Fourth time lucky with the needle

I’m writing this sitting on the sofa feeling totally exhausted. I suspect my body is reacting to the fact that it took four – yes, four – attempts at the hospital today to find a vein into which they could inject the radioactive tracer for the PET CT scan I was to have.

We got there eventually but at one stage – I think it was during the third attempt – I started sweating and feeling queasy and I genuinely thought I might faint. I closed my eyes, rested my head in the hand that wasn’t being used for the injection, took some deep breaths and, thankfully, it passed. I felt sorry for the lovely chap doing his best to find a decent vein; he felt sorry for me, having to go through this. In the end, I had the injection through a vein in the back of my hand, the second attempt in that area.

Injection over, I then had to sit quietly for an hour while the radiotracer worked its way round my body before then spending half an hour lying on my back in the scanner with my arms stretched out behind my head, taking care to stay as still as possible for the whole time.

Scans and needles generally don’t bother me but today was taxing to say the least.

This was my first scan since starting on capecitabine oral chemotherapy at the end of May. It’s to measure how this latest treatment is working. That is, is it having the desired effect of stopping the secondary breast cancer that has spread to my bones and infiltrated my bone marrow from spreading further?

Until very recently, all the signs were positive. I’d moved from a three-week cycle comprising two consecutive weeks on chemo tablets followed by one week off to a four-week cycle of one week on followed by one week off and the same again.

My haemoglobin level was again within the normal range – albeit at the lower end – for the first time since April.

As for side effects, I was tolerating capecitabine well. I’d been feeling fine on the whole. Walking for miles, going on long bike rides, playing tennis. Also, no diarrhoea whatsoever; this can be a big problem. I’d been getting some tingling in the fingers of my left hand and my toes and the surrounding area of the soles of my feet had been feeling kind of numb – even more numb than usual (a side effect from the chemo I had as part of my treatment for primary breast cancer five years ago now, known as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy). It’s undeniably annoying and irritating but it is tolerable. There’s still no pain from the cancer itself.

Importantly, the relevant tumour marker had been falling with each cycle of capecitabine. Until this latest cycle, that is. The number is not up by much, relatively speaking, but it’s still up. I can’t deny it was a bit of a body blow when the consultant gave me that particular piece of news at my clinic appointment with her last week. “I’m never going to be stable, am I?”, I think was my response.

Capecitabine is my second line of treatment and I started cycle #6 this evening. With the first line (see previous blogs), the tumour marker kept going down until it got to a certain level – at which point it started going up again and just kept going up. We eventually moved on from that treatment when scans showed signs that the cancer had progressed. Will it be the same with capecitabine or will we manage to keep that tumour marker subdued and hope this recent rise was a one off?

I get the scan results in a couple of weeks’ time. I’ll have another round of blood tests beforehand and will get both the scan and blood test results at the same time. We’re clearly hoping for no progression but we have to be on the lookout for what might be causing that marker to rise.

I could have had the scan next week, in which case there would only be a week between having it and getting the results. For various reasons, I chose this week, even though it means a longer wait.

Pandemic restrictions permitting, we’re planning some nice adventures over the next couple of weeks but I’ll no doubt find myself increasingly thinking about what the results might be the closer we get to the date of my next appointment.

I’ve had many, many experiences with needles in recent years – to have blood taken, to enable the insertion of a cannula so I can be given iv chemotherapy or iv antibiotics or blood transfusions, or, as was the case today, to have a radiotracer injected for a PET CT scan. In all that time, there have been very few problems. Regardless, you always have some degree of concern that it won’t go well, especially when you’re aware that your veins are most likely damaged from earlier iv chemo. This is as good an opportunity as any to express my gratitude to the fabulous phlebotomists and oncology nurses at St George’s Hospital in south west London where I’m currently being treated. I know it’s their job, but the care they show and the tenderness with which they treat you make things so much easier. 

As for the results of this latest scan, what will be will be. In the meantime, let’s take each day as it comes.

Note: This is my first post since early August. A lot has happened over the past couple of months and for a while I really didn’t feel like writing. It feels good to be in the saddle again. 

Chocolate deliveries, bike rides, giraffes and scans

I have taken delivery of not one but two substantial amounts of chocolate over the past week or so.

How so?

