Every time I see my Oncologist or Surgery team they send a letter to my local GP, the onc at my local hospital, and good ol Sproaty who gave me my diagnosis. And a copy goes to me too. My name gets a tick next to it on the letter that comes to me. I like the thought that everyone gets their own tick next to their name in their copy of my cancer story.

These letters are kind of a way that us patients find out the more specific details of our condition. Maybe add a bit more to the things we’re told, sometimes fill in the gaps.

Each one describes what was discussed at that specific appointment but there is a big bold bit at the top that stays the same each time, though bits have been added as time has gone one. So this is it. This is me…

Diagnosis: August 2017: localised high-grade chondroblastic osteosarcoma of left maxilla. To commence neo adjuvant chemotherapy (cisplatin, doxorubicin, methotrexate).

Treatment: 8/2017 – 2/2018: MAP chemotherapy, complicated with AKI which was reversed, methotrexate was stopped after cycle 4.

Surgery: 5.3.2018: Mid-facial degloving access – right maxillectomy, unblock with nasal bone up to the inferior of the medial canthal area and to the level of the zygomatic buttress, including pterygoid plate. Reconstruction with a chimeric latissimus dorsi and tip of scapula bone flap.

Histology: High grade chondroblastic osteosarcoma — several close margins of a few millimetres – tumour presence on the right zygomatic buttress. Therapy-related tumour necrosis is <50%.

Not sure why they keep insisting it’s left maxilla at the start, it wasn’t. Anyway, sounds like they cut out the correct bit…

It’s always fun reading the letters they write. I feel connected with everyone and informed. And hey, who doesn’t like reading about themselves?

Yes, I had to do a lot of googling of mentioned terms. Had no idea what most of them meant…