Back for more...

I'm picking up this blog again because last Friday morning I was told that my cancer has returned.
As I'm sure you can imagine as a family we are all devastated to hear this and it seems as though the nightmare that has haunted us for the last three years has become a reality!
I've been suffering with the symptoms of an ongoing ear infection since last August and have gone deaf on my left side. Following a few courses of anti-biotics and lots of meetings with my head and neck/ENT doctors at the hospital it was decided I should have an MRI scan to see if radiotherapy damage was the cause of the infection not being able to clear. The MRI showed "an area of concern" in the back of my nasal space. Looking back, the tone of the conversations was very different. Usually there was a quirky optimism when talking to the cancer docs... but that had been replaced with a terrifying seriousness. The biopsy that followed confirmed that the Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma had returned, small... but in the same place as before. So... now what? More tests, more scans, more waiting. We are having to go over to Dorset on Wednesday for a full body scan. This more detailed scan is to see if the cancer has spread and will determine the treatment pathway. I'm completely guilty of doing the thing that you are not supposed to do in this situation... research! I'm not talking Wikipedia, but current medical journals and other trusted sources. From what I have found and confirmed as true with the doctors this type of cancer's return presents a "clinical dilemma" in that it becomes a lot less responsive to the standard treatment I had before and surgical removal is virtually impossible due to its location and the surrounding structures i.e brain, nerves and arteries. While this 'research' can empower and arm you with the relevant facts it can also scare the crap out of you! I could start throwing statistics and percentages about, but they are even more depressing. The crux is that  as NPC is very 'curable' first time around, recurrence seems to be a very different matter thanks to the many hazards and difficulties associated with ongoing chemo and Radio Theraphy and the resistance to this treatment that the tumors second appearance offers. However... the doctors really seem to be 'on it'. They have said that they are 'throwing the net wide' in that they are talking to specialist teams at The Royal Marsden in London and have said that it is likely that some of the treatment I need is not available here in the South West or even in the UK, but that's jumping ahead a little in that they still need Wednesdays scan to see the whole picture.
We broke the news to the kids yesterday who dealt with it well it seems, but we are keeping a close eye on them. Even though its early days I've hated the impact the stress and worry has had on us as a family. I've had to drop out of a new teaching job, close my online shop down and the surf contest I had spent 6 months organising wasn't that enjoyable as I was pretty much numb with worry to the point that I could barely surf following the shock of the original scan results. Its been a testing time and we know its only just begun. That said, support from friends and family has been overwhelming and reassuring in equal measure. It doesn't make it that much easier, but we keep telling ourselves we have been here before, we know what's involved and as I said to a good friend yesterday it's not a battle, its not a fight... it's a ride. I think Bill Hicks might have influenced that statement a little.
I realise that writing a blog like this might seem like the usual attention seeking behavior we are all guilty of from time to time, but I genuinely find that it helps me a lot to be able to express what's going on. It proved useful last time as a distraction for me and an efficient, energy saving way of keeping those who want to know what's going on in the loop. I hope these first few paragraphs give some idea as to what we know so far. C