I posted on facebook that I’d had to enlist our elder son to buy me some chocolate because my husband, who’s doing the shopping at the moment, eats too healthily and it just doesn’t occur to him to chuck a couple of chocolate bars in the trolley as he makes his way round the supermarket. It took a while, but at least now he does deign to bring home as standard a couple of packets of biscuits – but still no chocolate bars. 

Now I’m no addict, but I do have the odd bar on an ad hoc basis. However, I can’t currently indulge that habit while we’re in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic. My immunity is low as a result of the anti-cancer treatment I’m on and while I do go outside quite a lot now for walks and to exercise, I generally tend to not to go into shops. So no impulse buying of chocolate bars for me!

The photo I posted of me looking gleeful holding the bars my son brought back for me made a lot of people laugh and sympathise.

A couple of chocolate-loving friends – a huge thank you again, you know who you are! – were clearly feeling my pain to such an extent that they took things a step further and actually sent me supplies. We haven’t laughed so much in ages. My husband says he’s going to post that he’s got a craving for beer.

As you can see from the photo, I am now spoilt for choice. And that’s just one box.

I’ve given some away, the boys and I have been partaking, and the rest are “hidden for safe-keeping”, if you get my meaning. 

On the micro level things are still going largely fine on the lockdown front.

There are the chocolate deliveries for a start. Also, I’ve got most of this week off work and the weather is glorious. The roses in our garden have started blooming; they are gorgeous and there are dozens and dozens of buds, so it’ll only get more and more beautiful. Don’t look too closely or you’ll see all the aphids.

Yesterday I went out for a bike ride with a friend that involved seeking out and tackling the not insubstantial hills of south-east London, around Crystal Palace. There was blazing sunshine, there’s still far less traffic than there normally would be, and we enjoyed some incredible views over central London from the tops of the hills. 

We slogged up a fair few hills (with my friend overtaking me every time) and were rewarded with some lovely descents (with me doing the overtaking here). Before heading home, we bought some take-away coffee and chilled soft drinks and drank them in the welcome shade of a tree in Dulwich Park. It felt like we were genuinely on holiday.

On another bike ride, this time with my husband, we cycled past London Zoo in Regent’s Park and were delighted to see that the giraffes had come out for a stroll. There are two and there’s a sign there with their names on (I’ve forgotten their names*). Like everything else, the zoo is closed but we shouted over the gate and asked the zookeepers in attendance which was which. We don’t know, they told us excitedly, we’re from the other side of the zoo and don’t often get to see the giraffes. Their excitement was lovely to see.

On yet another ride into central London, we enjoyed great views of the river.

Those clear skies are good to see but they’ve come at a dreadful human and economic cost. We must never forget that.

Part of the reason I took time off work this week was that I was already taking time off to have scans. It’s that time again. I had a half-body PET CT scan this morning and tomorrow I’ll have an MRI scan of my spine. Both tests are to check to see whether there’s been any meaningful spread of the metastatic breast cancer I was diagnosed with just over a year ago. If there has been, we’ll be moving on to the next appropriate line of treatment.

I tell myself that I don’t generally get what’s known as “scanxiety”, ie worrying in the run-up to having the scans themselves and then again while you wait for the results (a week in this case). However, I really don’t think you can avoid it entirely.

You think it’s all fine then you realise you’re more argumentative at home than usual – and as those of you who know me are well aware, I’m pretty darn argumentative at the best of times. Or you’ll catch yourself doing too much forward thinking, dwelling on things you usually manage not to think about. Realising I’m doing this is usually enough to bring me back to the present. You just find yourself doing it more often than usual around scan time.

In this particular present, there’s a hedge that’s needs trimming out front. And afterwards, of course, there’s chocolate to be had as a reward!

* The giraffes are called Molly and Maggie, London Zoo told me in a reply to my tweet asking what their names were! I love Twitter when it works like that. Thanks to London Zoo for the reply!

The busy business of living under lockdown

Another four weeks gone by, another round of treatment started.

Last Wednesday, I had the usual blood tests – plus a couple of additional ones that I have every so often. The following morning, I got the all-clear to go ahead with treatment in a phone call from the oncologist, so off I went to the hospital later that day.

I had my temperature taken and was given a face mask before I could enter the oncology day unit, which has been re-sited to a stand-alone building away from the main hospital buildings to reduce the risk of patients catching or spreading the coronavirus. I had my various injections (fulvestrant, denosumab and filgrastim), was given my next 28-day supply of abemaciclib tablets and an extra filgrastim injection to give myself mid-cycle to boost my white blood cell production and headed home again.

