Cancer Waits For No One

The other day a message was posted on the Kiss From A Rose website. It was from a mum, who's seventeen year old daughter is in the middle of treatment for a tumour found in her groin. In her message, she explained the beginning of their journey and an all too familiar account of repeatedly visiting her GP and local hospital, trying to get them to recognise the pain her daughter was in, waiting too long for a diagnosis.

Why is it that when it comes to teenagers, so many medics turn a blind eye? I just don't understand it. Here was a girl with physical symptoms - a lump growing at the side of her groin, and she was told it was a bruise by medical professionals. Much like my mum who was told to take me a psychologist when I persisted with visits to A&E 10 years ago at the beginning of my journey, her mum was told to stop reading so many Women's Magazine's when she challenged the 'expert's' opinion. It absolutely infuriates me, and I worry about the apparent lack of progress and recognition of teen cancer by doctors still, an entire decade later.

Why would a young girl who otherwise could be out with friends and enjoying life, insist on returning to A&E nearly every week, if there wasn't something wrong? I'm sure that doctors very often come across people who over react and panic unnecessarily over their health, and NHS funding is limited, we can't be handing out scans and X-Rays to everyone who comes along complaining of an ache or a pain. But there must be some way of ensuring that if a patient visits a hospital complaining of the same pain in the same place, maybe five times for example, then they are automatically given a scan, just to be safe. How is that in some cases we can afford to award breast implants and other cosmetic procedures on the NHS to people who feel it would improve their way of life, but we are so reluctant to spend money on what seems to be a forgotten generation? Have teenagers earned such a bad reputation that they deserve to be ignored?

Kiss From A Rose accounts my frustration at having to wait nearly two years to be diagnosed,  it was nearly two years of absolute hell, trying to get someone to listen to me, trying to get someone to help me. It was very nearly too late for me, and it broke my heart when I met others on my ward who were diagnosed too late. Perhaps they were waiting too long to be heard... perhaps they could have been saved... perhaps it would have taken just one scan when they first realised something could be very wrong... perhaps?

I hope that by talking about my story and others' we finally break through the arrogance and ignorance of some doctors, it needs to be recognised that we know our own bodies, no matter what age we are. When it comes to being diagnosed and giving yourself a chance to beat it, surely it goes without saying, Cancer Waits For No One.

A Pill For Every Ill?

After waiting three months for a confirmed decision on a transplant, I finally saw my surgeon last Friday. Although, following my previous appointment with him, he was keen to carry out the surgery, I had to wait for approval from an International Board of Surgeons, I needed their 'go-ahead' before the transplant could take place. So last Friday, I waited nervously outside the Surgeon's office to find out what the decision was. I waited for almost three hours until it was my turn to be seen, and I could feel my heart pound as the nurse finally called my name.

My lovely family came to support me, and as we filed into the consultation room and each took a seat, the doctor wasted no time telling me what the outcome of his meetings with the Board was. He explained that they were reluctant to agree to the procedure, giving the reason that the Immunosupressants I would need to to take after could cause me problems.

Immunosupressants are drugs which suppress your immune system in order to reduce the risk of your body rejecting the new donated liver. He went on to explain that if I had any tiny, undetectable cells anywhere else in my body which my immune system was currently keeping under control, by taking the body's defences away the cancer cells could quickly grow and multiply thus forming tumours elsewhere in my body. If that were to happen, I'd be really stuck! If a tumour appeared soon after I had a transplant, my body would be too weak to handle chemotherapy or any other drugs that they might otherwise be able to give me. It would be disastrous.

As the Surgeon continued speaking, I felt my heart sink further and further towards my stomach. I saw my chance of fighting this again slipping through my fingers. 'It's finally got me' I thought to myself. I was expecting the Surgeon to suggest the 'back up operation' he suggested before, which would see him removing most of the liver, as a half hearted attempt to get rid of this relentless disease. And his attention did turn to this alternative operation, but as he began speaking about it his eyes lit up.

