Update from Dean

**Wife update** (It's been a while)

First off, really sorry for the length of this post. As many of you know, I much prefer posting stupid photos from the internet and posts of few words to avoid the ridicule of being picked up on making silly typos by the wife. However, there is a good reason for typing out this epic tale.

A few weeks ago, Amanda McDonald experienced some brief but sharp stitch-like chest pains while she was enjoying her continued relationship with life. These lasted a few seconds but caused enough discomfort to bring them up in conversation. Whilst they weren't an immediate cause for concern, we did agree it was something to get checked out. We arranged to see a GP on Friday 27th January and while Amanda's oxygen levels were ok, the GP was of the opinion, given Amanda's rather chequered recent medical history, to report for a chest x-ray and blood tests at the earliest opportunity.

On the morning Monday 30th January, we left home and within the space of 80 minutes, had attended both for blood tests and for a chest x-ray via the NHS walk-in services. Bearing in mind the well-documented pressures the NHS are facing, the fact that Amanda could have both tests carried out at two different locations 3 miles apart within such a short period of time was incredible. We do have so much to appreciate in this country. Amanda also had her planned MRI scan on her brain take place the very same day.

Just after 5pm on Monday 30th January, and just 20 minutes after posting her incredible Facebook post (read it here: https://goo.gl/WpgvUK) Amanda's GP called to say that they'd found a cluster mass on her chest x-ray. The GP would arrange for a more detailed scan as quickly as possible but given Amanda's medical history, it was a cause for concern. We found out the next day that even for an urgent scan, we were facing the prospect of a 3-week delay for this to take place on the NHS. Thrown into the vacuum of uncertainty, Amanda couldn't face any delays and with assistance from the team at her medical practice, arranged for a referral to our local Nuffield Health private hospital.
At 8.50am on Thursday 2nd February, Amanda had a CT scan of her thorax. A date was set for a follow-up appointment on Tuesday 7th February.

On Monday 6th February, we were invited back to see the neurologist who performed both operations to remove the lesions to Amanda's brain back in 2015 and although thrilled that she told us there was no change from Amanda's previous MRI back in the summer of 2016, we were fighting the overriding sense of impending dread that we've experienced many times over the past three years as we really needed to know the outcome of the CT scan to her thorax. Amanda's not the most patient, and with what both our families have gone through in the past three years (with both our mothers passing away combined with the significant health issues that Amanda has found herself battling with), the wait for the outcome has been excruciatingly unbearable.

We met with Professor Brunt, our Consultant Clinical Oncologist who had looked after Amanda during her initial treatment for her breast cancer, at 3pm this afternoon. He got straight to the point - the results from the scan were fine. What had happened is that the mass found on the x-ray was likely to be an infection that Amanda had picked up earlier in January which hadn't fully cleared. As for her chest pains, he carried out an examination and the trigger points for the pain where Amanda was feeling discomfort was the cartilage in her breast which received the exposure to the radiotherapy that she had following her treatment for breast cancer back in July 2014. A natural thing to happen.

What this Facebook post doesn't convey half as much as I would have liked is the challenges and mental trauma the uncertainty of the last 11 days have had on us all - Alan, Amanda and myself. It's been horrific. We'd convinced ourselves that 'this is it'. Why? Well, look at the evidence. Having been told in October 2015 that there was nothing further that could be done for Amanda in terms of treatment for her various cancers, and plummeting to the depths of facing up to the realisation that you're living under the cloud of a life-limiting disease then making a miraculous recovery against all the medical evidence presented, we always knew that something would turn up just around the corner - we live for now, there's little point in planning too far ahead. Ironically, these past few months is the closest we've been in the last few years to living normally - normal everyday lives without worrying about what's ahead - until 11 days ago. There's only a precious few who have been in this position who will fully understand what I mean by the above. It's time to look forward and appreciate everything we have again.

So to summarise. Take the last 11 days out of the equation and things are actually looking as good as they have been for a long, long time for Amanda. Our neurologist next plans to see us in 6 months time for a routine scan.

As Amanda's dad says, "We're still standing". Or star jumping, as Amanda enjoys doing so much these days.

Thanks for reading.

(Post available to read on Facebook here)