Friday, March 24, 2006

I have cancer!

Well finally my day in glory. As noted before I do not have great achievements and I used to brood over that. The fate however was in my favour. It decided to give me a glamorous disease instead. Finally I have my golden oppty to write the book, whether I survive or not!
I passed the first stages of yes/no dilemma fairly quickly and now am choosing between surgery or chemotherapy. Life is just another Starbucks.
Every doctor I meet is at first surprised, then resigned, and finally consultative. I have been dignosed to have HCC (hepato cellular carcinoma). This was based on FNAC of the large tumor in my liver, accidentally discovered during CT scan of my abdomen. However I have no other commonly observed symptoms of hcc, such as AFP markers, hepatitis (b or C). I do not have alcohol abuse history and I do not stay in sub-saharan africa to eat something carcinogenic. In short I have rather unusual case of HCC. This puzzled many doctors as the signs do not follow textbooks. Funniest part is almost all doctors agree that I would be treated well, if I go to US. Doctors are also divided on the treatment. One school proposes that first the size of the tumor should be reduced and then operated, while other school of thought is more aggressive in cutting first and treating later. However both schools are certain that if I do not treat it I will die. No brainer there... I mean, who needs highly trained doctors to tell you, you are going to die, once you have cancer? One certain Einsteine predicted long time back that life is accident!
Well it gets better, couple of doctors I met today almost wrote me off. They said the 'd' word too frequently while looking at my reports.
Now I am waiting for my chemotherapy, first ever! I read on internet that chemotherapy affects the desire to have sex, I wonder whether that is true (this will be quite a disappointment with my all new georgous look, 'see no hair', another side effect of chemo!)
Well I will find out soon enough...

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