Happy days. Steroid medication for the past 18 months has made two of my thoracic vertebrae bones crumble. This is not black humour.
This is the considered opinion of my medical team and it’s cause for serious celebration on my part.
They caution: this news is not complete formal confirmation and perhaps a detailed spinal MRI will be required to absolutely nail that prognosis.
Maybe I shouldn’t jump up and down with relief – but jumping would be sore and maybe premature. I silently jump up and down in my mind instead.
This news is such a relief – it indicates the crumbling of the bones detected on the CT scan causing my chronic pain isn’t likely to be caused by cancer inside my bones.
Bending and walking are now more of a challenge and a new level of pain is a new constant bedfellow.
And, yes, my physical world continues to shrink. I can’t drive because of brain tumour activity; I remain hugely restricted and vulnerable to Covid-19 as the new variant sweeps Scotland (my double vaccine only offers very reduced protection because of my ongoing chemo treatment); and walking any sort of worthwhile distance is impossible due to my back pain.
But I won’t stop trying to beat the odds. This week, I bought a folding-up wheelchair. It will be used to roll up to the postbox at the top of my road. It will go with us to Lower Largo when we go to the harbour and beach.
I have joked with Laura about getting flags and speakers, stickers and a loud car horn fitted – such is my relief at the steroid diagnosis instead of a cancer activity one.
Terminal remains as my prognosis – but it is not going to happen right now and that means there’s room for a little humour.
A young woman from Edinburgh contacted me this week. She has incurable stage 4 breast cancer. Despite this, she is so praiseworthy of her oncology team who have kept her going since 2017. We agree about the roller-coaster of events, treatments and interventions but we are both upbeat and grateful for what we have – and what time we might still get.
And a former colleague – just about to start treatment for breast cancer – made contact too.
She is scared but her oncologists are confident they can treat her with a good chance of success. This team approaches with confidence, and openness is a most precious and effective thing to have in your tool box.
Let’s all keep talking and sharing and battling and celebrating. The number of success stories is growing.
Ally McLaws is a freelance specialist in writing, business marketing and reputation management. See the full range of services on offer and view all previous back issues of this column at:
www.mclawsconsultancy.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel