The Cortisol Diaries

Today is pretty much a year to the day that I was told I had a tumour. One of the more unforgettable moments of my life, being ambushed with this news in a small urologist’s office and not truly knowing the year ahead of my I had ahead of me. Six rounds of brutal chemo. An operation which has made the right side of my body a lot hollower than the left (although I’d be disappointed if none of my friends make a joke about me not having a heart). The natural hormones in my body replaced by ones i consume in pills or take via creams. Multiple unplanned hospital visits which were always a lot more serious than they seemed at the time. A needle stuck in my arm well over 100 times for either routine blood taking, semi regular intravenous infusions, or irregular blood transfusions. Dramatic changes to my body – some temporary, some permanent. A mental assault that started that day and has had its ups and downs since. And loads of other side effects, such as the smell of pizza making me feel il...

A wonderful day with some of my wonderful friends.  I have had a great couple of weeks. I’ve attended two brilliant weddings in beautiful settings, listened to the music in the sun whilst it’s been out, and started to feel like I was getting back into the routine of work and normal life. These events bookended the unfortunate news from my previous CT scan which showed that there were signs cancer was present. No 15cm behemoths this time – lots of little tumours in my lungs and the lymph node in that area, the largest being 1.5cm. it was unclear whether or not this was a recurrence or a continuation of the growth of the tumours in the lung, although it was probable the former as it was in more sights. Chemo and then surgery was the proposed solution, but it was arranged that I have a PET scan to follow up as this give more of an indication of the disease spread. The results this afternoon confirmed that not only was the cancer back in my lungs, but probably more than origina...

Fun on the M40 I know I keep saying this but I really will try and get better at updating this. I’m currently turning out blogs only slightly more often than George RR Martin is with his books, and they aren’t nearly as exciting without the sex and dragons. Anyway, picking up where I left off… For probably about 2 months after surgery I was not in a good state. Although the surgery was successful my hormone levels were all over the place and it is pretty much trial and error – if I’m taking the wrong dosages, then my body tends to just give up and I end up being rushed back into the ward. The first time this happened was within a week of being discharged. At first, I was on the up. I was walking more often, leaving the house and increasing how far I could walk by a couple of dozen meters each day. My wound was healing nicely, I was eating better, and my blood results weren’t awful. I even came off the painkillers within a few days, as I’ve watched too many programmes abo...