Well nothing has changed since my last post, but we are coming to terms with the situation. That means planning for our short term, being that's what it is, bucket list. We are positive and will stay moderately cheerful, sort of.

Tomorrow we will see the radiation oncologist and hear what, if anything, he can do.

Yesterday was not a good day.

We had chemo in the morning followed by a visit to our palliative care doctor followed by a list with our pain specialist. Then we saw our oncologist who gave us the bad news about Elaine's tumours, there are more of them and some of the old ones are growing. He also said that we are out of chemical treatment options and that he will refer us again to the radiologist to see what he can do.

Not much that I can say, we will try to remain positive and keep Elaine as comfortable as possible and make it all last as long as possible.

Bummer!

Another quiet week.

Elaine is relatively pain free, I say relatively because there is still some pain but my trooper wife has been handling it very well. We have done a few things like visiting grandchildren and friends and normal things like that for the first time in ages. The other point to remember is that there is still a long list of daily medication.

Anyway we are very pleased to have the relief an a bit more freedom. This week is more hectic, like today a ct scan and blood test, followed by a visit to a very nice food shop. Then tomorrow we have the pleasure of Jax's company. Then on Wednesday we have chemo (imonotherapy) and our pain specialist and our medical oncologist.

This is me reporting in.

Nothing much has changed this week. We had a visit with the radiation oncologist and he had nothing new to say until he sees the newest ct scan, which will be next Monday. Elaine in the meantime is experiencing relatively little pain. That will be partly due to to radiation having had a beneficial effect (we hope so anyway) and partly due to the medication. They did very little to change Elaines medication during her short hospital visit, in fact I rather feel that the exersize was a bit pointless. The only change was in fact a different patch and that was suggested before she went in! However it did give her a bit of a break from me and home and probably relaxed her more than she would have relaxed at home.

Elaine does seem to be quite fatigued at the moment, probably with good reason. We have had a rather hectic weekend of family matters. She has attended functions on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning (that involved walking around, or being wheeled around, for a couple of hours), Sunday afternoon and a full day of activity yesterday. I am a bit worn out out so she should be more than worn out.

There it is, thus passes another week in the exciting life of Elaine and Graham Cohen.

Okay it is time to catch up again.

Elaine is looking and acting a lot better due probably to dramatically reduced pain levels. The pain has been decreasing steadily since last Sunday week and at this point she has not required any breakthrough medication for the last 4 days. It would appear therefore that the radiotherapy has had a beneficial effect.

She had benn admitted to Hollywood to reassess and adjust, as required, her medication. Chemo, or more correctly immunotherapy, is continuing and she was taken down by the staff here earlier today for this weeks bout.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit full on and I keep running out of time but I have a few minutes now so I will update the life and times of Elaine and Graham.

At last count we had started radiotherapy which continued for a further 8 treatments. This process inflames the tumours before zapping (hopefully) them. So the pain in Elaines right thigh increased dramatically and she spent most of the week in lots of heavy pain which continued into the following week. We also had an appointment with the pain specialist who wanted to put Elaine into hospital to readjust her background medication. After a lot of  deep thought she agreed and will be admitted to Hollywood next Monday for a maximum of 1 week when she will either be discharged or she will just walk!! We also had appointments with both the radiation and the medical oncologists.

The pain was so bad that at the end of last week we had Silver Chain in 4 times for morphone injections and used large amounts of her breakthrough medication. However last Friday was the last radiotherapy and the pain seems to be reducing, there is still lots of it and Elaine is still weary, but there is at this point light at the end of the tunnel.

Cancer is a shit of a disease, as some of you already know, but we keep working on it and try to stay positive. The staying positive bit is, I am sure, very hard for Elaine but she is doing well in that regard. I will try to get back to regular blogs.