you'll have to stay until you've mopped that floor now!"
"Told you I was a bleeder!" I said apologetically. All sorted.

As I left the MRI unit nursey was preparing her next victim. She saw me as I passed and grinned. "I hope you're not going to be as bad as my last patient," she said loudly...

I still had to go up a floor to give blood samples at the oncology clinic. Luckily they were expecting me this time unlike in April where the Receptionist had demanded to know from me why they weren't expecting me and did I know it was just for cancer patients. I've never said a dryer "y-e-e-e-s..."

Anyway blood was taken from my other arm than the canula one and all went well except that by time I was home both arms were feeling heavy and itchy and I ripped off plasters to find lots of bruising on the second arm - not where the needle went in either... Totally shattered by then, Graham had to help me out of the car, poor old dodderer that I am. Pain killers, food, bed... wake up every quarter hour with pain lancing through side, oh the joys. Don't expect me to do much today except snore and the occasional wince!

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer: Life After TACE

18 August 2022. More or less one week on from the operation and I'm starting to feel human again. The orange shorts - the illusion caused by the painting on of pre-op antiseptic fluid - have sadly disappeared and even most of the bruising is turning yellow. I still can't rest on my right side though and am not allowed to strain myself by trying to lift or carry anything heavier than a bag of fluff. But have been able to get a bus into the village centre and potter about on my stick for a few minutes before heading for a cafe for coffee and sit down.

28 August 2022. I'm ok. I think Miss Franny might say "ok-ish..." We should have been in Austria for a week from this weekend but have had to cancel that on doctor's orders. So we've booked a couple of nights in Bridlington. Can just potter about and hopefully get a sketch or two in. One of the frustrations of both the cancer and the after-effects of the operation is getting used to the fact that some things are out of bounds even when I feel ok. And if I'm honest I'm not always ok.

I was warned that cancer in the liver affects the digestion process by drawing a lot of moisture from the gut. This dries up whatever is left and therefore - do I need to go into details? Going to the loo can be hard - think of more than one interpretation for that sentence... I suffered some bleeding.

Unfortunately this coincided with me getting one of those 2-yearly bowel cancer surveys and inevitably I got a follow-up letter saying blood had been found on the sample... I had a fair idea where it was coming from so I ignored it... There was no way at that time I wanted to go through the laxative and bowel emptying that preceeds a camera up the behind... And I would have had to spend the entire evening sat on the loo because I just couldn't move as fast as that requires you to do. Once the urge hits you have to make a mad dash!

2 September 2022. We took a couple of days in Bridlington. It was windy and cold and we spent much more time in the hotel than we would have normally done. I was having to go for a lie down and sleep for one or two hours every afternoon and we usually didn't venture out after the evening meal. Even when out I spent a lot of time sitting on benches near the harbour whilst Fran had a look around the shops. These often led to conversations with other holiday-makers, some of whom would ask if I was alright - Heaven only knows what I looked like at that time but it must have been obvious I was ill... At least there are people who can look beyond me having a ruddy complexion!

26 September 2022. Some good news for a change! Had my phone consultation after the MRI and the tumour has shrunk a bit from over 6cm to 5cm and liver function and bloods all ok. No fluid apparent in any other places it shouldn't be, so all is well. All the sensations and discomfort I've had are consistent with the procedure I had, so nothing too worrying about them either. Next MRI mid-December to see what happens next.

October 2022. Remember that bit about no fluid being apparent in places it shouldn't be? I should have been worried about there being no fluid in places it should be. I've already touched on the problemn re the gut. I ended up compacted and in such pain that I was unable to sit down, lie down or stand up without being doubled over in pain. The doctors prescribed something the chemist couldn't get hold of but luckily the purchase of something that they suggested slowly did the trick, though there had been several days of agony and thinking I was about to burst my colon and go the way of Rudolph Valentino, but without all the fun of his days of fame!

