Cancer
Since 2000, I have had Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (ACC), a malignant salivary gland cancer. This page links to the various articles and blog posts I have written about it, and in particular about how Christianity and cancer relate. If this wasn't something you knew about me, the best place to start might be to watch the video of an interview I did for my church:
An edited video of the interview was used as the introduction to a talk called “An Imaginary God in a Suffering World?”, which covered the question of how both Christians and non-Christians try and make sense of the existence and meaning of suffering – because it’s a difficult question wherever you stand. You can hear the talk which followed the video (length: about 38 minutes including Scripture readings).
Of my writings on the subject, the best ones to read first are the story of my original operation and my reflections on one of the major lung operations, titled "Thank God For Cancer".
Timeline
- 2000-07: Initial lump appears in neck
- 2001-04: Surgery to remove lump; diagnosis (8 weeks before university final exams)
- 2001-06: Exploratory neck operation, repeated due to excessive bleeding (big writeup of this period)
- 2002-09: Scar revised to try and improve it
- 2005-01: Lump found in floor of mouth and partially removed; discovered to be primary; lumps found in lungs
- 2005-04: Second mouth operation to remove the rest; mouth floor repaired with part of tongue :-)
- 2005-12: More scans done of the lung metastases
- 2006-04: First lung cleaned out
- 2006-05: Second lung cleaned out
- 2006-06: Additional lump found in neck
- 2006-08: Lump removed; radiotherapy prescribed for the neck to reduce chance of local recurrence
- 2006-11: Radiotherapy (big writeup)
- 2007-10: 6cm lump found in liver (pictures)
- 2007-12: Liver lump removed, along with right half of liver and gall bladder
- 2009-04: Rediagnosed with lung metastases
- 2010-07: Kidney metastasis found
- 2012-11: 10cm kidney metastasis removed, along with left kidney
- 2013-11: Scan shows new liver metastasis, spread to the pleural space, and increased size for bilateral lung metastases
- 2014-04: Biopsy done for Patient-Derived Xenograft study
- 2015-05: Current scans show metastases of significant size in liver, remaining kidney, lungs, pleura, and left leg
- 2016-08: Entered AToM trial, testing olaparib and AZD0156 (two DNA-repair inhibitors) in combination
- 2016-10: Left AToM trial; effect was actually an increase in tumour growth :-(
- 2017-03: Most tumours currently growing at 1-2mm a month; largest is 6cm or so
- 2017-04: A lump was pressing on my liver and restricting bile flow, leading to itching and weight loss (15kg in a year); had bile duct stent to reopen duct
- 2017-09: More stents added to liver; still no long-term improvement
- 2017-10: Third stent operation; still not really having the desired result
- 2018-01: Discover some tumours now growing 5mm per month, and liver is fairly riddled
- 2018-01: Given options of chemotherapy or radiotherapy to liver; decide neither is appropriate, so step away from work to spend more time with family