Bringing you up to speed...

So many people have inquired about Richard's welfare that when I stumbled across this blog template I realised it might make things alot simpler for everybody and just started writing.

A bit of history for those who want to know...for several months Richard has been having a bit of trouble with hiccups just as he started eating and then a few minutes of difficulty swallowing. It slowed his meals down but he usually resumed eating without any incident. We all thought it was a hiatus hernia but to rule out a possible cardiac cause he did a bunch of tests in London which found his heart to be  just fine. As the swallowing difficulty persisted, on Tuesday, Sept 27,  he had an endoscopy (camera down the throat) which immediately located the source of the problem as a tumour in his esophagus near where it connects to the stomach. A biopsy confirmed it was malignant.

It was a shocking moment for all of us. Of course the worst comes to mind and fear and disbelief set in. To determine whether it was operable Richard underwent three diagnostic procedures on the following Friday, Monday and Tuesday. These showed that it had not spread! What a great moment!

Last Thursday Richard and I met with Professor George Hanna, a renowned surgeon, who laid out the treatment plan hoping to result in a complete cure. Through the amazing help of Marcus Harbord, another eminent doctor and friend specialising in gastro-endocrinology and who discovered the tumour, Richard was able to see Professor David Cunningham at The Royal Marsden today about the chemo treatment and is now scheduled to start the first of three series of chemo (each lasting three weeks) on Tuesday, 19 October.  It's a drip for one day at The Marsden, then pills twice a day for the remainder of each three week period. The lovely nurse assistant, Toni talked us both through what to expect and emphasized, if there is any problem with any of it we should call immediately as they can adjust and vary everything, tuning it to Richard's body.

A couple of weeks after the chemo the tumour should have dramatically shrunk and Prof. Hanna will
perform an 8 to 10 hour operation to remove all the affected tissue and refashion Richard's esophagus and stomach. He has a 99.5% success rate with the over 250 similar operations that he's performed and he assures Richard that he will be able to eat anything he wants, just in smaller quantities after the operation. Just smaller meals, more often.

The operation should be happening some time in February 2011, according to my calculations. After a few weeks of recovery Richard has to do another three courses of chemo which should eliminate any undetected problem cells. And that's it. Done and dusted!

Needless to say, there are some big challenges to face in the coming months and emotions seem to be a bit of a roller coaster ride, but Richard is processing it all amazingly. Crying, when he feels overwhelmed and fearful and allowing himself to feel those things. They then seem to flow away.

We are constantly talking about holding positive thoughts and allowing for wonderful possibilities to occur along the way. Friends focused prayers, meditations, chanting and kind words envelope Richard and he is grateful for all of it.