The empire strikes back

Well, here we are again. As I said last time, I didn’t want to make this blog too regular, as I don’t want to rabbit on about this situation more than necessary. However, something’s come up, re-occurred. You guessed it, it’s only cancer. That bloody rascal. Basically, I had been getting some pain in my left hip for a while (probably since the Italy holiday, which was amazing by the way). It sort of came and went for a few weeks and I was taking random painkillers at first. I thought perhaps it was bad posture from wearing flip-flops, although the little matter of Mr Rhabdomyo- was of course, in the back of my head.

Cam, Annie, Me, Hettie, Dad and Mum at the villa in Italy

One day last month I woke up with near excruciating pain in my hip and could barely walk to the breakfast table. I became all hot, nearly fainted and felt ill. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t really play this one down in front of my parents. So I was quickly driven to familiar surroundings of Addenbrooke’s and brought straight up to TCT ward C9. I was given some lovely painkillers and quickly scheduled a CT scan. The results of the scan showed that the cancer was indeed evident in my left hipbone and upper femur.

Since then, there has been a bit of faffing around by the doctors/consultants. At first, I was scheduled an operation a couple of weeks ago to put a pin in the bone for support. I had psyched myself up for my first ever general anaesthetic and operation, not eaten anything for 20 hours only to be told after 5pm on the day that the surgeons had “run out of time”. As my Mum and Hettie will attest, I was a bit of grumpy bastard that day, mostly because I was so bloody hungry! It turns out (I think) that them running out of time was actually a blessing in disguise…and not only because I was finally able to enjoy all the unhealthy, greasy pleasure of stuffing a Burger King meal in my face, replenishing my empty stomach. I stayed over at C9 that night and early the following morning had a visit by the orthopaedic consultant; he looked at my CT scan that morning and actually changed his mind on the best course of action for me.

He told me that the best option would be to have a hip (and partial femur) replacement. Thoughts about feeling like an OAP aside, he convinced me that it was a pretty good shout. Now, whilst the CT scan did show the cancer in this new place we hadn’t seen it before, it wasn’t evident anywhere else – i.e. in any organs and couldn’t been seen in my lungs and groin, where it had showed up previously. The op I would have had the previous day potentially would have knocked a fair few of the cancerous cells out of the bone and into the bloodstream, meaning they could make a merry journey round my body and find a new location. Bloody nomads. With the hip replacement, they will be removing all the obvious cancerous material and replacing it with a jazzy new plastic/metal combo. I had an MRI scan later that day, which took ages and was very boring doing bugger all and lying in a big tube for 45 minutes. Nevertheless, it did its job and the results have now been analysed by the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, London.

The very fact that they are considering a ‘big’ operation like this means that on the whole things are looking better than what I was initially told in October. I was told I had ‘single digit’ months to live. Here we are in almost August. As Larry David would say: prettttyy, pretty good. All things considered anyway. The operation will be in two weeks at Stanmore, rather than Cambridge, as that where the sarcoma bone specialists are located. I will be bed-bound for 5 days and then start physiotherapy for a further 5 before going home and continuing the physio there. I’ll probably be bored so would appreciate the odd visit from mates who are around that area J.

So that’s the update. As an aside, I have mentioned that I want to do some fundraising for some of the charities myself to give my personal thanks for support I have received as well as helping others. Initially I wanted to do a sponsored bike ride or something but with this little reoccurrence that probably isn’t wise as my mobility isn’t at it’s best at the moment and won’t be after the op. However, I’m keen to do other things like ‘share my story’ etc. on their websites and potentially some public speaking (despite the latter having never been something I’ve done a great deal of). My Dad is doing a sponsored 100 mile bike ride next weekend in London for CLIC Sargent; here's my plug Ride London 100 for CLIC Sargent - donate here.

Thank you to everyone for your continued messages of support, it means a lot to my family and me. I will keep you all posted on how things develop in the coming months.