In December, after half a year on sick leave, I felt the need for a little change in my life. I discussed the possibility of returning to active work life with both the doctor at the hospital and the doctor and my manager at work. All parties were very positive and supported the idea. We decided I will do 60% for a three months period, from January until end of March. Then we'll review with the doctors my health situation and decide how to continue.
As we're approaching February it means I've been close to a month at work already. It has actually been a very good experience. There are lots of nice people there and I've got some interesting stuff to do. Hopefully I'll be able to continue working after this three months period is over.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
The dog
I had an incident with the car. Some friends of ours from Norway visited us a this weekend. On Friday afternoon I picked them up from the hotel they stayed in and headed back to our place. We drove through a residential area where speed limit was 50 km/h. It was dark and the roads were icy. Out from nowhere came a small dog and ran straight into the road in front of us. We heard a bang as if we had driven into a large chunk of ice. It happened so fast I didn't even manage to hit the break before the impact.
I parked on a side street and ran back to find a woman, the dog owner apparently, lying on the road and crying. She was holding tightly onto the dog. The dog was surprisingly alive but didn't move and was bleeding from one eye and looked at me with the other. I felt horrible and didn't really know what to say.
There were some people around desperately trying to find a phone number to an animal clinic. They asked me and I replied I had no clue if even such exists in town. I said I was sorry for what happened but that there was nothing I could have done. There was a man there who seemed to be part of the family. After a short while he had found the address to the clinic and went to get his car. I got his phone number and they drove off.
Later on in the evening I contacted him. He said the dog was still alive and that the doctor had fixed him up. I didn't quite get all what they had had to do, but some bones were broken and the dog had taken a hit to the head. If it gets away with it it is a very lucky dog all in all. He asked if the car was damaged but I said that didn't matter. I will probably contact him again later this week to see how the dog is doing. My wife suggested we'd buy the dog owners something. I suggested a dog chain. That was a (bad) joke naturally.
I parked on a side street and ran back to find a woman, the dog owner apparently, lying on the road and crying. She was holding tightly onto the dog. The dog was surprisingly alive but didn't move and was bleeding from one eye and looked at me with the other. I felt horrible and didn't really know what to say.
There were some people around desperately trying to find a phone number to an animal clinic. They asked me and I replied I had no clue if even such exists in town. I said I was sorry for what happened but that there was nothing I could have done. There was a man there who seemed to be part of the family. After a short while he had found the address to the clinic and went to get his car. I got his phone number and they drove off.
Later on in the evening I contacted him. He said the dog was still alive and that the doctor had fixed him up. I didn't quite get all what they had had to do, but some bones were broken and the dog had taken a hit to the head. If it gets away with it it is a very lucky dog all in all. He asked if the car was damaged but I said that didn't matter. I will probably contact him again later this week to see how the dog is doing. My wife suggested we'd buy the dog owners something. I suggested a dog chain. That was a (bad) joke naturally.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Ninth round
Today we had another doctor's appointment and afterwards I started the ninth round of chemotherapy. Surprise, we were called in by yet another doctor we haven't met before. She was quite young and said all decisions are made by the senior doctor that we were told last time would become our fixed doctor. This appointment was obviously considered a routine follow-up that the junior doctor could easily handle. Well, she did handle it well, but there wasn't any new info really. Only the standard blood tests were taken last Friday and all values are still pretty much the same they have been since July. That's good, as usually they of course tend to get worse during chemotherapy.
My wife had as usual a long list of questions. Some of them were so tricky the junior doctor said we'd better ask the senior doctor. My wife asked when does the surgeon look at the CT scan pictures to see if a resection or radio frequency ablation of the liver tumours would be possible. The doctor replied that the senior doctor goes to surgeons' meetings and brings forth cases as he sees fit. We'll put this down on our questions list for next appointment as we expect to see our fixed doctor again then.
The senior doctor had confirmed before the meeting that we will continue with the same medication this round. However, we had an interesting discussion regarding one of the medicines, oxaliplatin (Eloxatin). The doctor told us that the long-term side effect, namely neuropathy (loosing feeling in fingers and feet) from oxaliplatin, tends to start getting worse from eight or ninth round of chemo, and they then need to consider if they should stop that chemo so that the damage to the nerves does not get bad. I have increasingly had the problem of numbness in my fingers, and I got my ninth round of chemo today. They may have to drop oxaliplatin soon. The doctor said that then they will continue with capesitabin (Xeloda) and Avastin only. They are effective drugs by themselves too, but of course they would then monitor if the tumours would start growing again, in which case they would add some other chemo to the treatment.
