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Cancer


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5 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

Should be the most repped post on the forum.

 

Life-affirming mate, congratulations.

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15 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Wow. Congrats, mate. Shows "terminal" doesn't always mean the end. If you don't mind sharing, what have the doctors attributed your recovery to for now?

They just say about how well I responded to the treatment, it was beyond what they could predict. On my 1st 2 rounds of chemo, I got more than 50% reductions each time, some tumours reduce by much more than that. 

 

They have not been any more specific than that. They told me at the outset I would never have an operation, as while they could get rid of the primary tumour if it shrunk, it was too big an operation to put my body through with everything else and they could never cut it all out. It all started to change once they started talking about removing the main bulk.

 

I did get an additional drug along with my chemo (the type is known as a mab), which while it's not completely new it's only been around in this country for 4 or 5 years (my drug, not mabs in general). I do wonder if they still don't quite understand just how good the combination of this drug and the chemo can be. And obviously for different reasons, they use different combinations of chemo, which are then used in combination with these new targeted drugs. 

 

All in all, I almost don't care why it's worked. I've learnt a lot of the time as smart as these specialist are, they're learning with every patient. I'm just happy (although right now mostly incredibly stunned) that I've got here. The expectation he set me at the start (when I was asking for a survival rate from where I was) was he'd never had 1 patient who'd recovered from where I was, so I think I've just been really lucky the combination of drugs he picked turned out to be perfect for me. 

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2 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

They just say about how well I responded to the treatment, it was beyond what they could predict. On my 1st 2 rounds of chemo, I got more than 50% reductions each time, some tumours reduce by much more than that. 

 

They have not been any more specific than that. They told be at the outset I would never have an operation, as while they could get rid of the primary tumour if it shrunk, it was too big an operation to put my body through with everything else and they could never cut it all out. It all started to change once they started talking about removing the main bulk.

 

I did get an additional drug along with my chemo (the type is known as a mab), which while it's not completely new it's only been around in this country for 4 or 5 years (my drug, not mabs in general). I do wonder if they still don't quite understand just how good the combination of this drug and the chemo can be. And obviously for different reasons, they use different combinations of chemo, which are then used in combination with these new targeted drugs. 

 

All in all, I almost don't care why it's worked. I've learnt a lot of the time as smart as these specialist are, they're learning with every patient. I'm just happy (although right now mostly incredibly stunned) that I've got here. The expectation he set me at the start (when I was asking for a survival rate from where I was) was he'd never had 1 patient who'd recovered from where I was, so I think I've just been really lucky the combination of drugs he picked turned out to be perfect for me. 

It’s all down to them cooked breakfasts you’ve tried Baz, I knew they come good in the end, especially the ones with beans...

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35 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

 

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37 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

 

Made up for you mate. Pass on your great news to as many people suffering from this shitty disease as possible. 

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42 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

That is fantastic mate. God bless you man.

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52 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

Superb news mate. Get to the ale-house ! 

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Chalk up another win for the good guys. Wonderful news and another example of how science, progress and the incredible human spirit is emerging victorious more and more often over this hideous bastard of an illness.

 

So happy for you Barry, hope you intend to party like it's 1999.

 

God bless our NHS.

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17 hours ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

Sensational news. Go treat yourself the fry-up at Hawksmoor mate! They do real nice “trotter”  beans!

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15 hours ago, Barry Wom said:

I've got some massive boozing planned for Saturday for the match! 

Great news, Baz! Well done, mate.

 

Was the mab rituximab, by any chance? If so it can leave you with a risk of infection, so my advice would be to not drink anything less than 50% proof; and when you get a breakfast the next day, make sure that Lifey cooks it.

 

 

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17 hours ago, Barry Wom said:

I finished my chemo a few weeks back and have had scans since and went to see my oncologist yesterday. He's telling me he now believes I'm in remission and there's currently no sign of the disease. I'll be back for scans every 3 months, plus other check ups as a result of my surgery, but it seems I could well have put this behind me. The words from the oncologist yesterday were sweet "go and live your life and see you in 3 months". 

Brilliant news, Barrington!

 

Now you can make plans for fulfilling your ambition of being two hairdressers. 

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30 minutes ago, viRdjil said:

Sensational news. Go treat yourself the fry-up at Hawksmoor mate! They do real nice “trotter”  beans!

Haha. There will be a top breakfast or two on the way, certainly when I'm down there. Although this last round of chemo I've been on included chemo tablets and I found if I ate big, I'd feel less sick, so twice a day I had big meals to help with the tablets. But they had to be 12 hours apart, so I normally had something light in between too. I was putting 4 or 5lb on per round of treatment! So right now I'm working on reducing my appetite and trying to knock off a stone or so! 

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4 minutes ago, Jarvinja Ilnow said:

Great news, Baz! Well done, mate.

 

Was the mab rituximab, by any chance? If so it can leave you with a risk of infection, so my advice would be to not drink anything less than 50% proof; and when you get a breakfast the next day, make sure that Lifey cooks it.

 

 

It was cetuxamab. I've actually not had any of that since before my surgery at Easter. But I'll play safe and follow your instructions! 

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