One dragon slayed

Yesterday we had the call back appointment with Jase’s surgeon. They are confident that the tumour (a type 3 tumour – anyone know what that means? – just googled it, wished I hadn’t!) was contained within his left kidney and so it is all gone!!! They are happy with his recovery, and have said he can drive when ever he is ready. So, Dragons 0 Robinsons 1!

Our next battle approaches. Jase has been transferred to an oncology consultant, and we await *sigh* the appointment, followed by another scan in May to look at the two enlarged lymph nodes around his aorta, and then chemo starting after that.

So it looks like we need to put the next dragon in a box for a bit, get on with our lives, and make sure he is fit for the fight.

Teengirl is also going through it this week, with four one hour English controlled assessments, two teeth extractions, her grade 4 piano exam, a netball tournament, her brace fitting and a piano recital.

We are looking forward to the holidays already!

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Today is a gift

Without getting too ‘ya know’ about it, today is a gift. Every day is a gift. All of us only have a finite number of breaths that we will share with each of the people we love.

Today Jase’s Dad arrived to see us, and it has been lovely to have him here. After tea and birthday cake this morning (he was 70 last week), Jase and smallboy took him off fishing with best friend of smallboy. They arrived home much later, cold, happy and with 20 small fishes caught and released (plus one mega carp). Teengirl was at work today, earning money towards her current goal – a small furry pet I think, or maybe a motorbike, it changes. Me? well no one asked how my day was actually, haha I sound SO needy! But just in case you were wondering, I cursed and swore my way around housework which no one would do but me, and no one will notice until I don’t do it. Ha ha, such is life!

So, my gift today? So many actually, small boys (young and old) fresh faced and smelling of the outdoors tumbling over their stories of gigantean fish touched but not landed, teengirl keen for a hug and wanting to share ridiculous laughs, my life’s love enveloping me with his arms and a tender kiss, a house ready to be muddied and muddled, a fridge full of good things ready to make a meal for the people I love, and a small battle won in the doctors surgery to get Mr R the medication he needed today and not tomorrow. I was invincible and triumphant.

There is so little we really need, this house would do us, night all xxx

Consultant appointment

Just a quick medical update from yesterday. So, we saw Jase’s surgeon and got a date for the operation, 18th Feb. He gave us a lot of information, which I hope I get correct here. There is more than one type of kidney tumour. They talked to us about two types – one affects the kidney tissue itself (renal tumour), the other affects the lining of the kidney (this might have been called transitional, but don’t quote me). Last week, they thought that Jason had the later, which is why they were also talking about taking out his urethra on the left site, as the lining is contiguous with the kidney lining. Now they think it is more like to be the renal type, so the operation is more straightforward, shorter, and with a 9/10 change of being done as key hole surgery – harrah!!! and a smaller chance of spreading elsewhere – double harrah!!! If a slot on a list comes up the week before, they will put him onto that – triple harrah!!!

Once the kidney is out, it goes off to be inspected, and then the following week, we get to find out what the next steps are. Right now we have enough steps to be going on with.

They have also found that there are two enlarged lymph nodes close to the kidney, and in an ideal world, they would remove these at the same time, but this might not be possible and so might lead to additional post surgery treatment or further surgery.

So there we go, what amazed me was how exhausted we both were by the time we got home. Another 9pm lights out at Robinson Towers – this is just not normal!!! Take care all, and thank you for all your lovely messages xxx

How did this happen?

How did this happen? I’m writing this post mainly just as a record of what did happen to get us to Wednesday 21st January 2015. Jase went into primary care on Sunday morning, not being able to wee. He was admitted to an assessment ward that afternoon (no spaces on the urology ward) and catheterised. By the time we were able to visit, he was in an increasing amount of pain, by 7pm he was on 2-hourly liquid morphine. This continued through the night, I have never seen anyone in so much pain before. Monday he was still on the assessment ward, having ongoing ‘tube related’ procedures all to do with the amount of bleeding and clots forming in his bladder. Tuesday brought a move to urology and the long awaited cat scan. His pain seemed more under control. There is a lot of waiting. Wednesday, this part is really hard to write, Jase called me at about 1pm, telling me the news that he had cancer and he needed to have his kidney removed. I then drove to the hospital, went and found him in a treatment room with the registrar and Jenny the (his) specialist cancer nurse. The rest, as they say, is history. We were told that there would be a meeting of the specialist surgeons on Friday 23rd January, and that there would be a treatment planning meeting the following week. That’s all we know.