He took out a picture of my latest scans, and put them up on his computer screen so we could all have a look. He explained what my consultant had already told me, that the tumours hadn't grown since the previous scans, taken six months before hand, but he also pointed out the colour of the tumours. They looked much darker in these latest scans, and although he could not be sure, he thought it might be an indication that the tumours had in fact died. He looked at me with immense happiness, but I couldn't take in what he was telling me, I didn't even know that tumours could 'die' like this.

He went on to explain that a transplant could have proven unnecessary, and that simply cutting the affected liver out would actually now be a much more sensible option. Using the metaphor 'like killing a fly with a canon ball' he explained that a transplant could end up doing more damage than was needed and just removing the tumours and the affected bit of liver would be sufficient at this stage. If the tumours returned in the liver in the future, however, he assured me that a transplant could still be an option for me, depending on whether I had remained clear throughout the rest of my body in the mean time.

We finished the consultation by arranging some more scans in a few weeks, to ensure that the tumours are definitely not growing, or at the very least growing extremely slowly. If this is the case, I can book the operation to have them removed as soon as I am ready. If the scans show otherwise, however, and the tumours are much larger, or the disease has spread elsewhere, then it's back to the drawing board to weigh up the options I have left.

I left the hospital in a daze. It was potentially the best news I could have hoped for, but I didn't even realise it was a possibility. From being given such a negative prognosis all those months ago by my Oncologist, to this, it was almost a complete turn around.

But then I remembered all the research I carried out after that awful day in March. Having been told there wasn't much that could be done to help me, other than the slim chance of being granted a transplant, I researched alternative treatments. I learned that you can 'starve' cancer cells, and therefore prevent them from growing, or developing and spreading. You can do this through your diet, and vitamins.

Now I'm starting to tread on dodgy ground, and am sure I will upset many medics, but it seems to have worked for me, so I feel I need to put it out there.

While I was waiting such a long time for feedback about the transplant - between March and September, I researched the types of food you should eat plenty of, and food you should avoid if you have cancer, and in particular, cancer in the liver. Now, I would never refuse conventional medicine, but I thought, if I could help myself in any way I can while the doctors were considering my case, what harm could it do?

I learned that with cancer in my liver, and a damaged kidney, I should be eating leafy veg, such as spinach, broccoli, and wheat grass. I also found out that cocoa is very good at reducing the risk of getting cancer, and also actually attacking cancer cells as well. However, it is not enough to be stuffing your face with Bounty bars all day, the chocolate you consume needs to have over 70% cocao content - the higher the percent, the better. Cancer cells crave sugar, so the less you give them, the more likely you are to be able to starve them. It is also suggested that you avoid red meat, although I reckon that's almost impossible!!

But the one piece of advice that kept cropping up everywhere, was the importance of Vitamin C. Vitamin C is vital in combating illnesses in the body, all animals, except humans, produce their own Vitamin C, and is released whenever they are feeling low or rundown. This doesn't happen in humans, so it is important that we take supplements. However, I also read that Vitamin C is the most natural form of chemotherapy - without any of the awful side effects, other than giving you a dodgy stomach if you get a little carried away!

So I tried all the advice, after all what harm could it do? And it made good sense. So I improved my diet, ate lots of green leafy veg, cut down on the red meat, and only ate chocolate that had over 70% cocao content. I exercised a lot more, as this is also thought to improve the chances of overcoming Cancer - as a Macmillan Study recently confirmed, and I took as much Vitamin C as my stomach could handle.

And then I had those latest scans...

In a world so quick to prescribe a drug for every ailment, should we in fact be taking a step back and listening to nature? I guess only time will tell, and it will be interesting to see what my next set of scans show. But something has worked, something seems to have dramatically slowed down the growth of my tumours, if not killed them.

'A pill for every ill'?... perhaps not.