The latest update

I have been on a non steroidal anti inflammatory to reduce the pain that is most apparent in my right hand side. It's where I have been cut open a number of times and they have severed the nerves, taken out half a thyroid and managed damage in other places to add to the damage that I did as a young man when I was playing Judo and the martial arts.

So my theory has been that there is something going wrong there and hence the stridor and difficulties with breathing etc. It did NOT explain the loss of voice.

However it did explain why I have not been posting. As the right hand is one I need to use when typing I have simply been resting it.

There must be SOMETHING in the "contract" I have in respect of this blog, that stipulates that I do not have to self inflict damage just to keep you the readers, happy.)

Meanwhile went to see the radiation oncologist yesterday at the hospital. She brought out the anatomy text books to try and show me why she has some concerns that the last CT scan while not varying from the one three months earlier COULD perhaps have a tiny area in the neck which COULD maybe show some slight grey matter that COULD perhaps be a tumour that COULD perhaps be pressing on the nerve that controls the vocal cord that wraps around the aorta etc etc. All this of course is on the LEFT hand side where I have not been having any pain at all!

However since it is not clear they are really uncertain about it and she suggests that while chemo therapy  COULD eliminate the problem early - if there is one - it would of course also reduce the number of times that I could once again go back to Chemo therapy as a form of treatment - the toxic stuff seems to have only so many times it can be used before the bone marrow simply can't cope with it and then you have no defences at all!

I advised her that I was NOT going to try this approach "on their speculation" if it reduced my chances for further treatment should it become necessary in the future.

So she suggested that we try another PET scan and then in October another CT scan to see what if anything has developed and changed. She did advise that if I was right and the vocal cord thinggy was due to a virus infection then it would take MONTHS for the voice to come back (this is something I already knew) however if it was a tumour then there was NO hope that it could come back unless it was treated early!

So whichever way you play it - it's a crap shoot! Frankly I would rather lose my voice than further poison my body with more chemo therapy at least at this point needlessly.

What's worse if my voice came back on its own AND I had had the chemo therapy - then you can bet your bottom dollar they would claim a success for their treatment and not for my own body's remarkable recuperative powers.

So I came home - tossed and turned all night and by this morning I actually had a slight voice again - probably scared myself into talking!

Meanwhile the speech therapist has said to rest it for a while to see if it WOULD come back so after speaking a few words this morning and of course thanking God that I could I have gone back into whisper mode.

Let's hope that I am right and the voice will come back - in which case I will simply take the next 3/12 CT scan as normal and perhaps JUST to see what if anything has changed get a new PET scan (even though they cost an arm and a leg over here) but I will NOT consent to treatment until they can SHOW me some tumour and in the interim I have suggested to them in the strongest non voice I could muster - that while I was OK with the possibility of it being a new tumour and accepted that
possibility - I would prefer it if they could get their collective thinking caps together and dream up what ELSE it could be so that we would be able to use what I laughingly remember was called the scientific method (as distinct from guesswork) and actually test each of the possibilities and eliminate them one by one (if they can) so that the ONLY possibility left is the tumour - THEN I will have treatment
immediately.

But if they choose to stay in group think and not explore other possibilities then frankly I will probably want to see a whole new bunch of doctors who may listen to the patient's reasoning instead of their own (dare I say emotional?) responses!