It is sunday, 22nd November, and Bobbinog is doing well. He has had his broviac fitted into his aorta again on the left side this time, and he is all ready for chemo tomorrow. It is chemo no 8 of 10, so we are almost finished chemo. 2 more after this one, and the last one ends on christmas eve. Then we test his heart, kidneys, hearing etc again to make sure chemo has not caused damage, then we wait..... blood tests weekly I think to monitor AFP. Currently his AFP is on 8.6 which it was monday when we tested, originally it was 498 000, and it should be below 23.5 so well below range at the moment. The AFP is the tumour marker, which in this cancer we luckily have a tumour marker as other cancers only rely on full body scans to pick up tumours, which can miss the small ones.

It has been a busy year, but a good one, as we picked up the tumour and started treatment, which has been quite successfull. Next year will hopefully be a good one too in that the AFP levels stay normal. That is the big stress factor at the moment, the question whether it is gone for good or whether it is going to pop up again. Normally if it comes back it is more aggressive and does not react as well to chemo as it did first time round, but we are hoping it is gone for good, but we will deal with that next year if needs be. Our aim at the moment is to complete the chemo course and have a good christmas and new year. Next year we will deal with next year.