The next treatment is three weeks from now. Five weeks from there, on February 16th, there will be a CT scan. Until then there will not be very exciting news I am afraid.
My wife had as usual a long list of questions. Some of them were so tricky the junior doctor said we'd better ask the senior doctor. My wife asked when does the surgeon look at the CT scan pictures to see if a resection or radio frequency ablation of the liver tumours would be possible. The doctor replied that the senior doctor goes to surgeons' meetings and brings forth cases as he sees fit. We'll put this down on our questions list for next appointment as we expect to see our fixed doctor again then.
The senior doctor had confirmed before the meeting that we will continue with the same medication this round. However, we had an interesting discussion regarding one of the medicines, oxaliplatin (Eloxatin). The doctor told us that the long-term side effect, namely neuropathy (loosing feeling in fingers and feet) from oxaliplatin, tends to start getting worse from eight or ninth round of chemo, and they then need to consider if they should stop that chemo so that the damage to the nerves does not get bad. I have increasingly had the problem of numbness in my fingers, and I got my ninth round of chemo today. They may have to drop oxaliplatin soon. The doctor said that then they will continue with capesitabin (Xeloda) and Avastin only. They are effective drugs by themselves too, but of course they would then monitor if the tumours would start growing again, in which case they would add some other chemo to the treatment.
The next treatment is three weeks from now. Five weeks from there, on February 16th, there will be a CT scan. Until then there will not be very exciting news I am afraid.
Beat it!
A group of friends of ours got fed up with our inability to respond to their offers of help. They designed a t-shirt that people who know us and want to "support our cause" could get. To be frank, we felt a bit embarrassed about the entire thing at first but we also understood that this way people could feel like they are contributing. We probably would have felt the same if we'd been in the same situation. The shirt was going to look like a sports t-shirt so our friends asked for some input what number they could put on it. I gave them the magic number 20. They put in addition the text "Beat it!" on the shirt.
Just before Christmas two of our friends stopped by our home to tell us how many people had gotten the shirt, and to show us photos of people wearing the shirt. We were astonished. We had not realised how many friends we have and how many people my story had touched. We also got a list of e-mail addresses of everyone and we sent out a thank-you mail nd Christmas wishes to everyone. Many had been wondering about the number on the shirt and this is what we wrote about the magic number 20:
Well, it's simply the number the Norwegian footballer Ole Gunnar Solskjær played with during his many seasons in Manchester United. He's probably the most successful Norwegian footballer ever. So thank you for supporting Norwegian football! :o) Well, there's something more to the story. Ole Gunnar was a great football player but turned more into a second choice for the manager Alex Ferguson. However, he never ever complained and always tried to make the best out of the situation. In fact, he became very good at coming in at the end of games to make last minute goals. This positive attitude and "try to make the best out of it" are then two issues that are important to me as well at the moment.
Just before Christmas two of our friends stopped by our home to tell us how many people had gotten the shirt, and to show us photos of people wearing the shirt. We were astonished. We had not realised how many friends we have and how many people my story had touched. We also got a list of e-mail addresses of everyone and we sent out a thank-you mail nd Christmas wishes to everyone. Many had been wondering about the number on the shirt and this is what we wrote about the magic number 20:
Well, it's simply the number the Norwegian footballer Ole Gunnar Solskjær played with during his many seasons in Manchester United. He's probably the most successful Norwegian footballer ever. So thank you for supporting Norwegian football! :o) Well, there's something more to the story. Ole Gunnar was a great football player but turned more into a second choice for the manager Alex Ferguson. However, he never ever complained and always tried to make the best out of the situation. In fact, he became very good at coming in at the end of games to make last minute goals. This positive attitude and "try to make the best out of it" are then two issues that are important to me as well at the moment.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Emergency visit at the hospital
We have had various rounds of flu running in the family the last months. Against all odds it has hit everyone else except me. That is until a week ago when I came down with a sore throat and running nose, and a pretty bad cough.
On Monday evening this week I got some fever and had to call the hospital to ask for advice. They have instructed me to contact them if I'd get fever higher than 38 degrees. I was told to check in at the hospital immediately.