15 September 2022. A planned visit to the doc's after my twice annual diabetic blood tests went well. Diabetes readings down, thyroid, kidneys, stable. Blood pressure normal. Weight down 3kg - good but a bit of a double-edged sword given the existence of cancer... Yesterday we had gone to a Macmillan's afternoon at a local hotel. I wasn't sure what to expect really but the whole thing was a bit meh. We hadn't been sent a programme so assumed it was drop-in sessions, but when we got there a series of talks were just ending and of all the specialist stalls for prostate, bowel, leukaemia, lymphoma, there was nothing for liver cancer (or lung cancer - as we left someone was complaining bitterly about that). A few stalls for mental health - ha! I've always been pretty mental really... More stalls encouraging activity as though I could fit any more zumba and pilates classes into my life... (I don't do any, but I make sure I can't fit any into my life...) Then the highlight last night, took Miss Franny to a carvery for tea and then to the Winter Gardens where granddaughter Grace and her co-performers won their school a shield for best effort in the dance competiton! Yay! Go Grace!

15 December 2022. Another trip to Leeds for a follow-up MRI scan. It went ok, MRI shook rattled and rolled as per, but easier to cope with the more of them I have done. Gave up some blood afterwards, which was reluctant to stop but eventually did - nice purple lump just under my elbow bend... Got to say a huge thank you to Graham who drove us there and back, our thanks and appreciation for all he did, an absolute gent. Got home and flopped a bit. Miss Franny woke me up at 9:00pm to send me to bed... Today could be a bit like that too... Thanks to all who sent good wishes and encouragement. Now it's the waiting game until I get the results.

23 December 2022. Just over a week since the MRI and the bruise where the canula pressed against my arm in the machine has started going yellow... Nice to meet up with Fran's brother Bob and family last night and a good night was had by all! Should have taken a photo of that really...

16 January 2023. Had the hospital phone call and on the whole the results of the MRI are very good. The cancer has shrunk again but there's another small lesion on the liver lower down. They are calling it a satellite of the main tumour and assure me that it's too small to worry about. Next step is another MRI in April. Told to take painkillers for a week as I've been getting stabbing sensations most days, which make me jump out of my skin. They are like an electric shock or a sharp jab with a needle. Could be nerve endings around the tumour healing perhaps.

February 2023. What a month since the last paragraph. Miss Franny had to have a cornea graft on her eye and that involved me having to put 27 drops into her eye every day. Many return visits to the hospital as the graft didn't take properly at first. Also the pains I was experiencing in my body had got a lot worse. I wasn't taking anything stronger than Paracetamol although by now I was taking the maximum allowed dose every day and still suffering. Also around this time my mother had to be repeatedly taken to hospital after falling at home and then being confused. There were times she couldn't name us or remember all her grandchildren. We lost a few relatives both on my side and Fran's side. A bit of a shit time overall really...

2 March 2023. The digestive troubles hit again. However, feeling vaguely human again... The night before last was a never-ending run between bed and bathroom and all day yesterday was zoned out. Couldn't eat much, despite Miss Franny's repeated "you have to eat something". Apologies to any who messaged me without getting an answer or just a one word response. I'm back to normal today. You know... dopey as anything but willing to try...!

14 March 2023. Nothing to do with the cancer but... We were shopping a while ago when it started snowing very heavily with small pellets of snow. Coming home we drove out of it, but when I looked back over towards the village of Thornton you could see waves of falling snow against the dark clouds.

23 March 2023 - the day after another MRI scan at Leeds. Home safe and feeling battered. Got halfway to Leeds and realised that because I had carried coats to the car I have not picked up my walking stick... Roadworks mean that finding the hotel and car park is a nightmare. Park and get a bus - bus stop moved due to roadworks - to the hospital.

Long session at the hospital, I was an hour and 45 mins from going into the MRI unit to coming out and Miss Franny was starting to get worried. Some of it was spent just waiting for the machine to become available and some of it spent spraying blood from where they took a sample.

Then had to go to the oncology part to give more samples only to be told they had no notes about me. "Do you come to a clinic here?"
"No, I had a TACE chemo treatment last August and come every 3 months for an MRI and then here to give blood samples."
"Well this is only for people with cancer!"
"Ye-e-e-e-s-s-s..."
"Well who sent you? You have to tell them to order the bloods."
"There is no doctor's name on the letter, I didn't speak to anyone it was just a letter." I wave it under her nose and let her read it. "Well we deal with 70 doctors, which one sent you?"

