Hello, I am 57 year old woman who started her fight in Feb this year. I sailed through first 9 week round of chemo with very little side effects. I did lose a lot of hair and it came back, grey,black and curly. It previously was blonde and straight. Had surgery to remove the Oesophagus and stretch my stomach to replace it. I was lucky to have had an amazingly quick recovery, so much so that I am my cancer team star patient. Pre surgery chemo knocked out the cancer in the lymph nodes and surgery got rid of the tumour. I did have trouble with my Jeg feeding tube and had to have it removed, after a series of infections. However because this type of cancer has such a high rate of reoccurrence I am having a second 9 weeks of chemo. I am into my second cycle, this seems to be hitting me harder but I am coping. As I am starting to worry about after treatment is finished, my onocologist said it was inevitable that the cancer would returned but not conduct constant testing as it is too intrusive. They will react quickly if I report any changes. I am worried as I did not think there was anything wrong before my original diagnosis. My husband made the appointment with the doctor after an episode of projectile vomiting and made me go. How will I know if it's come back again?. I've been told it will take a year to recover from surgery, and quite a while to stabilise after chemo. I am a very pragmatic, stubborn person, which has helped me on this journey. I don't ask for help and will rarely admit to feeling not well. People think because I don't say anything and I look well I am doing fine, I'm worried when I return to work in the new year I will run myself down trying to keep up appearances. Silly I know but it is a hard personality trait to break. On the whole I have not suffered as badly as some during my fight and I wish everyone all the best for their fight x