That’s cycle #13 under way with the core drugs I started on a year ago now. On 23 April, I passed the first anniversary of my unofficial diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. Official confirmation came shortly after that the primary breast cancer that I’d been treated for almost four years earlier had spread to my bones (mainly my spine) and was also in my bone marrow.

There were a couple of changes but no big surprises on the blood test front. The relevant tumour marker has gone up as it has done every month since November. And while my red blood cell or haemoglobin level varies by the month, this time it had dropped to slightly below the normal range for the first time since September. It’s been going down since February or March. That unsettles me. I feel fine largely, but maybe that explains why my running has become little more than a brisk walk! I need some excuse so I’ll take that one.

During the phone call with the oncologist, I decided to take the opportunity to ask her to talk me through every possible drug treatment option from here on. She did, in great detail. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I spent much of the following day really out of sorts thinking about the enormity of it all. Plenty of good things happened that day but overall I would not describe it as a good day. Days like that are allowed every so often.

It’s been an eventful few weeks, despite lockdown.

For starters, I had a week off work. It’s been super busy and it was good to get some time off, especially so when it coincided with some fantastic weather here in my little part of south west London.

I read a couple of books. I got my summer clothes out and had a bit of a wardrobe clear-out. I polished four pairs of shoes that were sorely in need of cleaning and I replaced a pair of shoe laces that had needed replacing for at least a year. I prepped the garden for some plants I’m hoping will be delivered this week or next. I thought I’d mastered making flapjacks, but then promptly burnt the next batch.

I’m in the category that I’m terming “vulnerable but no longer shielding” – my oncologist said last month that she was happy for me to go out for exercise. I decided I could safely do socially distanced cycling, so in that week off I went for a couple of longish bike rides, through a beautiful and largely deserted central London. Being out on the bike felt very good indeed.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve also had a clear-out of my “memory box”, which in my case was a suitcase. It was a joyous thing to do and I highly recommend it.

There was the odd photo; not many though – the boxes and files of photos are  another thing entirely.

There were dozens and dozens of cards. Mother’s Day cards. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. Valentine’s Day cards. Wedding cards. Postcards from friends and family. Letters from old boyfriends. Dozens of cards and letters from my now husband. Wedding invitations. Orders of service from funerals. Letters from my brothers when they were away travelling, from Sri Lanka and Australia.The two cards I received from friends asking me to be godmother to their children.

There’s a letter from my late dad from when I was living in Spain in the mid 1980s. That’s one to keep – my dad never wrote. There’s also a cutting from a Spanish newspaper; it’s a photo of me on my now husband’s shoulders at a march in Madrid from around the same time (see below). Ticket stubs from dozens of concerts, going back to when I was in my final years at school the late 1970s. The ticket from my first flight. My first pay packet, from 40 years ago – four hours work in a grocer’s at 74p an hour. My first proper job offer in London. Exam certificates and indeed exam papers, that I couldn’t possibly answer now.

Madrid, December 1984

There are also medals and certificates from various 10k runs and the odd half marathon done over the years. My fastest recorded time for a 10k run, in London in 1993 when I would have been 29 or 30, was just under 50 minutes. Not brilliant, but not bad. It would take me more than half an hour longer at my current speed.

I was brought up a catholic and there was also the certificate from my first holy communion when I was seven and the rosary beads I had as a child. It seems really strange to me now that I kept these. I’ve been lapsed for so long, but perhaps there’s something in the saying “once a catholic, always a catholic”.

I came across an English project from secondary school. I got an A*, which came with a comment of “very competent”. For an A*? That seems rather harsh. I don’t recall feeling anything other than pleased at the time but I’m outraged now! Surely an A* deserved very good, or even perhaps excellent.

And then there’s the certificate thanking me for having been a blood donor. I gave blood 22 times in the UK before a gastrointestinal complaint I had nearly ten years ago meant I could no longer donate. I remember being gutted at having to stop. I loved giving blood – it made me feel part of something bigger. I donated 23 times in total. My first donation was at a mobile unit that had pitched up at the campsite I was staying at in the south of France for the summer between first and second year at uni. The incentive was that they handed out free sandwiches after you’d donated. None of us there had much money so it was a no-brainer! As you can see, I have the certificate from that too.