I went to the hospital's emergency room and the doctors ran lots of different tests and concluded it most likely was a virus infection. I had chest and sinus X-rays and all was fine. I got antibiotics intravenously and had to stay the night over at the cancer ward. It was a rather sleepless night with diarrhea and vomiting. At home my wife had come down with exactly the same stuff. While she had to manage on her own I was surrounded by doctors and nurses running one test after another. Luckily, in-laws stepped in to help with the kids on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning my stomach had calmed down but I still had fever. The doctor said they still needed to find out exactly which virus(s) we were fighting against but the intravenous antibiotics treatment seemed to work as the level of infection in my blood was declining. I was told I may get home today (Wednesday).
This morning the doctor popped in to say that test and blood values all looked good, but as I still had over 38 degrees fever I was not allowed home until tomorrow. It seems they take a regular flu pretty seriously here at the cancer ward.
This evening a friend of mine visited me at the hospital and we played a few rounds of backgammon. That was a nice break from the many poor shows that run on TV.
On Monday evening this week I got some fever and had to call the hospital to ask for advice. They have instructed me to contact them if I'd get fever higher than 38 degrees. I was told to check in at the hospital immediately.
I went to the hospital's emergency room and the doctors ran lots of different tests and concluded it most likely was a virus infection. I had chest and sinus X-rays and all was fine. I got antibiotics intravenously and had to stay the night over at the cancer ward. It was a rather sleepless night with diarrhea and vomiting. At home my wife had come down with exactly the same stuff. While she had to manage on her own I was surrounded by doctors and nurses running one test after another. Luckily, in-laws stepped in to help with the kids on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning my stomach had calmed down but I still had fever. The doctor said they still needed to find out exactly which virus(s) we were fighting against but the intravenous antibiotics treatment seemed to work as the level of infection in my blood was declining. I was told I may get home today (Wednesday).
This morning the doctor popped in to say that test and blood values all looked good, but as I still had over 38 degrees fever I was not allowed home until tomorrow. It seems they take a regular flu pretty seriously here at the cancer ward.
This evening a friend of mine visited me at the hospital and we played a few rounds of backgammon. That was a nice break from the many poor shows that run on TV.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Results of the November CT scan
On Monday morning we had another exciting meeting with a doctor at the hospital. For the first time after my diagnosis we met a doctor we have met once before. He's a very nice guy and also very knowlegdable in his field. He is actually this one doctor that attended the Nordic conference in September. I was a bit nervous again when walking into his office. Was the fact that they had scheduled me for meeting this particular doctor a good or a bad sign?
He started off quickly saying the results of the scan were good and that the tumours in the liver and in the surrounding lymph nodes had shrunk further compared to the scan in September. This means the drugs I'm on are still effective and will be continued for three more rounds until next CT scan in January. Mr. Big was now down to 7,2 cm x 5,0 cm compared to 8 cm x 5,2 cm in September. I was at first a bit dissapointed hearing the measures as I expected the shrinkage to be much more, especially taking into account the dramatic drop in the CEA value. When we discussed more about this I realised it is not that straightforward as that of course. Our understanding about what he explained is that the bigger tumours in the liver have more connective tissue in them, supporting the structure of the tumour. These are not cancer cells so they won't be destroyed by chemo. The doctor, anyway, emphasized not to worry to much about the measures but focus on the direction which is still good. I figured I should maybe be happy with this as the doctor said these are good news. I may write more details about the discussion and CT results later.
I spent the next four and a half hours in a hospital bed getting the seventh round of IV. They're putting the drugs in faster now. There was a guy in the neighbour bed who was starting his third round. I felt like a senior "drug addict".
Winter has come to Tampere. Lots of snow and exciting days for the kids. We've been on skis and sledge every day.
He started off quickly saying the results of the scan were good and that the tumours in the liver and in the surrounding lymph nodes had shrunk further compared to the scan in September. This means the drugs I'm on are still effective and will be continued for three more rounds until next CT scan in January. Mr. Big was now down to 7,2 cm x 5,0 cm compared to 8 cm x 5,2 cm in September. I was at first a bit dissapointed hearing the measures as I expected the shrinkage to be much more, especially taking into account the dramatic drop in the CEA value. When we discussed more about this I realised it is not that straightforward as that of course. Our understanding about what he explained is that the bigger tumours in the liver have more connective tissue in them, supporting the structure of the tumour. These are not cancer cells so they won't be destroyed by chemo. The doctor, anyway, emphasized not to worry to much about the measures but focus on the direction which is still good. I figured I should maybe be happy with this as the doctor said these are good news. I may write more details about the discussion and CT results later.
I spent the next four and a half hours in a hospital bed getting the seventh round of IV. They're putting the drugs in faster now. There was a guy in the neighbour bed who was starting his third round. I felt like a senior "drug addict".
