Sleeping on steroids, a new treatment (March 12)

 Due to overwhelming popular demand, another cancer update!

I am home with Fi and the girls now and have been for about a week, following a time with my dad, following a time at RNSH hospital, following emergency surgery after the cancer perforated my bowel, which is every bit as painful as it sounds. But I woke up feeling a lot better and after ten days in hospital my dad took me not home, but to his place, whilst two daughters tag-teamed COVID and the family spent time in isolation, while I isolated from them.

My dad took great care of me and I spent a good deal of time sleeping, or vaguely watching a survival series called 'Alone', where intrepid individuals doing their own camera work are dropped into some serious wilderness and left to fend for themselves in cold, wet, and frequently miserable conditions along with wolves, bears, and cougars. A bit like me, really, except without the predators, and I had hospital care, and with my dad then looking after me and providing lobster, prawns, steak, pork fillet, stir fry and whatever else he decided to cook up for the night. But hey, Sydney has been cold and wet hasn't it? And I was alone in my room, so I did sympathise with those poor survivalists.

Alone... o ja ...

OK it wasn't so lonely as all that, but I was surprised (after doing pretty well in hospital, including being able to walk around and keep working) that I was so worn out for so long. Yes it was major surgery, and I now have a scar to compare to Fiona's caesarean scar, along with other accoutrements of the procedure (colostomy bags, anyone?) and a collection of drugs that just keeps accumulating, despite my best efforts to consume them. 

A new treatment

And now I'm home, propped up by sleep and steroids and the loving care of Fiona and daughters. That's nice! I even managed to preach at church about two weeks ago, want to see? Here's the link, go to 33min 30sec for the reading, followed by me preaching on 1 Thessalonians 2.

It's about warm family relationships, amongst other more important questions. And it gets a bit rambly. But hopefully in a fun and helpful way.

Back to the new treatment. They can't give me chemotherapy straight away, if they do it not only attacks the remaining cancer but (to a lesser extent) the rest of the body, which is not so good for healing of surgery-induced wounds. But in the providence of God, a therapy targeted specifically towards the sub-type (actually mutation, look up BRAF) of colorectal cancer that I have has come available. This therapy was, until January this year, extremely expensive, c. $6000 a month. Now, courtesy of the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, it comes at no cost to me, and is potentially a better way of tackling the cancer than chemotherapy. If you want to get the medical and nerdy details of this therapy, it's called BRAFTOVI, and here it all is (or at least, a good starting point).

Yes there are side-effects, especially I've had a fair bit of nausea. And I'm still very tired and run out of energy easily. Steroids help with nausea and as a nice side-effect, they kick-start my brain into the action needed to do a bit of work. But there is a fair bit of time spent walking extremely slowly, sitting slumped and sleepy, or just lying down. 

Update March 13: Oh boy, did I get sick yesterday! Painful nausea from the BRAFTOVI therapy (I think that's what was going on) and straight into RNSH hospital where I remain. Not sure what happens now, but it was not a fun night.