I’d gone to France on the train from Glasgow with a friend from uni after seeing a notice for summer jobs on the student union notice board. We ended up selling apple donuts (no hole in the middle) and ice creams on a nudist beach for six weeks. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I’d turned 18 just days before I left for France and was still pretty naive – I was less so by the time I came back! 

I’m going to get on my high horse here and say that if you don’t give blood and there’s no medical reason preventing you from doing so, you need to have a word with yourself. Having a genuine phobia of needles also gets you off the hook but just being a bit nervous around needles or can’t be bothered really doesn’t cut it. Say you get sick and you need, for example, chemo or antibiotics via a drip, or indeed, a blood transfusion. Are you going to refuse on the grounds that you don’t like needles? No, I didn’t think so. Do it, it’s your civic duty. You won’t regret it. Incidentally, I’ve had all three procedures I mentioned. That’s incidental, though; I’ve always felt strongly about this.

Other things have happened.

Some exciting cycling plans I had for the summer have been scuppered, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. My diagnosis last Spring meant I had to give up on plans to ride a few stages of the Tour de France a week before the real thing in July as part of a big fundraising event known as Le Loop. My heart therefore skipped a beat in December last year when they released the route of the 2020 tour and I saw there were going to be two back-to-back flat stages. Flat is not usually a word you associate with the tour, and my interest was piqued. Each stage was 100 miles but I was feeling much fitter than I thought I’d be. I mulled it over for a bit and decided that if I were still well and suitably fit come July, I’d go for it. I wouldn’t have to raise any money as the money I raised last year would roll over.

No-one knew of my plans other than my oncologist, my husband and two boys, and the lovely people at Le Loop. My plan was to crack on with the training – quietly and without any of the fanfare that accompanied my plans last year – then do the event, completing what I saw as unfinished business. Anyway, like many charitable events and so much else, this year’s Le Loop has been cancelled, having initially been moved to the end of August. It’s disappointing, but for me what matters is that I felt well enough to at least consider going for it. There may be a chance to do it next year, or there may not. There’s no need to think about that at present.

I heard someone say on the radio the other day that no matter how inconvenient things were for them under lockdown, they were very much aware that they “weren’t the victim here”. That resonates with me. Of course it gets you down and you fear for the future, but I can’t feel too sorry for myself. Too many people are losing loved ones and there’s too much real suffering going on. As for the fall-out of it all, we have no idea.

My family’s safe so far. My mum is in a care home in Glasgow. That’s a big worry in itself but to date thankfully the home has managed to stay cononavirus-free. I haven’t seen my mum since last November. That’s also tough, but we know she’s well cared for and we’re relieved she’s well. Those of my brothers who live locally pay regular visits and chat to mum from outside, through the window of her room on the ground floor.

Here in London, somewhat selfishly, my husband and I are relishing having our boys back home. They were both away at uni, in their first year and having fun, and while it’s only right that they’d much rather still be away, their very presence makes us happy. They probably find us as annoying as you’re meant to find your parents at that age, but I hope they’re at least feeling the love. They’ve reverted to pre-uni status whereby they spend a lot of time in their rooms, but supper together is sacrosanct (we all take turns at cooking) and we have carefully negotiated film dates. I am regularly woken up in the middle of the night by the smell of baking. I can’t complain when the result the following morning is freshly baked chocolate cake.

We’re being careful with hygiene in the house and while the boys do go out, they haven’t been able to consider getting jobs, for example, as they’re being careful not to put themselves at risk in light of my situation. We’ve just now started looking at potential less risky employment options for them.

My husband’s well. The boys are well. I’m well (apart from the obvious). I’m working, I can cycle, I can run (just), we live next to a lovely common, we’re in touch with lots of people and, very close to the top of the list if not at the very top, my treatment is unaffected. This isn’t the case for a lot of people.

Also recently, I had a call from the GP, asking me to arrange a care plan in case I catch Covid-19 and need to be hospitalised. It wasn’t a shock to have to think about this. I’ve already made my end-of-life preferences clear in the context of having a terminal illness. It’s written into the power of attorney document I arranged last year. If I’m in the final stages of breast cancer, I told the GP, I want to go quietly and gently, but if I get Covid-19, do whatever it takes to keep me alive. Everyone should have a care plan. No-one wants to think about their own death, but the point is to make things easier for your nearest and dearest at an already very difficult time – should the occasion arise.

