Introduction

Greetings to all readers. This is my first entry into the domain of blogging. I guess there is nothing like a diagnosis of stomach cancer gets you up and moving in new directions!
So, to go back to the beginning, I can say that some time early in 2007 I became aware of discomfort when swallowing food [dysphagia]; it felt as though there was a constriction as the food passed from the oesophagus into the stomach. Some foods were more problematic than others. In what is often a feature of cancer diagnosis, I at first got put on some gastric reflux medication [even though I had no symptoms of gastric reflux]. Inexplicably, I waited 5 weeks before I started the tablets. After another 5 weeks of medication using Nexium 40mg tablets the swallowing symptoms were unchanged. My GP [Dr Michael Brown] then referred me for a gastroscopy.
On 21 September 2007 the gastroenterologist [Dr Chris Ashton] gave me the news that I had cancer in the region of the gastroesophageal junction [Ca GOJ]. His report described a large fleshy adenocarcinoma spreading from the stomach into the distal oesophagus. Pathology, CT scan and PET scan confirmed a moderately differentiated ulcerated tumor at Stage 3, with some perigastric lymph node and celiac node involvement. So the cancer had spread locally, but there were no distant metastases. My cancer staging [classification] seems to be very much on the border line between being operable or not operable!
I was referred to a specialist surgeon [Dr Charles Mosse] and, based on the results of all tests, he proposed a 9 week [3 cycle] course of ECF chemotherapy under the supervision of medical oncologist [Dr Desmond Yip]. This proposed treatment is broadly based on the protocols described in the Horizon Scanning Technology Prioritising Summary 'Perioperative epirubicin, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy for resectable gastric cancer'. Basically this involves chemo before surgery, then surgery to take out as much of the cancer as possible, then chemotherapy again after surgery!!!