Staring at a tumour

After the results from the ultrasound, I was referred immediately to an ear, nose and throat specialist for further investigation.

The specialist, Tim, was great and very matter-of-fact. Claire and I felt comfortable with him as he poked and prodded, asked questions, and then sprayed an anaesthetic in my nose.

He then inserted a wicked-looking, thin, black hose with a camera on it up my nose, that then does a U-turn and heads down the back of my throat. It wasn't painful, just a strange feeling. When Tim said  "Hhhmmmmm", I knew we had found trouble. He asked us to look at the monitor and straight away I could see a problem. Right at the base of my tounge, right back in the throat, was a lump that was blocking about 1/3 of my throat.

Hello, tumour.

At this stage, we don't know if it's cancer, or just something else, and Tim walked through all the possibilities of what it could be, from best case to worst case. Based on being a smoker in another lifetime, Tim said he was going to act as if it was the worst case, pending results of a biopsy.

While we were there, surgery was booked for St Vincent's Private in Grey St, East Melbourne for Friday 18th November, but I had to get an MRI first. As I found out, an MRI was just another doughnut machine.

As I was flying out to New Zealand for work soon, which Tim encouraged me to "carry on as normal", I only had a few days to get the MRI done.

As Claire was driving the two of us home in shock, I started ringing every MRI clinic in Melbourne to try and get an appointment. After 30 minutes of calling I hit paydirt! Someone had cancelled at iMed at St Vincent's East Melbourne so I was booked in for the next day.

Popular posts from this blog

Home again!!

Image
After nearly 4 weeks in hospital, it's time to go home! As one nurse quipped to me, "Hospital is where sick people go. Home is where sick people go to get better".  To those who visited, or helped Claire keep everything running at home while she juggled starting a new job and looking after pets and kids; thank you. It's so good to be home amongst familiar surroundings. As an added bonus, Formula 1 testing was on last night so it was great to put my feet up and watch F1 on the big screen :)
Read more

Week 8 - I'd rather forget it. Hallucinations and more.

Image
Week 8 since treatment started, and the first week with no treatment, is a week in my life I'd really rather forget. It turns out I developed Aspirated Pneumonia and Week 8 I was running a fever over 40 degrees, while dealing with the after effects of chemotherapy AND radiotherapy. In addition, I was on morphine injections and cocaine mouthwash for pain, and was sweating and hallucinating, whilst in a 4-bed room in a public hospital ward. The burns on my neck from radiotherapy were at there peak, so imagine what the burns were like on the inside of my neck! In addition, chemotherapy was smashing me for six. Seriously, I cannot imagine a worse week ever in my life. Claire battled with a SNAFU to get me transferred across to St. Vincent's Private Hospital and by Thursday evening I was transferred across to the private hospital. If you are reading this and don't have private health insurance; get it.  I don't have much of a recollection of this week other than frightening ...
Read more

Tumor shrinking, Greg not shrinking :)

Image
At my weekly meeting with my radiation oncologist, June, on Tuesday, she was on the lookout for tumor size in my neck and what they were up to. I have been able to noticeably see and feel the tumors reducing in size, and to quote her "tumor is shrinking, Greg's not shrinking, this is good". My weight is still holding stead (omg I am eating like a horse!) and the tumors are indeed shrinking; great news! This week is also when June walked through my upcoming chemotherapy and pain medication to allow me to continue eating as long as possible. I've been prescribed a solution to gargle, swish and swallow before eating to totally numb my throat for 15 minutes or so. This is to enable me to get food into me "normally" for as long as possible. The other drug is a type of liquid morphine derivative that I squirt into my mouth, swish around, then swallow. I'm to use this when panadol will no longer keep the pain at bay. Other than this, it's radiation therapy ...
Read more