PROGRESS UPDATE

These last few weeks I've been quite tired, and found it hard to shake off a cold, but overall I've been on pretty good form, and I feel very lucky with the medical care I've had. The Marsden did a great job of working out which chemotherapy drugs would be effective, and their systemic chemotherapy brought me back from a pretty serious situation. They do carry out chemoembolisation as well, but only for cancers where there's an evidence base for its efficacy, and since there's so little evidence for cancer of unknown primary I don't qualify for it. 


However, I'm in extremely good hands with Professor Vogl, who does the procedure at Frankfurt University Hospital, as he's at the cutting edge of new interventional techniques. (He's one of only 3 surgeons in the world who does chemoembolisation via the femoral artery not only for tumours in the liver but also tumours in the brain - pretty amazing stuff!) If you're interested, here's an recent article on his work (the imaging shown in the pictures isn't exactly the same as in my procedure but it gives you an idea): http://www.medical.siemens.com/siemens/it_IT/gg_ax_FBAs/files/brochures/Scientific_Articles/interventional_oncology_interview_prof_vogl.pdf

I also have a great deal of respect for Dr Herzog and his thoughtful, collaborative approach to treating people living with cancer. You may be interested in this link to a video interview with him, about 20 minutes long. The website it's on isn't one I use, and I'm not sure I agree with the title of the video - it doesn't seem at all an emotional interview to me - but it gives a very good sense of his philosophy:

http://cancer.maxawareness.com/members/cancer-clinics/germany/dr-herzog-hospital/emotional-interview-with-dr-herzog/

Since I started having treatment in Germany I've continued to have weekly blood tests at the Marsden, to check that my immune system isn't too affected by the chemoembolisation. The nurses at the Marsden are lovely and I rather enjoy the opportunity to catch up with them, including telling those who are interested about the other approaches I've been benefiting from. My blood counts were OK during most of my chemo in the UK, except once in March 2011 and then again in July when I was admitted onto the ward (both times I had a blood transfusion). However, since then I'm glad to say that the results have consistently been reasonably good. I'm slightly anaemic, but no more so than I've been all my adult life, and my white blood cells (part of the immune system) are a bit low from the chemo, but not a cause for concern. My tumour markers were never very high even at diagnosis (and therefore aren't much help in tracking progress), but they're all now within normal range, and my liver function tests are also back to normal. These results don't mean that the tumours have disappeared, but do suggest that they're less active or aggressive, which is very encouraging.


I hadn't seen a doctor at the Marsden since just after I was discharged from hospital last summer, but last week I had a review with one of the specialist registrars. (I've only seen the consultant once, for about 5 minutes just before starting chemo, and since then I've always seen registrars.) He fed back that the team had studied my last scan, which they reported shows a good response to treatment over the past 6 months of going to Germany, and they're very pleased with my progress. It's great having some confirmation of my improvement, and when I go back to Germany at the end of the week I'll discuss with Dr Herzog where we go from here in terms of the treatment plan. 


I don't have any pictures to accompany this post, so I've uploaded the results of a pointless but pleasant hour playing around with iPhoto's special effects!