Andy Burrows

I feel a little bit guilty. I think I should be happy, but I’m strangely flat. I finished chemo some 5 weeks ago, and in that time I’ve had a CT scan and a bone marrow biopsy, both testing for whether the lymphoma can still be detected or not. The news from the consultant yesterday…

(NB. This is when I caught up and started writing as things happen, so you will notice the change in style from here onwards. I could periodically re-review and cut bits out with the benefit of hindsight, but actually I think it’s helpful to see how thinking changes and reflections change. What is important one…

The bit that’s been difficult getting used to is having a type of cancer that the doctors admit is practically incurable. Obviously being told that treatment was only going to be 6 lots of mild chemo, rather than 4 rounds of strong chemo plus a stem cell transplant involving 2 weeks in isolation, was somewhat…

R-CVP is almost the same as R-CHOP. The ‘V’ in CVP is Vincristine, which is also the ‘O’ in CHOP, because it’s also called Oncovin. Equally amusing is that the drug that is missing from CVP is the ‘H’, which is Doxorubicin (because it’s also called Hydroxydaunorubicin)! Confusing or what?! The consultant told me that…

It had been decided this time around that since I would need a lot of drugs intravenously I would benefit from a PICC line. That is, a ‘peripherally inserted central line’! What that means is that I would have a tube inserted into a vein in my arm, which would then be pushed up the…

By the time I had the CT scan and was waiting for the results, to soften the disappointment for the kids, and to fill the time, we had booked other holiday activities. I’d booked Jake and Joe into a Chelsea FC Soccer School (which meant driving them to the Cobham training ground, 45 minutes away)…

Just over two years after the ‘all clear’, just over one year since returning to work, came a chapter I hoped I wouldn’t have to write. Even after I had been given the news of ‘complete remission’ I was concerned about some residual discomfort in my gut. After several investigations and conversations with doctors, which…

I got back into job-hunting around the same time as the house move, and eventually found a short-term contract role to start in June 2011. By that stage I had not been in paid employment, apart for one month in December 2009, for 27 months. People sometimes ask me how I have remained positive throughout…

One of the things that seems true about a brush with cancer is that afterwards, even with a good outcome, you see things differently. Your whole attitude changes. It is true in my case that my faith was strengthened. It’s also true, although I know that perhaps I can’t generalize for everyone, that there were…

I had a CT scan in between the 4th and 5th cycle of chemo, which was to check that the treatment was having the desired effect. That showed encouraging signs. In fact there was not much left of the enlarged lymph nodes that had been visible only 4 months earlier. One other thing they spotted…