Hi Mazsa I live up in Townsville and I went through the public health system at the local hospital. I was diagnosed by a doctor that I paid for privately and he actually recommended that if I was going to be operated on and treated in Townsville then I would be better off being treated there than privately at the Mater and that if I wanted to go privately then my best options were in Brisbane. I have to say that the treatment was excellent and I also know other people who were private patients went through the main hospital on the advice of their doctors to. If you need any further information I can try and find it out for you and pass the information onto you Hope the move and plans all go well and please contact me through here if I can help anymore. ... View more

Hi Tina I am hopefully in what we would call the remission stage as I have been declared cancer free although I declined the last rounds of chemo which were recommended by my oncologists. I had esophageal cancer but had to have chemo before my operation to remove the cancerous section of the esophagus as I could not eat or drink anything even to the extent of not being able to keep my saliva down. I was told it was stage IV but not sure really as luckily it had not spread anywhere but did have an operation to remove a suspect ovary which thankfully was fine it was just carrying cysts. The chemo worked really well on the tumour at the base of my esophagus and the pathology results for the removal of the section and also the lymph nodes all came back as being no evidence of cancer cells so I class myself as really lucky, hence why i declined the following rounds of chemo, which the oncologist sort of agreed with after another CT scan. I am now on 6 monthly check ups with CT scans prior to each appointment with the oncologist and still have to await another appointment with my surgeon and hopefully he will discharge me from his care after the next appointment. I am very lucky as I have responded well to everything they have given me and even recovered very well to the major surgery I underwent, most people have a 4 week stay in hospital but I was discharged after 2 weeks. At the time I felt things were difficult but now after reading a lot of stories on here I feel a bit of a fraud as i seem to have gotten off lightly compared to some although I 10 hour op and then an emergency 3 hour op the following day seems a little dramatic but I have survived and life carries on. when it was all happening it seemed very intense but it seems longer than the 5 months since my op but i have been very lucky with excellent support form my husband and family and I have the future to look forward to including becoming a grandma in October. Apparently I am 20 years to young and the wrong sex to have had this cancer but I like to be different. My mum had breast cancer 17 years ago and is still going strong so I knew that cancer was not necessarily a death sentence and that is what kept me going throughout all this. I am glad all went well with the PICC line and I hope the chemo goes well, I was lucky and did not have to have radiotherapy so I cannot help with advice on that but I can say chemo was definitely a positive experience for me as I went from not being able to eat to actually putting on weight before my op, even to the stage where when i went to appointments the nurses said it was strange to see someone looking better from chemo, but then i went from being fed o n a feeding tube to eating properly in a short space of time. I hope your experience is as positive as mine although you will experience extreme tiredness at times and that cannot be helped but if it kicks this horrible disease out of our systems then every bit of suffering is worth it for it to be gone. Good luck and keep me updated. I send you my best wishes and keep smiling no matter how difficult it gets x ... View more

Hi Tina How did the PICC line go today? Hope they managed to get it in with no hassles and all is good. ... View more

Hi Tina Isn't it funny how people only tell you the negative side of things, a bit like child birth people tell you all the horrendous stories of having a child but nobody tells you that they had a great experience. I had my PICC line for around 12 weeks during my chemo and for a period of time after it had finished but the surgeon wanted it removed before surgery to lesson the chances of infection. I heard many scary stories of people getting infected lines and having to have them redone but my experience was fine. Yes it is a little inconvenient and I was very conscious of my new friend but I used to wear mine under a tubi grip and stole my husbands shirts to cover it up and nobody would have known I had it on whilst out in public. Made sleeping interesting but soon got use dot it being there. The number of extra needles it saved me having was definitely a bonus an became so used to it that when I went for an endoscopy before my op told the surgeon how to use it to knock me out, that was its last day as he had it removed after the endoscopy as it was not needed for chemo any more and I was on no intravenous drugs so no need to keep it there. If you maintain it by not getting it wet and keep it clean you should have no problems, a tip I was given was to wrap your PICC in cling wrap before a shower and this seemed to work although I would take shallow baths to wash instead and just shower when I needed to wash my hair as this was easier. Amazing how we adapt to all these alien items they add to our bodies. I had a JJ tube in my stomach as well to feed me so I was slowly gaining tubes but nothing compared to after the op where they removed my central line and replaced it with another PICC but this one was short lived and only kept it for a week so they could administer cocktails of antibiotics, saline, magnesium and potassium all through the PICC but could have been many other ports. Good luck with the PICC and I am sure it will be out before you know it. ... View more

