"and then something dramatic might happen"

At the end of April when I decided not to have any further treatment my Oncologist suggested that I would trundle along for a period of time and then new symptoms would start to appear. She also warned that it was possible that "something dramatic might happen" along the way. It turns out this happened just 4 days after my last blog update.

My last post was written on 26th July. In the wee hours of 30th July I was rushed to hospital in extreme pain and ended up having emergency surgery on the 31st. It turned out to be a stomach ulcer that had perforated and resulted in stomach contents being leaked throughout my abdomen. Left untreated this would have been life-threatening. I spent the next two weeks in Wellington Hospital recovering and was nill-by-mouth until two days before I was discharged. On day 3 it looked like the surgical repair was failing and they promptly put in a PICC line and started me on TPN (intravenous food) so that I could get some nourishment to help with the healing. Things were touch and go for a few days as the surgeons watched and waited to see if the repair was going to take, and it was suggested that they would need to perhaps put in a stent, then this was downgraded to putting in a scope to see what was happening, then as the days passed things started looking up and no further intervention was required. On day 11 I had a CT scan with oral contrast to check whether there were any leaks in the repair and to everyone's relief, I was leak-free. Phew. Following that they slowly started me back on liquids, then two days later on solids.

I was discharged on Friday (almost a week ago) and I am still very slow and sore as I have a surgical wound pretty much the entire length of my abdomen that will take quite some time to heal. I am slowly feeling better each day and am optimistic I can recover fully from this and have a bit more time.

In other good news, I saw my Oncologist yesterday and after just one dose of Irinotecan (which was now a month ago) my CEA has fallen from 759 to 556 so it clearly had a impact. Once I am back on my feet it's likely I will have some more. I am amazed it worked so well given the odds of it working at all, and also given what I have been through in the last three weeks.