Winter has come to Tampere. Lots of snow and exciting days for the kids. We've been on skis and sledge every day.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Riga
A childhood friend of mine from Norway paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago. We have a common passion for playing backgammon. It's a game with a good mix of luck and skill. We spent most of the time in cafes downtown Tampere drinking coffee and battling for the points of the game.
While my friend was visiting us our younger son became ill with what we first thought was a common flu. When we phoned a nurse he said that it sounds like hand foot & mouth disease, there's an epidemic around in Finland. It is a very common children's viral infection where you usually get blisters in your mouth and throat. That explained why he started crying every time he tried to eat! Other than that the disease luckily usually goes over quite fast, but it is very infectious. Our older kid got it on Wednesday. And my wife on Thursday. And I, who was told to be very careful with all kinds of infectious diseases, as with chemo I would have less resistance to infections, didn't get it.
Last weekend my wife and I jumped on a short trip to Riga in Latvia and left the kids home with grand-parents. The old town of Riga is pretty nice with a lot of good restaurants and cafes. We tried out a bit of the local cuisine. One evening we had an exciting dinner in Salve, a restaurant with real Latvian food. We also found some interesting and cheap self-service places where we had lunches, "Sefpavars Vilhelms" served a variety of pancakes and Pelmeni XL served the famous Russian pelmeni.
The weather wasn't too good though. On Sunday we visited the Saint Peter's church which has a tower with a nice view. The only way up (and down) is with an elevator operated by an elevator chauffeur. There was a sign next to the door saying the elevator only runs every 10 minutes. When we got out on top of the tower it was so windy and rainy that people just wanted to get back down. The chauffeur showed no mercy and the elevator was back 10 long minutes later.
On Thursday I had the CT scan. Tomorrow morning I'm off to the hospital to hear the results of the scan and start a new round of chemotherapy.
While my friend was visiting us our younger son became ill with what we first thought was a common flu. When we phoned a nurse he said that it sounds like hand foot & mouth disease, there's an epidemic around in Finland. It is a very common children's viral infection where you usually get blisters in your mouth and throat. That explained why he started crying every time he tried to eat! Other than that the disease luckily usually goes over quite fast, but it is very infectious. Our older kid got it on Wednesday. And my wife on Thursday. And I, who was told to be very careful with all kinds of infectious diseases, as with chemo I would have less resistance to infections, didn't get it.
Last weekend my wife and I jumped on a short trip to Riga in Latvia and left the kids home with grand-parents. The old town of Riga is pretty nice with a lot of good restaurants and cafes. We tried out a bit of the local cuisine. One evening we had an exciting dinner in Salve, a restaurant with real Latvian food. We also found some interesting and cheap self-service places where we had lunches, "Sefpavars Vilhelms" served a variety of pancakes and Pelmeni XL served the famous Russian pelmeni.The weather wasn't too good though. On Sunday we visited the Saint Peter's church which has a tower with a nice view. The only way up (and down) is with an elevator operated by an elevator chauffeur. There was a sign next to the door saying the elevator only runs every 10 minutes. When we got out on top of the tower it was so windy and rainy that people just wanted to get back down. The chauffeur showed no mercy and the elevator was back 10 long minutes later.
On Thursday I had the CT scan. Tomorrow morning I'm off to the hospital to hear the results of the scan and start a new round of chemotherapy.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Home renovations
Lately I've spent some time at home doing renovations that we have kept on postponing for years. We'd like to have the walls of the entrance and hall areas painted. I spent quite some time ripping off the old wallpapers. Then we discovered some damp or possible water damage in a concrete wall. We had to call in some professionals to have it checked. The professional did some measurements and concluded the wall is fine and that the damp must come from the floor. More investigations and measurements are needed so the painting project is on hold.
We started a toilet renovation project instead. I took out the old furniture from one of our two toilets and installed new furniture. I needed to drill quite a few holes in a tough concrete wall so I borrowed a really good drill from a neighbour. The drilling went smooth. Maybe too smooth as my wife discovered the following day I had drilled straight through the wall and decorated the wall in the opposite room with huge holes. Great, now I need to rip off the wallpaper on that wall, fill the holes and put wallpaper back on.
We also want to change some old closets in the apartment. Finding the right balance between solution and price is pretty time consuming. At least for us. Then the challenge of finding time to visit stores with two kids in the family.
We're thinking of outsourcing the hall painting project to ensure that at least something gets done before Christmas.