Luckily I can remember the consultant's name even though I only met him once. They find my records and take same bloods as last time. Then a very crowded bus going back into Leeds and with no stick, no one is inclined to let me sit down until to my horror as the bus lurches to a halt at a bus stop, I almost fall on top of a young woman with a baby on her lap. By the time we get some lunch it is almost 3:30 and then back to the hotel where I revert to quivering wreck status with occasional painful twinges just to enliven things.

We have been put in a disabled room, I think because of limited rooms not because I look and act like a wreck, but whatever, I manage to hit the wrong switch and set the alarm off...

Get back to car in Wednesday morning to find building work going on. My car is in a roped off area. I ask a workman "How can we get out?" He points to a narrow path. "I was thinking of taking the car with me..." He moves some cones. Nice man.

Spent the rest of the night twitching and waking up going "agh!" until I got to to 5:00am when I woke and saw lightning through the window. Long way off, the thunder came quite a while after. There was another one a bit after which Miss Franny claimed not to hear even though she was awake...

Today will be spent trying to get over the twinges and back ache through not having the stick...

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer: The First Procedure, August 2022.

After first being told I definitely had cancer on my liver, just four weeks later I was once more heading to Leeds St James Hospital for a TACE procedure. TransArterial ChemoEmbolization is a method of blocking the blood supply to the tumour(s) in the hope of destroying or shrinking them. I have two tumours in different segments of the liver, one was very large (over six centimetres) and the other was just one centimetre.

10 August 2022. I was admitted the night before the procedure and the first thing they did after telling me they had to take my bag of tablets away for safekeeping was to lose them... Luckily they had most of what I needed to take in the hospital pharmacy.

I was put into a ward with just two beds. The occupant of the other had had a chunk of his bowel removed that day and was obviously in pain over which he was swearing non-stop. At the point where he flailed about so much he fell out of bed they moved me into a single room saying that a large number of new intakes were coming in and I needed to rest before my op which would be early tomorrow morning.

Here I am at 6:00am having had my morning quota of pills brought. I'm told it might now be 10:00am before I am taken down for my op. In the event it was 4:00pm in the afternoon when someone came in to push my bed down a surprising number of corridors and into a room with a table under a large machine that I was told was an X-Ray machine. There seemed to be an awful lot of nurses all sounding young and waiting for me to be transferred onto the table.

The nurses were there to prep me, to monitor my readings - blood pressure, heart rate and so on whilst the procedure took place. They were very jolly...
"Give him a pair of orange shorts!" came a cry and once I had landed on the table, I was undressed - a folded towel was placed over my pride and joy with an apologetic murmer. "I'll have to brush this area with antiseptic though..." So I got a pair of orange shorts... the antiseptic is a vivid orange colour, deliberately so that it is obvious if anywhere that should be treated has not been. This would not be washed off afterwards - it stays on until the patient is able to shower or wash. Even then it takes a few goes...

Two doctors came in. They would do th eoperation with the nurses monitoring screens of various information. I was told I had to lie completely still as the X-Ray machine would move around me as the operation progressed. The X-Rays would be bombarding me non-stop for about an hour enabling the surgeon to see where the catheter was within my arteries on it's way from my groin to my liver. I was given a local anaesthetic jab low down and the needle went in between leg and - well... you know! Then the catheter was inserted. The rest was an unbelievable experience.

They had said the X-Ray machine would move around me. It moved fast! And not only around me; it moved towards and away from me also. They had taken my glasses off and told me to keep my head still no matter what. Then they had put protective goggles over my eyes. The machine actually came so close that it pressed on the edge of the goggles at one point. One doctor was manouvring the catheter, whilst the other watched the screen and was saying things like, "Take that one on the left. No... back up... yes, that one!" whilst also giving instructions to one of the girls who was controlling the movements of the X-Ray machine.

Once in the right position a foam barrier was squirted into the liver to protect as much of the healthy tissue from the chemo as possible. Then the chemo capsule was sent through which would slowly release chemicals to hopefully shrink the tumour over the course of a year. Results would be tested by MRI every few months.

