Quite a bit has happened but nothing that threatens my hope.
There was a moment when we did honestly think that light was a bloody big train. But it turned out to be work related and faded long before it got to us revealing that glorious light still shining.
There has been another scan. I am not a connoisseur of CT scans but to me this one seemed unusual. I was led out of the hospital and into a well appointed artic trailer by a guy from the north of England. Not I hasten to add a Geordie, the mistake I made, but from Sunderland. I guess the former can easily be recognised by their lack of Premier league football next season.
Such is the demand for CT scanning at present that Ninewells is bringing in a Larry and radiographers at £3000 per day to keep up with the backlog.
Anyway, despite being privately supplied, both the scan and its pictures went well. The tumours are still shrinking if not quite so quickly.
I was sent away for another 3 months, feeling fine and with growing hope.
I met a friend at a bus stop in St Andrews a few days ago. He broke the news that his wife had been diagnosed with a different form of lung cancer, had had an operation to remove half a lung and was now having chemo (or radio) therapy. The comment he made that made me think was that they had had a similar initial appointment with an oncologist as Clare and I. They had been given quite a lot of information about likely survival including the statistic that their cancer had a likely 5 year survival rate of 30%.
We had nothing like this which made me curious. I have studiously avoided such statistics but this meeting led me to look up my non-small cell stage 4 illness on Google.
I rather regret doing it and I quite understand why we didn't get the numbers chat. The figure for my illness at 5 years was 1%
I hasten to add, before I am accused of spreading alarm and despondency throughout the realm, that these figures don't include the effect that Afatinib has had. I mention this only to remind myself that the tumour generator I am harbouring was a pure bastard and that I was very fortunate to present myself to the NHS after this brilliant new drug became available.
It also reminds me not to turn hope too quickly to expectation and how much I have to thank the NHS for.
In the meantime there is a party to look forward to. The 21/60 which will jointly celebrate my 60th and Ben's 21st (see what we did there?). Our closest friends and family will eat, drink and dance the night away. Moderation may be postponed for a few hours.
Slainte
