The next steps -April 2020 – 4 days

The General Surgeon called yesterday morning. We saw him previously at the hospital about the liver surgery that was scheduled for March 2019, but then wasn’t needed. Apparently now it is, so Mr A is back on surgery’s doorstep. The scans have shown up a couple of areas of concern, one area still there from before that they believed to be benign, and the other area was one that had re-appeared and they described as ‘an area of abnormality.’ Let’s hope they never need to scan my brain, because they’ll find a few more areas of abnormality there for sure that will need investigation. However, the surgeon said he didn’t want to do the liver resection until June or July, because as he quite straight forwardly put it ‘If you catch Covid-19 in hospital after surgery, you’re unlikely to come through it.’

The oncologist called late the next afternoon. As horrible as it was waiting for such an important phone call, at least we didn’t have to contend with another trip to the hospital, and the stress of parking. Although at the time, the car parks were probably fairly empty and parking would likely have been a breeze.

Mr A discussed with the oncologist the conversation he’d had with the surgeon the day before, and that he had been told the plan was liver surgery later in the summer, once the Covid-19 peak had hopefully passed. Her response was that this was probably here to stay, and whilst things would hopefully calm down, it was a long-term problem and surgeries would have to continue with Covid-19 still knocking about.

When Mr A asked if there was a plan following the surgery, the oncologist clearly decided things weren’t quite shit enough, and said she would recommend another three months of chemo. The area of abnormality was quite small, she said, but they would want to do six chemo sessions with a different drug to ensure they got any other cells that may cause problems, and after the chemo, they would do another PET scan prior to surgery.

Following this news, we took ourselves into the garden with a couple of drinks. Ever one to look on the bright side, Mr A said as rubbish as it was having to have chemo again, at least he’d get to enjoy the nice sandwiches, tea and biscuits.