It’s time for my next set of scans. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three months since the last lot. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll have an MRI scan of my spine and a half-body (essentially from the top of my head to above the knee) combined PET CT scan to check for any disease progression. If they pick up what’s been causing the blood tumour marker to rise and there’s evidence the cancer’s spread beyond a certain point, we’ll be looking at moving on to the next appropriate line of treatment. That would be a big step. I’ll get the scan results when I next talk to – or possibly even see – the oncologist, at the end of April.

That’s more than three weeks away. That’s another three weeks to get on with the busy business of living.

From cycling in Spain to shielding in south London

I got back from a cycling trip on the Spanish island of Mallorca on Sunday 15 March. That’s a story in itself, but this post is about the fact that, as a person whose immune system is compromised and for whom catching coronavirus could be very bad news, I’ve been practising this new activity known as “shielding” ever since I got back from Spain.

That basically means I haven’t left the confines of my south London house and garden in almost two weeks. During that time, I’ve had pretty much no face-to-face contact with any human being unless it’s been at at least a metre’s distance. That includes my husband – and I didn’t even hug my sons when they came back from uni last week. 

As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic broke, I reckoned I would be in the “extremely vulnerable” group that would be advised to stay indoors and avoid all but the most essential contact. So I started shielding of my own accord as soon as I got home from Spain.

It felt more than a little bizarre given how fit and well I feel – as evidenced by the fact that just days earlier I’d been cycling up and down hills in Spain (see photo) riding 50-70k a day. I ride slowly but I get there.

A text from the NHS Coronavirus Service one evening this week confirmed my new status. It pulled no punches. It said I was “at risk of severe illness if you catch Coronavirus”, that I’d to “remain at home for a minimum of 12 weeks” because “home is the safest place for you”*, that while at home I should “open a window” but not go out other than to any “private space” such as the garden or front path, and that I should stay three steps away from others indoors. A subsequent text advised me to have an overnight bag ready in case I’m hospitalised.

I love the outdoors, but I’m already starting to see “outside” as a dangerous place. Given the stark advice in those texts added to my own desire to stay well and the fact that London is the epicentre of the outbreak in the UK, it’s not surprising that I’m wary of leaving the house – even if it’s to get the treatment which has, largely, been keeping my cancer in check for the best part of a year.

The primary breast cancer I was treated for some years ago has spread to my bones and bone marrow. While it’s currently treatable – and is more or less under control – it’s ultimately incurable.

Somewhat ironically, it’s more the treatment I’m having that makes me immunocompromised than the cancer itself. This side-effect is managed with injections of a drug called filgrastim, which stimulates the production of neutrophils, the white blood cells that fight bacterial – not viral – infection. For the past few months, I’d been having just one of these, at my regular treatment appointment. In March, though, just as the outbreak was starting, the consultant prescribed an extra one for me to self-administer mid-cycle to keep my neutrophil levels up.

In 2014, I was lucky enough to get the chance to take part in a transatlantic sailing race, from the Canary Islands to the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. It took 13 days and it’s one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done.

I had next to no experience of sailing. You just had to be up for an adventure, be a team player and be very good at following instructions (I can hear my husband snorting in disbelief at that last one but I can do that no problem if I decide I want to). Anyway, the pre-trip training included a one-day Sea Survival course that taught us how to use all the safety kit on board and what to do in an emergency. We spent a lot of time in the water at a local swimming pool with life rafts and the like. It was all well and good that we had this training,  but the key take-home message for me was do not fall overboard from a 72-foot long yacht that’s going full tilt in the middle of the Atlantic. The chances of you surviving are not good. 

I felt pretty much the same reading these texts I’ve been receiving. It really would not be good for me to catch this virus. I’ve gone from fretting that my treatment might be changed or delayed to fretting about the fact that next week I’ll have to leave the house on not one but two occasions – once next Wednesday to have my blood taken for testing and then again the following day, assuming the blood test results are ok, to start my 12th round of treatment. I won’t see the consultant for my results as I usually do as, rightly so, they’ve stopped face-to-face meetings.

My rational mind tells me it’s good news that my treatment plans are unchanged. Appropriate social distancing measures will be in place, I’m sure, but I’ll still be nervous.

It was a last-minute decision to sign up to the cycling camp in Mallorca. I did so after receiving “not bad news” in early March in relation to the two scans I’d had in mid-February.

