Day 1 Radio & Chemo Treatment

Had first day of Radio and Chemo yesterday. The 10 minute session predictably turned into and hour and a half while we searched for the pharmacology unit at the hospital. A few hours after taking the Temodal nausea and full on vomiting set in. Got home from work at six and immeadiately had to call around the hospital to get a doctor to tell casualty that we were coming in. Casualty was chockas. Had to drop my partner and go and park the car. They were pretty quick in getting the tablets to her and a rehydration icy pole. In 20 minutes we were right to go home. A friend who had cooked dinner for us had not been able to collect our son from basketball. I set off to find him bouncing in the dark at the local high school gym. We had tea and went to bed.
She is good this morning. Up early while I write this and making breakfast for herself.

Green tea facts from a 5th Year Cancer Survivor

I became interested in green tea after reading "Foods thet Fight Cancer" written by 2 Canadian cancer researchers, Richard Beliveau and Denis Gingras. According to them it is the catechins in tea which are responsible for the effect. The tea with the highest concentration of catechins is Japanese Sencha which can have up to 5 times the amount of other green teas. I buy mine online from a shop in Brisbane but I think there is a good tea shop in Hobart you could it at. The rolls royce of Sencha teas is Senca Uchiyama or Gyokuro.

The researchers recommend brewing for 8-10 minutes. Anything under 5 minutes results in only 20% of the extraction of catechins. A short brew of an inferior tea can result in 60% less catechins.

Op Recovery and Oncology Planning

The saturday after getting the results we got the ok to go home from hospital. The discharge was a bit premature and we waited for services to catch up with us. We went and saw my partners GP who helped to assist this happening. My partner was readmitted to the hospital so that she could get to see speech pathology, oncologists and so forth. Her sister who is a nurse was down that week to help care for her. My partner was being weaned off Dexamethasone. The amounts weren't enough, she needed ongoing supplies to reduce fluid around where the tumour had been. After a lot of meetings with hospital staff, not eating she returned home. My sister in law and my partner had been home for 10 minutes when my partner had a minor sezuire. My sister in law called the ambulance and my partner was back to hospital.

Post OP

The operation was successful. There was good delineation between the tumour and the surrounding brain tissue. We drew breaths of relief.

But the worst thing about Post OP is waiting for results to come back from Pathology, not the operation itself. It was like waiting for days for exam results that you know are going to be crap. We kept optimistic and positive all the way through. Living for the moment.

My son, mother, partner and I all waited on the last day for the doctors to provide results. It was a Friday and the doctors had meetings all day. They wanted to wait until I was there so that they could tell us the bad news. I just missed them by 5 minutes. We started waiting in the morning at the hospital at around 10. It wasn't until 4 that we got the results that the tumour was a malignant glioblastome multiforme grade IV.

D-Day - Diagnosis Day

We waited in casualty for around 3 hours until she was admitted. An intern checked her up and saw that something neurological was amiss. She had a CT scan and the tumour was revealed.

Final Days before Diagnosis

I had phone calls with her friend in Brisbane and her sister in Sydney. They both thought she may have had a mild stroke and that I should get her to a doctor. I had her booked in to see her GP the following Tuesday. Having a break and seeing her on Saturday night on her return really got me going. Following her sister and friends assumptions I did a bit of searching on the net and found some information about adexia which fitted with the inability she had to read. More and more symptoms seemed to point to a minor stroke the further I searched. This was early Sunday morning. It was these factors that made me decide we were going to sit in casualty until we finally got an idea of what the hell was going on.

Easter Holiday

My partner had booked to go for a holiday up the east coast of Australia. We weren't sure that in her condition she should go. In the end we decided she should. The break might do her good. She headed off with a friend up to a yoga retreat north of Sydney for a few days, then onto Brisbane to see another and back down to Sydney to stay with her sister who is a nurse.