Friday 9th August 2019
“Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana” —  Terry Wogan

Today was my first surveillance appointment, roughly 3 months after I got the All Clear in May. How time has absolutely flown by. They will be every 3 months for the first year. I kinda knew it would be a blood test and a “physical examination” although I didn’t know how intrusive that would be so it was going to be a surprise.

Usual gig, turn up one hour before your appointment to have blood taken, then mill around for an hour or so until the appointment time, and hope things are running on time. Today I had 2 wingmen in Luke and Parker as I was working from home today with them around keeping quiet, playing on their technology.

It’s changed a little since last time I was there, they now have a new dedicated phlebotomy (what a great word) department where they take your blood ready for analysis. We waited for my name to pop up on the screen, and in I went to chair number five. Parker came in, Luke waited in the waiting room.

The look on Parker’s face when the nurse stuck the needle in my arm was priceless. It got even better when she started jiggling the needle around in my arm because nothing was coming out, and that really wasn’t the most pleasant sensation. She had to abandon my right arm and go for the left, which behaved as expected, and I had matching cotton bud plasters on each arm. I joked with her about it being fine because my arms matched and I liked symmetry, a truly terrible joke that drew some forced laughter. Parker still looked stunned, walking out telling the nurse he hopes he never has to have it done !

Then it was filling time until we saw the Dr, so we went and grabbed some lunch. Strangely both boys picked fruit today, not sure what was wrong with them but I obliged and we sat and had a nice meal.

Then we wandered down to the waiting room, and waited to see the Doctor. Pretty much within a minute of sitting down, we were ushered to a consultation room. Wow, that was about 10 minutes early. But then we were in that little room about 40 minutes before the Dr popped in for our chat, and it was pretty tedious waiting while the boys played on their tablets.

Now, just re-wind about 8 weeks. I noticed a pain in my chest, on the right side, around where your pectoral muscles are. It felt like I’d banged into something and the pain was due to that. I had a feel of it, and I found exactly what you don’t want to find – a lump, and a painful one at that. No messing, I booked to see the GP the next day. Given my medical history the last 12 months, she took no chances and did another “urgent 2 week potential cancer” referral. Now around this time too, I purchased my dream car which suitably distracted me from all the mental turmoil the same process brought last September, which was really not a nice thing to contend with.

Up I rolled to the Breast Clinic, and sat myself in a waiting room predominantly filled with women. I’d been reflecting how life was dealing me quite an embarrassing hand, firstly having to talk to people about testicular cancer, and now the potential to be talking about a “breast” related issue. Turns out men have breast tissue too, just not a lot of it, and there is such thing as male breast cancer.

Anyhow, the Dr examined me, listened to me describe my recent medical events, and she immediately diagnosed gynaecomastia. Having been distracted by the car for a few weeks, this time I’d done little to no research on possible eventualities so this wasn’t a familiar phrase. In layman’s terms, it’s growing a man boob, and very likely related to the surgery and chemo I had for the cancer. Totally benign, nothing to worry about, other than cosmetically. Even better that I’m only growing one ! I really do like symmetry, and with one nut and one man boob, things are slowly getting out of hand.

She sent me for an immediate ultrasound, which confirmed it, but also that the start of it is happening on my left side too. That’s cool because if it get’s a hurry on, then I’ll get some symmetry back. I also had a blood test, which a letter a few weeks later confirmed was fine.

So the NHS deal with this as purely a cosmetic issue, they will take no action (i.e. surgery) but in my case because it is related to a different condition then they may do so. However, for now it’s just another appointment in 3 months time to check on progress. So I thought I would take the letter I got confirming the diagnosis, to the appointment today given the two things were likely to be related.

Back to today… the Dr arrived, and we had a chat. He said he didn’t yet have my blood results, which I thought was unusual as this is the main indicator of any potential issues. He asked if I was still ok, and I said there was nothing going on relating to the original cancer that I was aware of. I then showed him the letter with my diagnosis on, and he immediately questioned why they didn’t do a testosterone test, as apparently the most likely cause of the gynaecomastia. So he examined my chest, felt the lymph nodes in my neck and then wrapped up. He said he will call me with the blood results, he asked me to have a chest x-ray on the way out, and he’ll ask them to go back to my bloods from today and check the testosterone levels.

We did the chest x-ray on the way out and then toddled off home. I knew where to go as I had an x-ray there when I was on the ward one time receiving my chemo. On reflection, it was a bit of a strange experience today, I didn’t really learn anything. We’ll see what comes of it, before my next appointment in another 3 months time. I’m due to be back at the breast clinic at North Manchester before my next appointment at The Christie, so I guess it will be a race to see who I hear from first in the meantime.

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It was fun being with the boys though, they made it a fun trip. I usually dread going to hospitals for appointments, but I still enjoy (in a strange way) going to The Christie. We got a few things from the charity shop while we were there, and headed home. About a quarter of a mile from the hospital, there’s a person who lives nearby, and instead of having a car/van, they drive a tank. Yes, an old army tank. I deliberately went past it, as they park it on the street outside where they live. Parker was in awe…

P.S. I last posted on the 6th June, moaning about my crazy itchy hands. Luckily in the 2 to 3 weeks after that post, the itching pretty much went away. It was easing up a bit when I blogged, and it went away pretty quickly after that. It was only a few weeks after when my hair had pretty much grown back too. So all in all, the chemo-induced issues I had were pretty much gone by mid June. 3 months after finishing the chemo, was the first time I could say it wasn’t affecting me in any way.