Thursday, July 27, 2023

In the pink

We heard today from Andrea, one of the nurses at The Christie. Quent's SCAN IS CLEAR - hooray! That's now nearly 17 years since he was given about a year to live. We are blessed and will be forever grateful to the Christie team, led by Professor Hawkins, who saved Quent's life. 

Andrea was one of the nurses at that time and she's still there, treating patients and saving lives. She told us that they no longer use High Dose Interleuken-2, the amazing treatment which cleared out Quent's cancer, seemingly for good. This is a testament to other immunotherapy treatments which have followed - generally in tablet form, I understand, so easier on the body and the mind. Quent is happy he had the "short, sharp shock" version, avoiding any tablets for years (until his adrenal gland was taken out in 2014, since when he's been on hormone replacement tablets, with no ill side effects). 

So, Quent has outlived Mr Christmas, his surgeon, Professor Gore, the Professor we saw at the Royal Marsden  - and now the treatment itself. We hope everyone else involved in his care remain fighting fit for decades to come and thank them again for what they did. Without them, there would have been no-one to go with Oakley to the Barbie film this week - "in the pink", of course!