Hi Walesdave,

A very warm welcome to our forum. 

This diagnosis must have come as quite a shock to you all. Unfortunately, no matter how we try to prevent it, cancer afects the whole family. One good thing is that your treatment is curative, so try to hold on to that positive.

I am 13 years down the line, with 2 bouts of breast cancer and I am self-employed too, so I know how much you want to keep working. You may find that you become more fatigued, as treatment continues and might discover that you have to cut back your hours, or stop for a while. Reaction to chemo varies from one person to another and on the type of chemo given - I do hope that you continue as well you have started off.

Many people would rather not know the 'ins and outs' of their cancer. You are best to place your faith in your care team, who do this day in day out and will do their utmost to get you over this hurdle.

Please keep in touch and let us know how you're getting on. We are always here for you.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Hi David,

My husband was diagnosed with stage 3 oesophageal cancer end of October 2020 aged 62 so a difficult time as it was during COVID.  I won't go into the ins/outs of what happened but he celebrated his 65th birthday this past weekend with family and he is doing well fingers crossed. On 6 monthly check ups so next one is in April. Our two sons are older than your family but they coped well overall. 
He was diagnosed stage 3 but after the operation it was a downgraded to stage 2. We had a long wait until 31st December 2020 (lots of scans, tests and a laparoscopy) before it was decided he was on the curative pathway, so hard especially with COVID. He started chemo end January 2021  and had four cycles over eight weeks of FLOT chemo/operation/four more cycles of FLOT. He finished his treatment in September 2021 and was told exactly a year to the date 27th October that he was visibly free of cancer. Fingers crossed again! I'm pleased your wait hasn't been as long. 
 

He was like you just wanted to know what they/he needed to do. I, as his wife, found the diagnosis overwhelming and googled (bad idea). During our long wait he was advised by a friend of a friend who had the Oesophagectomy a year previously to gain weight to combat the weight loss after surgery. Also fitness is key so he did lots of walking and exercises to improve his stamina. This proved to be vital as he had complications after surgery. 

Everyone is unique and you are right to not look at statistics. My advice would be take one step at a time. Re finance Macmillan are a good source of information. I used their helpline for support and the nurses I spoke to really helped me through an extremely difficult time especially as I couldn't go into the hospital when he had tests etc. I spent a lot of time in hospital car parks. Also the chemo  team were very good and the nurses prefer you to contact them with any concerns rather than wait. The upper GI team were excellent and thank goodness for our wonderful NHS staff despite the current situation. 

I am part of a forum under RayB Oesophageal cancer diagnosis. I will say that there are a  lot of threads with various outcomes so you may or may not want to read or join. It certainly helped me knowing others understood and people can get through it. 

I hope this helps and to end on a positive we travelled 2,000 miles around Europe last year and my husband did the driving. This year in January we have been on a Caribbean cruise something I never dreamed we would do again. 

keeping the faith 

Milly