I was eventually moved from the table to my mobile hospital bed. The two doctors had spent 20 minutes each putting as much pressure on the wound at the entry point as possible to stem the flow of blood. This involved one hand over the wound, the other on top of it and them leaning to use their body weight to put pressure on. Without the anaesthic they had used earlier that would have hurt a lot. I was taking blood thinners - I'm a bleeder! They were knackered after 20 minutes each. I could reach so I offered to take over myself and after another ten minutes, by which time I was knackered, they called a porter to take me back to my room.

One of the nurses came with me to make sure the bleeding had stopped. It was now 20 past six. I had been down there two hours and 20 minutes. I still wasn't allowed to move until 7:30pm in case I re-opened the wound. The wound was dressed and checked regularly for the rest of that day. Someone came to take my blood pressure and pulse rate and temperature every 15 minutes which I found was to go on throughout the night. They brought me a sandwich to eat. I had a few mouthfulls, took my pills... and promptly brought the lot back up.

12 August 2022. I had been told I could go home the day after the op if I was ok. I made blooming sure of it. I was up at 7:30am, hobbling on my stick to the bathroom for a wash and shave - no shower allowed as the dressing had to be kept dry. Then I walked up and down at intervals, slowly at first, but each time making sure that people at the ward desk could see that I was up, dressed and mobile. Nobody came anyway except the nurses to take blood pressure, pulse etc.

At around 2:00pm I was told I could call someone to take me home. I gave Fran a ring. "We are almost there," she said. David and Jeannie were driving her over to bring me back but the motorway had been a nightmare of queues and stationary traffic. Once they had arrived I was told I couldn't go until the pharmacy had released my medication. We waited for a couple of hours. Then I was told It could take another two hours... When I asked what medication I was told "Paracetamol". As if that was something that had to be released on prescription. I already had some at home. I told them I wasn't going to hold up my friends and wife and myself for two hours for paracetamol and that I was going home, which in anycase was a two-to-three hour journey back. "Well, we'll have to post it out to you!" Was that meant to persuade me? We left. Well over three years later I'm still waiting for the postman to bring them...

13 August 2022. Woke up to find orange shorts marred by vivid purple bruises from front to back across my bum and heading up to lower back. As the operation meds had by now worn off I was aching quite severely. I had some twinges and soreness and the journey from Leeds to Blackpool had inevitably contributed as we passed over potholes etc. For the first time I had to use my walking stick to potter about the house, but there was an improvement in mobility this morning if not in discomfort... Worst thing was compression stocking - heels bruised and one had bled but that would soon cure itself. I Have to take things easy for a week or so. A big thank you to the medical team and nursing staff at Leeds St James, they were fabulous.

14 August 2022. From my diary: Oof! Yesterday was difficult - some soreness at puncture wound and bruising crept throughout the day from there up torso. Dull ache rather than full-on pain. There were quite a number of twinges that made me gasp and groan but worst was that I had tested my already bad back on the long drive home and must have had to lean on my stick much more heavily - so I've thrown my shoulder out... That is the worst of the pain and by evening I gave in and actually had a couple of paracetamol, I could cope with everything else.

Today I can move far more easily, which I'm glad for, because the shoulder is likely to be ghastly for a couple of days and the puncture wound is mainly ok, the soreness now has worked into the liver. Coughing is an experience... Strangely I keep wanting to stroke my hospital tags down my arms, despite them coming off Friday night! I can still feel them. ("Them" because when I was admitted, a nurse said "Any allergies?" and I said "yes, cat fur..." and instead of thinking there were no cats in the hospital, he just stuck a second tag on my spare wrist which I found out later was an allergy marker, so from then on all the doctors and nurses were asking what I was allergic to...) I'm ok, but of course the cancer is still there, this is a treatment not a cure. Onwards and upwards...

To come in future articles. The affect of the TACE operation. A repeat op. The affect of that. Radiotherapy sessions at The Christie Hospital in Manchester. Side effects cause leg ulcers. And more...