I flew to Mallorca from Madrid on 11 March. My husband and I had gone there to celebrate his 58th birthday. That was on 10 March. It was also our 35th anniversary of getting together as a couple, so it was pretty special. We spent the evening with Spanish friends we’ve known since we lived and met in Madrid in the mid 1980s. The talk was of coronavirus but other than that Madrid was felt no different from usual and there was little sense of the huge upheaval that was to come.

Back to London. In the words of the oncologist, the PET CT scan results “gave with one hand and took with the other”.

Some previous “hot spots” were less hot than they were three months ago but there were some new hot spots elsewhere. As for the MRI scan of my spine, the conclusion was that despite there being “widespread metastatic disease”, appearances were “stable compared with previous”.

Things are still looking ok on the bone marrow function front. 

My view is that while “not bad news” is not good news, it’s a heck of a lot better than actual bad news. Also, I really can’t believe that with all this going on inside, I’m not in any pain. For that, I couldn’t be more grateful. 

I know this is all about me and that many people are in a far worse situation – and, of course, that there are many people out there in essential jobs who are themselves at great risk of getting the virus. However, it does illustrate perfectly how coronavirus has changed everything. And if we’re to believe the forecasts, we ain’t seen nothing yet. 

Long before most people had even heard of coronavirus, I wrote a long article about living with secondary breast cancer. Some friends read a draft and suggested I try to find a broader audience for it than I’d get with my blog. I approached the Institute of Cancer Research and they said they’d be happy to publish it.

In the article, I make the point that very often we make presumptions about the future when the reality is that we have no way of knowing what will in fact happen. Reading it now, it seems weirdly prophetic. 

The ICR published the piece on Mother’s Day. If you read it, you’ll see why they chose that day. It’s frank and honest right from the start. Please only read it if you think you’re ready for that. You can read it here.

*I take issue with the blanket assertion that home is the safest place for people to be in these times of lockdown and self-isolation. It may be for me but what about women in abusive relationships and/or at risk of domestic violence, not to mention children who live in very troubled households? I have relatives who are school teachers and they all know of children for whom school is their only safe place.

Dodging a bullet

I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet.

Yesterday I had my monthly appointment with the oncologist and I got the results of the MRI scan I had on November 20th. That scan was prompted by the fact that the PET- CT scan I had had earlier that month had shown there had been some growth in the cancer that’s in my spine.

If this was confirmed by the MRI, there was a possibility I might need radiotherapy to shrink the tumour if it was seen to be getting too close to my spinal cord, where it could do some serious damage if left untreated.

I also got the results of the blood tests I’d had the previous day. Those results, combined with the scan results, would likely determine whether we needed to call a halt to the drugs I’m on and move on to the next line of treatment. That would have been very disappointing as things had seemed to be going so well. Obviously the longer you can stay on these early lines of treatment, the better.

Anyway, it turns out from the MRI scan results that, despite the “flare” highlighted on the PET-CT scan, there is “no strong evidence to suggest that there is disease progression”.

The results also confirm the “ongoing treatment response” on the bone marrow front. (The breast cancer I was treated for in 2015/16 has spread to my bones and bone marrow.)

Based on the MRI scan results and the blood test results, I went ahead yesterday afternoon with treatment cycle #8: the fulvestrant buttock injections, an injection in the stomach of denosumab*, and off home with the latest 28-day pack of abemaciclib tablets. The important tumour marker (CA 15-3) is up again but that in itself is not enough to come off this treatment. There’s stuff going on with my kidneys that could partly account for the rise. Importantly, my bone marrow function continues to improve – to the extent that this cycle I’ve not to give myself the injection of filgrastim, the white blood cell booster.

So no progression. No radiotherapy needed. Core treatment unchanged for one more month. A bullet dodged, whether for four weeks or longer we can’t know at this stage.

We still need to keep a very close eye on things. I see the consultant again in a month’s time and I’m to have repeat PET-CT and MRI scans early in the New Year.

So it’s still very much one month at a time but it’s nice that this particular month includes Christmas. We’re taking nothing for granted but this is an unexpected and welcome early present. We’ll accept it and be grateful.

*Denosumab is a bone-strengthening drug for the prevention of skeletal related events such as fracture, radiotherapy or surgery to the bone, or spinal cord compression. It’s given as a subcutaneous injection whereas Zometa, the bone hardener I was on previously, is given as an intravenous infusion like chemo. This means treatment now takes much less time – and I don’t have to go through the trauma of having a cannula inserted and being hooked up to a drip.