A Nervous Wait

Today's appointment was not as revealing as I may have hoped but it did clarify some important issues.

Nothing can be decided until I have had another CT Scan. That will take place before the Marsden have their weekly "MDT" (Multi-Disciplinary Team) meeting on Friday afternoon.  My case will be discussed then and an pathway forward will be established.

The CT scan will reveal if any secondary cancer has developed.  If that were the case then treatment will be palliative rather than cure focused.  The same might be said if the tumour has grown significantly since the chemotherapy finished and the last CT scan was taken on 3rd June.

Assuming that the tumour is still local and hasn't grown too much there will still be the objective of operating to completely remove the cancer. One of the following treatments will then be employed

1. More chemotherapy
2. A combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy
3. Surgery  

Option 1 may be more of the same chemotherapy as before or it may be varied.
Option 2 would represent the need for more aggressive treatment to get the cancer under control
Option 3 would mean that the oncology team had discussed the situation with the surgeon and it has been decided that operating now is viable.

The point about option 3 is that the oncology team do seem to have a higher opinion of how successful the chemotherapy has been than the surgeon has.