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer: Ultrasound, CT and MRI Scans

This article describes my experiences of having these three different types of scan due to my cancer. The first two, Ultrasound and CT scans, were mainly used whilst I was being diagnosed. Once it was confirmed thet I had cancer (two seperate tumours in adjacent segments of my liver) MRI scans became the norm.

I'm no expert on all these techniques so my descriptions will be from a patient's point of view, not that of a trained radiologist, doctor or scientific bod...

Ultrasound Scans

Let's take them in the order of how they seem to make people worried, starting with the least worrying of all: the Ultrasound.

The Ultrasound scan is taken with a hand-held device, a round tube attached to a wire. Before the scan takes place the operator will ask you to bare the area being scanned and you will lie down for the scan. The operator will apply quite a liberal amount of gel from a tube and smear it over the area to be scanned with her hand. He or she will be wearing surgical gloves for this. The gel can feel quite cool and a bit sticky. The end of the scanning device is then pushed against your skin through the gel and moved around whilst the operator follows progress on a video screen.

How long the scan takes will depend on the area being scanned - lots of folds in the skin can make it more difficult for the operator or any moving bits inside of you (I've also had this scan on my heart - which of course moves by expanding and contracting quite a lot) can mean the operator has to take longer.

Once the scan is complete you will be given paper towels to dry off the gel from you body and you can get dressed and leave. You won't get any results at the scanning appointment itself, it will probably take a couple of weeks or so before you get any results.

CT Scans

The CT scanning machine looks like a huge Polo mint standing on its edge on top of a table. You lie on the table which moves you into and back out of the ring or Polo mint which contains the scanning mechanism. This isn't too frightening - the ring is narrow enough for you to be able to see out of it both above you and befow you. You are not normally going to be restrained in any way though you will be asked not to move and to lie still whilst the scan takes place. This takes X-Ray pictures of your insides and a computer will later put several X-Ray scan pictures and create a 3D image for the doctors to look at.

You will experience the table you are lying on slide along horizontally whilst you lie on it until the part of you being scanned is inside the ring. For me, with my liver being scanned it meant that my head was almost clear of the ring and I could look around and admire the plain white or grey walls of the room or by looking slightly down I could see that the inner surface of the ring had a clear panel and that bits of clever-looking machinery was spinning around at times whilst the machine did its thing. Not a frightening experience. You will probably be wondering why you were so apprehensive about it by the time you are being told you're finished.

Again you will not receive any results from the scan for a few weeks after the appointment.

MRI Scan

MRI means Magnetic Resonance Imaging - these machines use powerful magnets to create an image of your internal organs. They are very powerful. If you inadvertantly were to have anything made of iron or steel on you or implanted in you - watch, jewelerry, nose rings, metal plates in your skull - this machine could make them suddenly start whizzing off in any direction, including with you in the way, at something like 400 miles per hour. You shouldn't need me to give the kilometres per hour equivalent to know that this is something you might wish to avoid... But just in case it's around 643.738 kilometres per hour... It might make you wince a bit. For the final time...

Luckily before you even get to your appointment you will be sent a letter asking you about any conditions or implants that might affect your suitability for having such a scan.

Once you get to the hospital for your scan they will take your letter and go through each point with you to ensure that [1] you understand the importance of it; [2] you understand the individual questions and [3] you have answered it correctly. You will now have a canula inserted into a vein in the inside of your elbow. This is a tiny needle prick and once the needle is inside a vein a bendy plastic tube will be slid down it into the vein and the needle withdrawn. You don't need to be frightened about having to keep your elbow rigid as there will be no needle left inside to snap off.

The canula attached to the tube is a much thicker (but I'm only talking about 1/2 an inch or 1 cm or so) tube that is basically a syringe. You may have to have a dye solution pumped in halfway through the scan - I'll talk about that in a bit. You will also be asked a few simple questions about your health.

The next step will be to make sure you are not carrying anything in pockets or in parts of a belt or in clothing or on your person that might be attracted by the machine's magnetic bits. Depending on the area to be scanned you may be asked to undress and wear a gown provided by the hospital. (You don't want bits of your fly zip or bra strap to start off at 400 mph do you?)

