Andy Burrows

I should say a few things about the side effects of chemotherapy, although it is impossible to generalize. Each regimen is different, and every patient slightly different. The biggest impact, really, was having to be careful about coming into contact with other people, and the risk of picking up infections. R-CHOP does deplete your white…

If I may be permitted to pause to widen my view a little, I was not the only one that was affected by my illness. I’ve been focused on myself so far. It was actually my observation that it was a lot harder on Heidi and others than it was for me. For me I…

Having found what was wrong with me the doctors were now confident that I would show rapid improvement. They had been confident at each stage up to that point too, but this time they had pieced together from a wide variety of diagnostics. A fair number of times between first seeing the GP on 22nd…

The weekend before chemo was lined up to start I was told that I could go home for the weekend. I wasn’t to go out anywhere, but I was essentially stable and nothing much was going to happen over the weekend (weekends are generally dead boring in hospital, as most functions are closed except for…

During that period between initial diagnosis and the start of treatment there was a whole load of information to take on board at the same time as dealing with whatever new tests cropped up each day. The hospital was very well geared up for support on this front, in my view. Within 24 hours of…

When you get diagnosed with cancer the doctors want to start treating you straight away, but there are various protocols to complete before that can happen. In my case, first of all, they needed to complete the biopsy to confirm what type and stage of lymphoma I had. Lymphoma has two main types – Hodgkin’s…

I was aware that the OGD incorporated a biopsy, but I didn’t really know what they needed a biopsy for. By that stage I was just thinking that they were doing all the tests they could think of and trying to keep an open mind. Certainly they weren’t telling me anything. The surgical doctors stopped…

So began another month in hospital. I started out under the care of the surgical team that had looked after me before, and with the same nursing team in the same ward. I guess it probably took about two weeks for them to finally figure out what was wrong. Up to that point – those…

That first period staying in hospital lasted about two and half weeks, I think. It was an interesting time. What can I say? I was moved from my private side room on ward C3 to the 6-bed bay, and then into another bay in C4, further down the corridor. Heidi asked if I could be…

Much of the detail of those days in hospital is now hazy in my memory. I remember meeting one of Basingstoke hospital’s most well-respected consultants, Mr Rees, and his surgical team. His colleague, Miss Welch, reminded me of Connie from Holby City and Casualty. Within a few days they had confirmed that I had pancreatitis…