Tarrant & Andrews Family Diary

How is Cindy?

Good question, but the answer isn’t so good.

She’s gradually getting more exhausted and finding walking around more and more difficult. She uses oxygen for getting up stairs and often at other times too. It takes her a long time to get going in the morning, but she’s around for lunch, afternoon and the evening. She needs to use the wheelchair for longer trips out of the house. She’s had nausea on and off for the last few weeks, which seems to under control at the moment.

She’s going to start on a new drug soon – Tarceva. This is a new, unlicensed drug that is only available on a “named patient” basis. Dr Bottomley says that there is probably no-one else in the world who has used this drug to treat the particular cancer that Cindy has, but it has been effective against some lung cancers, so it’s worth a go, paticularly as the side effects aren’t too bad.

Cindy, of course, is still being very positive about things and does as much as she can.