Now you will be taken to the scanning room. The nursing techinicians will lie you onto the table of the machine which will be taking you into and out of the machine - a tube quite a bit longer that the Polo mint of a CT. My drawing of an MRI machine above gives you some idea. You will be inside this tube for some time. I can only speak for myself. Scanning my liver involved having a fairly heavy plate placed over my stomach area for the duration of the scan. I've also had scans of my head/brain where I had to have a brace or mask made of plastic placed over my head to ensure it didn't move. It was more of a cage than a mesh so there was plenty of opportunity to see through it.

If you look for images of MRI units online they look a lot shorter than I have experienced and always have a cheerful nurse doing something and smiling reassuringly. In reality they will make sure you are in position on the table and will give you a rubber squeezy bulb in one hand which is a panic button to press if you can't cope. Note that I said "can't cope" and not "feel as if you can't cope". It is in your own best interests to go through with the scan until the end. They will then leave the room and go to monitor you and the progress of the scan from a safe place. You don't want their fly zips and bra straps flying at you either... At intervals they will ask you how you are doing and will reassure you during the scanning process.

My own pet phobia is of being in a constricted space and therefore before my first scan I was wondering how I would cope. When it came to being inside I did want to squeeze the bulb about halfway through (bearing in mind that for me (again I have to stress that point) for me the scan took somewhere between 20-30 minutes inside the machine. Which is incredibly noisy. You will have ear plugs and headphones placed into and over your ears but even so... Anyway, if you squeeze the bulb you will come out but you are going to have to try again from the start at some time. With that thought I managed to control myself enough to carry on. I'll be honest, I might have whimpered a bit once or twice but then just shut my eyes and braved it out. There's nothing to see anyway except the inside of the tube unless you really strain your eyes upward to see out of the top end.

You may have to have a dye injected into you via the canula in your wrist about halfway through the scan. This helps show up certain areas being scanned. It might feel cold and you might actually feel like you are urinating, but you won't be. All this will be explained to you before the scan and you will be told when the dye is going to be introduced.

It felt like a cool breeze was being blown by a fan down from the top end of the tube and that helped. The machine gives out a lot of very loud noise: clicks, gratering sounds (which are many clicks in quick succession I suppose)... At one point a pulse started in my forehead in time with a a particular beat from the machine. I actually thought water was dripping on my head but no.

At times during my scan I had to hold my breath to stop my lungs from moving the liver about. By default most MRIs ask you to breathe out and hold your breath. I can't do that. As a life-long asthmatic breathing out was always more difficult than breathing in, so when my lungs were empty I was in sore need of filling them again. I asked the technicians and they were happy to change the messages from the machine to ask me to breathe in and hold my breath.

I got through that first MRI. By now both due to the cancer and other side effects I've had around 30 of those scans and familiarity breeds acceptance. They don't worry me anymore. By the third one I was "Ok, so let's get this done and over with shall we?"

Once the scan is done, the operators will come back into the room, slide you out on the table, make sure you are not feeling dizzy or anything before sitting you up to get off the table and sitting you down on a chair before taking out the canula and making sure you are not going to bleed all over the place. I take blood thinners so require quite a lot of pressure on the spot when a needle or canula is removed.

So I hope that helps by knowing what such a visit to a scan might entail. Remember that these are my own particular experiences, yours may be slightly different. But it is definitely more frightening before experiencing it than it is when you are having it done.

Results will take a few weeks - four at least, though I am currently awaiting the results of my 31st MRI that was carried out six weeks ago... If I have anything else to tell you it is this: Be brave and go through with it. Far better to have it done so that any treatment can start that much more quickly. As always I wish you Good Luck with your treatment.

Family Memories: Personal

Cancer and Emotions 2022 and Onwards

Following on from yesterday's article about me finding out that I had cancer on my liver, I wanted to say a few words about the emotions this might cause anyone with a similar diagnosis in the hope it may help or support others through a very difficult time.

First of all a slight disclaimer re the photo - I posed for it this morning. Not that I didn't have any emotional times... despite what some will tell you I am human and despite what I might tell you, I am only human! It's just that at the times when I had an emotional interlude, I wasn't quite able to think: "this would make a good shot for the blog..."

