So now I am six months through chemo, a quarter of the way, it has been hard but I have got here somehow. Before I started taking Mitotane I met with a doctor and nurse to discuss taking it, and so if I chose to do so I could give my consent. 

My only experience of chemo until then was the 85 weeks of intense IV treatment  given to me as a child and I just wasn’t sure, going into that meeting that I was willing to do all that again. However Mitotane is a little different, its tablets. So I was at least willing to hear what they had to say and think about it.

They had a lot to say, they talked about KI67, Mitotic counts, that I had a stage 3 tumour, that the renal artery had been invaded – it all seemed pretty hopeless. They also talked about the positives, that my cancer was removed whole and without breaking or spilling, that all of the tumour was successfully  removed, so actually the chemo they were offering me was known as “adjuvant” therapy, basically a just in case, to make sure any microscopic cells remaining are killed.

I remember listening and thinking, but just dreading the thought of this being as bad as it was before , my only experience  of chemo was so hard, and I was so ill, it was scary.

The tablets were to be taken every day, until a “therapeutic range” can be detected in your blood, and a increase  of tablets from 3 a day to 12 a day would be my protocol. We talked through the side effects, the usual things you would expect from chemotherapy, sickness, tiredness, however thankfully this chemo would not make me lose my hair.

It was so much to consider.

It’s so hard to have to make these choices for yourself.

 With much apprehension  I agreed to trialling  it for six months.

Here I am six months on, it is not nice and I truly don’t know where I will go with this, some days I feel like stopping and other days I feel like I should continue. I thought that oral chemo would be easier than IV chemo but it is not, its just different. Its still hard, I am still sick and so tired all of the time.

I guess for   now I will carry on, because so far I haven’t been able to tolerate the whole dose or get myself up to the therapeutic range. I will just keep taking it every day and do what everyone with cancer does, just hope for the best.