Introduce Yourself!

Thank you for registering to join our forum. The idea of the site is to share ideas and experiences. We would love you to write about how you feel now and how you felt during diagnosis and treatment- it could really make a difference to someone else in a similar situation.

We would also love your friends and partners to get involved and join in with the forum, as we recognise that a cancer diagnosis is often very stressful for your loved ones.

Look forward to reading your comments and hearing about your experiences! If you have any comments about how you feel the service could be improved feel free to let me know by starting a new thread.

Gemma

I'd like to start by saying a very big 'thank you' to Gemma for starting this up.

 

In terms of introducing myself I just wanted to say that I'm a KC patient as of four months ago and have found Clive & Co to be of great use and comfort in the short time I've been involved with them. And hey, just because you have KC doesn't mean you have to give up on things, though admittedly you do end up having rather different thoughts and things to do in life once you get told that kind of devastating news "“ like participating in this electronic chin wag, for instance :-)

Hopefully my story will give hope and encouragement to recently diagnosed patients and their carers. In October 1993 I had a tumour and my right kidney removed in Northampton GH. Regular scans and X-rays showed I was clear of any cancer until 2002 when biopsy revealed that an unexplained pain in my back, was a re-occurence of kidney cancer in a rib. I was referred to the Churchill, Oxford because it was a "World class facility in the treatment of KC". I was offered trials of Interferon and Interleukin but neither worked well for very long. I went about two years without any treatment and then in October 2006 I started feeling dizzy. This was eventually diagnosed by MRI (no thanks to my local GP) as a brain tumour. This was removed in March 2007 and was followed by some Radiotherapy. In late 2007 my local PCT (Northampton) agreed to fund Sutent thanks in no small part to Andy Protheroes begging letter! I've been taking Sutent since Dcember 2007 and the scans show that the tumour on my rib has decreased dramatically in size and there are no new nasties on show. There are side affects but THIS TREATMENT WORKS!