I don't tend to look on the darker side of life and after the first possibility of cancer was mentioned we took the stance that until it was confirmed then it wasn't worth worrying about. Not that it didn't cross my mind a bit and this is an important point to make. No one can tell you how to react to such news. If you need to let tears out, let them out. It's far better for you than trying to be macho. Better again if you have a sympathetic someone there with you. Either just willing to listen or to share the emotions. I'm told that the MacMillan organisation are good at that but personally I've not had the need to call them. Other people have been good at listening and most times that's all I've needed. Advice, encouragement and support I can find helpful, sympathy I've not looked for and it can actually make things worse sometimes.

You will find that all sorts of emotions and thoughts might affect you. The "Why me?" thoughts can either make you feel let down by life or make you very, very angry. It's not logical to be surprised perhaps when we are told that one in two people will get cancer and this ratio seems to keep growing. I'm not sure why, but if you try to connect to your wi-fi on your phone or computer you will see an entire street's worth of routers listed all of which are blasting some sort of radio waves through you as do Sky, Netflix, Apple and other entertainment channels whether you subscribe or not, your own and nearby mobile phones, God knows how many SatNav and other surveillance satellites etc etc. In the 1990s we wondered whether mobile phones would damage our health in any way - perhaps we are getting the answers now...? In any case logic has very little to do with you getting angry or not. I hardly ever lose my temper yet I had spells in those early days after my diagnosis of finding myself having to bottle my anger lest some poor innocent should find themselves being shouted at.

I half touched on another thing in the previous article that can make you intensely angry. That is thoughtless comments or actions by others who either think they are helping or who simply have all the empathy of a well-cemented brick... A few examples are:

No, don't get up... I'll do it...
No... you haven't got cancer, [then either] you've got all your colour in your face [or] you don't look ill.

For me the unbelievable doozy came when I mentioned to someone, within a week of being told I had inoperable and incurable cancer, that I didn't know how long I had left to live (the fact that I was low enough to broach that subject should have been a clue to be kind). No, instead I got the response (delivered in an annoyed tone): "Well no-one knows how long they've got - I could fall under a bus tomorrow!" Oh man - you've no idea how good it would have felt to smack your nose right through to the back of your head just then... Luckily I'm not that sort of guy - just don't give that response to anyone else!

If there's one main message to give in this article it is this. Emotions are very personal. And you are allowed to have them. If you need to shout your anger out then do it. Try not to make the life of someone close to you a misery though. It's not their fault. And there's a message there for partners, family and friends. A person trying desperately to hold onto their sanity after a diagnosis may act in extreme ways. Be there for them when they are able to be helped. Give them space when they are flinging blame or anger about. As I've said already: there's no logic involved in such emotions. And lastly Good Luck in holding it together.

In the next article I'll explain what to expect when having a scan - whether it be an Ultrasound, CT or MRI scan.

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer!

I've toyed with the idea of writing about this for a long while. In the end both encouragement and assurances it would help others in similar circumstances and my own experiences of having sat with other people at various stages of cancer and various levels of worry - the two not being at all related - I have decided to give it a go. Most of these entries and descriptions were written at the time on the dates shown and therefore reflect my immediate reactions to what was happening to me and how it was affecting family and friends around me. Other times I have skipped many of the latter.

In particular I want anyone who is going through or watching a loved one going through the early stages of cancer to know that it is not necessarily the end of everything either immediately or at any time, though I acknowledge that for some who have a late diagnosis or a particularly aggressive form of this horrible disease, it may start to limit you in what you can do. I have found that having a positive approach has helped me enormously, as have the supporting words and actions shown by family and friends.

At the same time I have been enraged inside at some crass and thoughtless comments made by people who probably thought they were "helping" by either downplaying the risks or by insisting I couldn't be ill because I "looked well". Similarly people who treat you like you have suddenly become too delicate to do anything or must have some sort of mental deficiency needing baby talk... you get the idea...

March/April 2022. Start of a very difficult time... I had been Type 2 diabetic for a number of years although it was very well controlled and hadn't caused me much grief. Twice a year I have blood tests and twice a year for the previous few years they told me how well I had been doing.

