After the full month of SABR Radiotherapy treatment that was May, June 2020 has quietened down and involved a whole lot of nothing very much…
About the most exciting thing that happened during June 2020, was that I got the date of my follow-up appointment wrong. For some reason I had June 20th in my head, as I reported last month. It turned out that the appointment was actually on the 16th. Fortunately my mum had nagged me into checking, beforehand, so I wasn’t caught out. My mum doesn’t read these, so I can safely say, “Thanks, mum, you were right, as usual,” without it coming back to haunt me.
The follow-up appointment was at 10:45am and the consultant’s office is in Bristol, about an hour’s drive away. So it looked like a reasonably early start and the possibility of a nice day out to follow. Until, that was, I got a call from the consultant’s secretary, the day before. The meeting would be over the phone…
I must admit that this seemed wise, what with the Coronavirus Lockdown, and all. Quite why they waited until the day before the appointment to clarify this, I don’t really know. Still, no harm done.
The appointment itself was as pointless as these things tend to be, when the Private Health Care system is involved. The consultant asked after my health, which I assured him was fine. He then asked whether I wanted the follow-up scans in Bristol, or back in my local hospital. Naturally, I chose my local hospital. And that was pretty well that.
Money well spent…!
To be fair, though, I got the written notes of the conversation through in a very timely manner. Certainly faster than I’ve ever got one before. And this letter did contain a couple of bits of useful information.
Firstly, it provided the standard schedule for follow-up scans: 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. It’s good to know that I’ll be going back to six monthly scans in relatively quick order.
Image by photosforyou from Pixabay
Providing all goes well…
Because the letter also said:
I note dosing was tricky, given the proximity of [the] treated tumour to both the heart and stomach, and thus if not controlled… surgery should be considered.
Which means that my next scan is going to be a nail-biter.
Speaking of which, I got a call on 24th June 2020, offering me that first follow-up scan… for the following day. I pointed out that the first scan is supposed to be 12 weeks after the end of treatment, to allow everything to settle down, and that my treatment had finished less than six weeks ago. I was told that they could only book three weeks ahead, so what about the 15th July?
Well, the 15th July is the nine week mark, but what are you going to do?!
So I took the appointment.
At least it’s for an MRI and not a CT. Because CT scans on my liver never really show much. Which means that I always end up having to do an MRI, anyway. So, far better to jump straight to the MRI.
The only other interesting thing that happened during June 2020, was in relation to my insurance company. They sent me through a claim statement of how much they’ve paid out on my cancer treatment to date:
£26,401.47 ($32,575, €29,038)
Which is definitely, a lot.
And, given that I only took out the policy a year before all this started, I can’t help thinking that my insurance company is heartily sick of me by now.
That said, and taking into account that I’ve had cancer for more than six years, now; it’s not as much as I thought it would be…
Well, that’s it for June 2020. I should get the results of MRI scan before the end of July, which will hopefully be good news. If not, at least I’ll have something interesting to report!
Actually, scrap that. I’ve just had another letter from the hospital, which gives my appointment with the oncologist as 19th August…
Unless something changes in the meantime, July is going to be dull!
On another note, I’m cutting down on the number of posts I make on my Chubby House Hubby site, to focus on other things. So I think it makes sense to slow down the number of posts I make on here, as well. Moving forward, I won’t be writing a Can it Cause Cancer and a Can it Cure Cancer post each month. Instead, I’ll write one post a month, alternating between the two topics. I will however, continue with the Monthly Update posts, for as long as things are happening.