Day 17 - “ Bald Angels”

Day 17 - “ Bald Angels
In November 2015 having recently settled in KeriKeri we attended a fund raising event run by a local group “Bald Angels” who raise money for cancer by holding a marathon head shaving event  . Renene and I attended and spontaneously I joined to queue to shave my head bald - having recently been treated for seminoma.
https://www.baldangels.org.nz/

Who would have imagined that today I would be shaving all my hair off before it all started falling off as a consequence of yet another round of chemotherapy for a totally different cancer . There I was sitting in the barbers chair today getting a haircut reminiscent of my first days of the year at boarding school. As Renene has posted,  “Hair today - gone tomorrow”

Two appointments today . Radiation as usual and then a follow up with the radiation oncologist. He reviewed the CT scan, done today as part of treatment process. Unfortunately he was unable to demonstrate any perceptible difference in the lung lesion but says often it is only after completion of the full course and some additional months that they can really tell about the full impact of the regime. One surprising thing he said was that it was  touch and go as to whether they actually did proceed to the radical approach of chemo and heavy radiation with a hope of a significant therapeutic benefit. I had not grasped at my prior appointments that there clearly had been a very real possibility I was only potentially looking at palliative treatment. Based on this information today we Certainly could not have delayed our current regime for a  clinical trial we had been offered and had been so excited about  as we would have potentially “missed the boat”.  We are now very glad  we pressed on and did not delay the treatment syart.

Brother Keith and wife Jean returned from KeriKeri to Auckland having helped tidy up and store Marjel’s possession that remained important to the family. We were able to have quality time together with an walk through the Auckland Domain and to have lunch together  before they flew back to Melbourne. 

We visited the “winter gardens” and found opportunity to share a “bad  hair day ”

Tomorrow after a 48 hour moratorium on all verbal communication I will get to experiment with how much benefit the “injection” into my paralysed vocal cord will have. I also have a further appointment with a speech language therapist for a “swallow study” to see how bad any possible aspiration risk may be . 

“Warning , warning, warning” Grahame Jelley may once again  suffer from “ verbosity”!