In April 2022 this changed slightly. I got a call back to say I was anaemic - short of a few red blood cells. I had to have further blood tests and Ultrasound, CT and MRI scans which took place at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in May 2022. I wasn't exactly fancying spending time in an MRI machine - basically being shoved inside a tube for 40 minutes and subjected to a lot of mechanical noise. My most prominent phobia is of being trapped in constricted spaces. But in the end I resisted the urge to both shout and to squeeze the panic button they gave me - which would have realistically meant having to start all over again at some point... I've since found that familiarity breeds quiet acceptance.

The many scans (5 visits to the hospital over a 6 day period) showed a "suspicious lesion" on my liver. MRI data went off to Leeds where the liver experts for the north apparently reside. The consultant I saw said it looked likely that it could be the C word. I was at that time feeling fine, just a bit more tired than usual and finding concentration harder than normal.

1 July 2022. Today I am on a special diet - which seems to forbid most of what I like to eat... Tomorrow is no food at all, but only laxatives and clear drinks (no milk or fruit juice). I have been on an expedition to buy Oxo cubes to make mugs of that. Sunday is a trip back to the hospital for cameras both up and down. Hopefully not the same camera, hopefully not both ends at the same time and hopefully not this sort of camera...

2 July 2022. Later in the night... OMG! Have you ever had one of those laxatives? If it wouldn't have freaked out the neighbours I could have stood in the middle of the garden and coated the surrounding fence panels...!

3 July 2022. This morning's experience was nothing next to the discomfort of the laxative last night. Anyway contrary to expectations and to those who demanded photos - they did actually send me back with some tiny images of various points of interest. A few polyps were lopped and sent for biopsy and there was other news of a more sobering nature though still no news as to the nature of the lesion on the liver. The liver's non-alcoholic fatty disease has gone to cirrhosis, more investigation into that yet but looking likely to cause even more meds for daily consumption. Forgive the rattling as I move...

About a week later I got a phone call from someone at the hospital inviting me to go in to discuss the results of my tests. "You can bring someone with you if you like..."

I laughed. ""Bloody Hell, is it that bad?" I asked jovially. Stony silence. My mood changed quickly. "Oh... I see... thank you." At the subsequent meeting I'm told there is a suspicious lesion on my liver. "It looks like it might be cancer..." the consultant says quietly.

12 July 2022. Just a few days later I'm back at the hospital to meet the consultant again. I've now had confirmation that it's HCC cancer on the liver. Not spread anywhere else thankfully and hopefully can be sorted. I've been referred to Leeds St James hospital who apparently are the liver specialists for the north. Any surgery will be in Leeds and will probably mean 5-7 days in hospital. I am experiencing a weird sort of exhaustion without necessarily being tired and wanting sleep. Lethargy is a good word...

20 July 2022. They are not hanging about with these appointments. That could be worrying, but I'm sort of taking the view that whatever will be, will be. Doris Day would approve... We meet the oncologist (cancer specialist consultant) at Leeds. He doesn't mess about. "Your cancer is 6-7 centimetres (2.5-2.75 inches) and is inoperable and incurable." I never thought to ask and to this day I don't know whether it was sausage shaped, or a flat disk or a ball. I just know it sounded big. It got worse. "Because of your other problems with your heart and liver (cirrhosis - how unfair when I've never been a heavy drinker), we cannot treat it with chemotherapy in the form of tablets and it is too large to treat it with radiotherapy."

What they are going to do is a TACE procedure. Trans-arterial chemical embolism. They go in through the groin (eeeek!) and pass a catheter through the arteries to the liver where they inject a barrier foam to protect the liver as much as possible then inject, all via the catheter, a slow release capsule that will release chemo over the course of a year or so. It will be done in 4 or 5 weeks from now.

I ask how long I can expect to live. "Oh, it will be measured in years!" he says. When I receive a copy of his letter to my GP a few days later this has now become "'I told him "a short number of years"'... I will now be having MRI scans every six months (oh goody!) and am sent off to another area in the hospital where a young lady takes some more blood out of my arm and tells me "Ooh, you smell nice!" I'm not up to my usual level of witty repartee or I might have invited her to take another sniff. Perhaps next time.

Family Memories Index