Today I went to Guildford for my bone scan for the trial. First we had a chat with the trial nurse Avril who wanted to see how I was and also wanted to discuss my new hormone therapy drug letrozole. We spoke about my anxieties about eating and my nausea and also about my pain in my left hip and back.
Avril then revealed some sad news to me, the cancer is also in my spine. Fuck. It's in my lower lumbar region. I can't begin to explain how devastated this makes me. I know it won't change my treatment plan, but just knowing it's somewhere else is a complete hammer blow. To me, spine damage means more risk of paralysis so I am beyond terrified.
Then I had to go down to the nuclear medicine room for some bloods to be taken (again from my sore arm!) and have a radioactive injection for the bone scan. Both went without a hitch thank goodness and then we went back up to wait for my meeting with my trial oncologist TC.
We waited for about an hour and then had my meeting with TC. He again waxed lyrical about the wonderful ribociclib drug, gave me lots of advice on nutrition and spoke to me about my fears about the side effects. I also explained how devastated I was to receive the news about my back. He told me that it really didn't make a difference to the plan and that I was just to control any pain with painkillers. It's hard because I'm so scared about it, but he seemed not to be concerned.
After the meeting, I went down to nuclear medicine for my bone scan. I lay on the bed and the camera came very close to my face. It took about 35 minutes. I could see some images on the screen near me. Now obviously I don't know how to interpret scans but I could see my skeleton and bits on it that were lit up. Last time I had a bone scan I saw loads of lit up areas all over my ribs, I couldn't see much at all there this time so hopefully that's a good sign and means the rads worked. I could still see the sternum shining and a bit in my shoulder area, but the new bit I couldn't see last time that I could this time was my hips and lower back. So with the news I'd just been given about my back, this makes sense. Last time I didn't know I had secondary cancer, this time I see the areas and it's just a case of being more informed.
After the scan I went back up to find Avril who gave me my prescription of letrozole. Earlier I had explained to TC how scared I was about the side effects of this drug. He said that yes I may get some SEs but that if I took the pill that afternoon, by bedtime, cancer cells would be being killed. Blimey.
We got home and I took the first pill. So a difficult and overwhelming day, but at least the systemic fight has started.
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