The Cortisol Diaries

I turned the grand old age of 31 on Friday and celebrated it in typical 31-year-old fashion by going to a museum in the day followed by a nice meal in the evening. I can’t say I’m unhappy with how low key it was - it was an ideal day. I have to accept my age and who wants to go out in their 30’s and get smashed to start another year? Exactly. The thought of the hangover is enough to make me want an early night. Heston's best I was busy on the weekend as my mum was visiting but I thought for a late birthday event, I’d do something different. I was searching around activities in London and thought it would be nice to do something a little bit different and help out in the community and I found ... wait for it ... tree planting. What better way to spend a Saturday morning than with my mates, possibly in the rain, getting a bit muddy and off-setting some carbon, right? It’s hard to arrange a one-off event unless you are a corporation and I am yet to reach that level o...

This was written with the intention to be posted at the start of August, I just didn't get around to it. So transport yourself back to those hot (I think?) summer days... Looking back I'm not quite sure why we all swapped clothes The rest of the second cycle was uneventful, keeping myself busy and doing the usual but also finding myself more anxious about the up and coming scan. My bad feeling this time seems to have been well founded. The results showed that there was a new growth on the lymph node near my  esophagus  and slight growths on the tumours already in my lungs and surgical bed. They also lit up more in the PET CT scan, indicating that they are slightly more aggressive than before in regards to how quickly the cells divide and how the cancer spreads. I can’t remember how much information I’ve given about the situation before so here is the lowdown. Other than surgery, there was only one approved treatment line offered by my hospital and which is agreed by...

Note: I genuinely didn’t plan to have this as a follow up blog to the last one just so I could complete the Grease reference in the title. It’s worked out perfectly though so I’m going to take full advantage. When someone posts a blog in the middle of the night you know its unlikely to be particularly positive. I can’t sleep but I’m too tired to do anything useful so I’m kind of hoping this is cathartic. The second round of chemo (or eighth, depending on how you look at it) went as well as any so far. The days I spent in the hospital were not any longer than they needed to be, the nurses were excellent, I’m feeling very few side effects and had a weird amount of energy for the weekend. I spent Saturday in Hyde Park sat outside the festival listening to The National as the sun set which was idyllic, and then Sunday watching the best game of cricket ever and my man Novak somehow scraping a win in the tennis. This week, though, has been very different. Not so much in terms o...

When the nurses found out I was back in for more chemo a look of fear washed over their faces. They insisted I needed a port inserted into my chest because my veins are now less than useless for putting anything into. In what was the strangest operation I’ve had so far, I was put under some very strong local anaesthetic. Any time someone talked to me I could answer clearly and I could move on command. Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what happened during the op, and then fell into a blissful sleep. I woke up very confused about what had happened in the last few hours and with yet another wound on the right side of my body. It reminded me a little bit too much of my nights out in my early 20’s. Other than that, it was my smoothest round of chemo so far. I have had very limited side effects, the main one – as ever – being fatigue. I countered this by following my doctors’ advice and staying active: walking as much as possible and smashing my mates at table tennis after kickin...

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...