We started a toilet renovation project instead. I took out the old furniture from one of our two toilets and installed new furniture. I needed to drill quite a few holes in a tough concrete wall so I borrowed a really good drill from a neighbour. The drilling went smooth. Maybe too smooth as my wife discovered the following day I had drilled straight through the wall and decorated the wall in the opposite room with huge holes. Great, now I need to rip off the wallpaper on that wall, fill the holes and put wallpaper back on.
We also want to change some old closets in the apartment. Finding the right balance between solution and price is pretty time consuming. At least for us. Then the challenge of finding time to visit stores with two kids in the family.
We're thinking of outsourcing the hall painting project to ensure that at least something gets done before Christmas.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Round six
I was in at hospital again today to start the sixth round of treatments. We had first the doctor's appointment in the morning. Again, a new doctor. We went through the blood values as usual. They were all fine, some slightly outside the range but still normal for cancer patients. There was a surprise. The value of the CEA marker had dropped from 3482.0 at the end of August to 228.3! That's pretty good news. The doctor wouldn't speculate what this means for the size of the tumours. The next CT scan is scheduled in three weeks and will tell the facts. The CT scan will be a routine full body scan to check if there's any cancer elsewhere than in the stomach region.
We discussed about future treatment alternatives. Nothing can be decided before the CT scan. Surgery could be an alternative but for surgery the tumours in the liver must be small enough and their position in the liver must be suitable for surgery. Doctors also seem to be reluctant to do surgery if there is cancer outside of the liver, e.g. in lymph nodes. So I am not a candidate for surgery yet. Continuing with chemotherapy is possible and more likely in this phase. The chemotherapy I'm on now will at some point of time loose its effect but exactly when is very individual and cannot be predicted. The doctor said some people have been on the same chemotherapy treatment for years. If the chemotherapy treatment has to be changed there are at least four to five other medicines on the market that could be used instead. Different kinds of radiotherapy could also be used in combination with other treatments, e.g. surgery.
The IV chemo took some five hours. On my way home I stopped by in a café close by to briefly celebrate that great CEA value. I ordered tea and a cake with some orange icing. Then rushed to day care to pick up the kids.
We discussed about future treatment alternatives. Nothing can be decided before the CT scan. Surgery could be an alternative but for surgery the tumours in the liver must be small enough and their position in the liver must be suitable for surgery. Doctors also seem to be reluctant to do surgery if there is cancer outside of the liver, e.g. in lymph nodes. So I am not a candidate for surgery yet. Continuing with chemotherapy is possible and more likely in this phase. The chemotherapy I'm on now will at some point of time loose its effect but exactly when is very individual and cannot be predicted. The doctor said some people have been on the same chemotherapy treatment for years. If the chemotherapy treatment has to be changed there are at least four to five other medicines on the market that could be used instead. Different kinds of radiotherapy could also be used in combination with other treatments, e.g. surgery.
The IV chemo took some five hours. On my way home I stopped by in a café close by to briefly celebrate that great CEA value. I ordered tea and a cake with some orange icing. Then rushed to day care to pick up the kids.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A Norwegian professor
Back in September there was a Nordic event in Tampere about surgery of my type of cancer. The exact name of the event was “Nordic post graduate course in colorectal surgery”. My wife found the agenda and participants list on the internet. Looking through the list, she found a couple of interesting names. One of the doctors I've met at the Tampere University Hospital was to attend to talk about use of chemotherapy as additional treatment for patients with cancers that are thought to have spread outside their original sites. She also noticed a Norwegian professor on the participants list. He works at the university that I studied at in Norway (NTNU) and is at the same time a surgeon at the university hospital in Trondheim.
I sent him an email asking if he would have some spare time while being in town to discuss my treatment plan and if there were differences in treatment practises between Finland and Norway with my type of cancer. He actually replied but after the event was over. He had been too busy to read all his emails before the trip to Finland. He explained that guidelines in Norway and Finland are the same and that I would have got the same treatment plan in Norway. He also said I'm in very good hands at the Tampere University Hospital and that he personally knew the very competent head of the department for colorectal surgery there.
I sent him an email asking if he would have some spare time while being in town to discuss my treatment plan and if there were differences in treatment practises between Finland and Norway with my type of cancer. He actually replied but after the event was over. He had been too busy to read all his emails before the trip to Finland. He explained that guidelines in Norway and Finland are the same and that I would have got the same treatment plan in Norway. He also said I'm in very good hands at the Tampere University Hospital and that he personally knew the very competent head of the department for colorectal surgery there.
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