HI Tina All very scary stuff but it sounds similar to the regime I had to follow although I did not have radiotherapy. The PICC line delivers the chemo more directly and I had very positive results with it shrinking the tumour completely before my surgery. I had two types of chemo delivered directly every 3 weeks with a continuous infusion throughout the whole period of chemo and this was for 9 weeks prior to surgery and then supposedly for 9 weeks afterwards but have not had the chemo post op due to there being no evidence of cancer at surgery and all the lymph nodes they removed being clear. Hopefully if you go down this track you will get a similar outcome. The chemo afterwards was a mopping up exercise apparently but as there was no cancer at surgery time then no need to mop up, but that was my choice. Good luck with the PICC and believe me it has its positives make sure blood tests are taken through it as it will lesson your need to face the dreaded needle every week Good luck and hope your journey is smooth. ... View more

It happened to me the first time I tried to register with them and I am now registered but struggling to do the surveys as I cant get past eh second one although I also have the saliva kit just need to get round to doing it and sending it back do not feel it will be a lot of good without my history. ... View more

Hi I know exactly how you feel about support groups and fundraising. My mother had breast cancer 16 years ago and is still going strong and she has always encouraged me to support fundraising for that cancer as sh expressed I was probably likely to get it as well. Amazingly I did get cancer but not breast cancer it was cancer of the oesophagus. I had symptoms for many months prior to diagnosis and would never have guessed my symptoms would be related to such a life threatening disease. There are support groups around my area many of the well known cancers but I have not located one for mine although during my chemo I met others who had the same or stomach cancers. The good thing about this site is there are people who have suffered from cancers I never knew existed and there is some solid advice given by others and that is regardless of the type of cancer they have suffered as the diagnosis of any type is scary and we all have to work our way through the minefield of treatment with the symptoms often being similar due to the cocktails we inflict on our bodies. ... View more

Hi I know exactly how you feel about support groups and fundraising. My mother had breast cancer 16 years ago and is still going strong and she has always encouraged me to support fundraising for that cancer as sh expressed I was probably likely to get it as well. Amazingly I did get cancer but not breast cancer it was cancer of the oesophagus. I had symptoms for many months prior to diagnosis and would never have guessed my symptoms would be related to such a life threatening disease. There are support groups around my area many of the well known cancers but I have not located one for mine although during my chemo I met others who had the same or stomach cancers. The good thing about this site is there are people who have suffered from cancers I never knew existed and there is some solid advice given by others and that is regardless of the type of cancer they have suffered as the diagnosis of any type is scary and we all have to work our way through the minefield of treatment with the symptoms often being similar due to the cocktails we inflict on our bodies. ... View more

Hi I know exactly how you feel about support groups and fundraising. My mother had breast cancer 16 years ago and is still going strong and she has always encouraged me to support fundraising for that cancer as sh expressed I was probably likely to get it as well. Amazingly I did get cancer but not breast cancer it was cancer of the oesophagus. I had symptoms for many months prior to diagnosis and would never have guessed my symptoms would be related to such a life threatening disease. There are support groups around my area many of the well known cancers but I have not located one for mine although during my chemo I met others who had the same or stomach cancers. The good thing about this site is there are people who have suffered from cancers I never knew existed and there is some solid advice given by others and that is regardless of the type of cancer they have suffered as the diagnosis of any type is scary and we all have to work our way through the minefield of treatment with the symptoms often being similar due to the cocktails we inflict on our bodies. ... View more

Hi I know exactly how you feel about support groups and fundraising. My mother had breast cancer 16 years ago and is still going strong and she has always encouraged me to support fundraising for that cancer as sh expressed I was probably likely to get it as well. Amazingly I did get cancer but not breast cancer it was cancer of the oesophagus. I had symptoms for many months prior to diagnosis and would never have guessed my symptoms would be related to such a life threatening disease. There are support groups around my area many of the well known cancers but I have not located one for mine although during my chemo I met others who had the same or stomach cancers. The good thing about this site is there are people who have suffered from cancers I never knew existed and there is some solid advice given by others and that is regardless of the type of cancer they have suffered as the diagnosis of any type is scary and we all have to work our way through the minefield of treatment with the symptoms often being similar due to the cocktails we inflict on our bodies. ... View more