My CT scan on 9th January was positive! No growth, no spread and even a little bit of shrinkage in the lung! Happy days right? Well yea and no. Yes because that's amazing news but in real life I'm struggling still with the fluid in my stomach. You see the cancer that's in the stomach is in the form of 'fat stranding' and as long as it's there it's going to attract fluid.
We humans have a small amount of fluid in the peritoneum (the lining of the abdominal cavity) naturally, but in some disease processes the fluid accumulates here and is called ascites. Mine was so significant I was continually mistaken for being pregnant! No baby in there love, just a few litres of fluid!!
Anyway the frequency of me having to go into hospital to have this drained was becoming shorter and shorter and so I knew it wouldn't be long until I had to resign myself to the fact I needed a more permanent or long term solution. Me and Mark had a trip to Barbados before I had to make the decision. It was an amazing week with lots of sunshine! Again I was continually mistaken for being pregnant, but I did score a seat on the bus every time so, you know, every cloud 😂 then back to blighty and back to the decision to go ahead with the long term drain.
In steps Doris! Doris is the affectionate name I've given my new piece of plastic! I went into hospital on 12th February and had Doris fitted. She's nee bother so far, and I'm sure this will be a better solution than having hospital visits every few weeks. So Doris is basically a tube that sits in the pocket of fluid inside my body and then has a port outside my body where I can attach a bag or bottle to every few days and drain the fluid that's there. When not in use she's coiled up covered in plastic waiting to be of use again! Like I said, nee bother!
It's going to take a few weeks for it to settle in and so we are just going to give it time. Get back onto treatment this week and next CT scan is the 20th Feb. Then we will see :-)
