The Five Year Itch

I've been in hospital today talking about what could potentially be the biggest decision of my life. As we know, Constanze has developed the itches. The "I want to be cured and not stuck in purgatory" itches. I have a huuuuuge mind boggling decision to make. Do I stay on dasatinib or come off dasatinib? As we know just a few short months ago this decision was a no brainer for me, why risk my life when I'm pretty well at the moment? But now... I don't know why this feeling of change has come upon me but it's something I've really been thinking about, especially after talking to my consultant about it at length. Maybe it's because Naomi's died, maybe it's because I have this new job and this new life or maybe I just feel like I've left the job half done. I guess I'm feeling increasingly like I want to close this chapter of my life; even War and Peace has a final page. The cancer novelty has worn off. All good things must come to an end. But do I dare step into the complete unknown?

Let's briefly refresh our minds on the current situation. I am currently reasonably well except for chronic tiredness. To what degree this tiredness is caused by my illness/drugs and to what degree it's just my body being broken by all the radiation is unknown. I take dasatinib to suppress the last few cancer cells that may or may not be in my body; due to the awkward rareness of my form of leukaemia there is no way of knowing if I actually have any cancerous cells left in my body. Because a decade ago I'd have died (getting people with my strain of leukaemia to be stable enough for a bone marrow transplant has been a massive challenge) and the drug I take is new and there aren't really any cases to compare me to there are a lot of unknowns... But yeah. Basically all of this leaves three possible outcomes for the future of Constanze.

Stay on Dasatinib indefinitely and being a cancer patient forever

This has been the approach up until now and the general preferred best option from the point of view of my consultant (although I am going to be referred to a specialist in the coming months to discuss further, I imagine however that he'll probably want me to err on the side of caution). To be honest the medical world are very much on the fence but if they had to choose they'd keep me on dasatinib. The obvious main pro here is that I tolerate dasatinib very well and could stay in this relatively good limbo for quite a long time. The main con is that I'm facing being a cancer patient for years and years and years. Everyone I know who was diagnosed at the same time as me is either dead or cured and I'm stuck here in the middle.

Come off Dasatinib and I am completely cured and everything is wonderful

The thought of being cured and cancer free is amazing. It could be so simple. I stop taking dasatinib, there aren't any cancer cells and I am a normal, healthy person once again. For someone with my initial prognosis this would be nothing short of a miracle. From stage three blast crisis to a bouncing ball of normal blood is almost unthinkable.

Come off Dasatinib and my cancer starts growing and I'm fucked

This is the dark cloud hanging on the horizon. No one can really say what would happen if there are some cancer cells left in my body. Best case scenario is that they could just put me back on dasatinib and they just surpress it again and all is good, worst case is that I'd need another transplant (and as we know, my last one only had a 50% chance of success) or even that there was nothing they could do.

I know what I want to do in my heart. And almost in my head. I've always jumped in at the deep end. I never do things by halves. I should be wanting to be cured, not settling for second best... It's just me. I'm Constanze. I'm not a normal girl. I'm not afraid. I'm not scared of death. I want to be the one who beats the unbeatable. I've been so lucky so far. So very lucky. It's sort of like on those gameshows when someone's won £5,000 and can gamble to win £100,000 or lose it all. Except this is a gameshow of life. A gameshow that means I can be at a party or in a coffin. Optimism has paid off so far but is this a step over the edge?

If you have any thoughts on the matter I would love to hear them. I know I have had quite a sudden change of heart but there's just something in my soul telling me to break this limbo. I wish I knew what. I know I'm an infamous idiot and I spend my days doing stupid things and having stupid ideas but five years down the line I can assure you I'd quite like cancer to be a hilarious anecdote and not a hilarious reality.

I'm 24 for fuck's sake. I should be worrying about whether to buy a meat feast pizza or chicken kievs for tea, not whether to gamble my life. Oh lord, only I could find myself in this situation. At least it's not boring. I can safely say that if I die tomorrow my life has been anything but boring :)

Au revoir my wonderful friends,
Constanze :) xXxXx

P.s I keep having incidents on trains. On Friday I had a Frenchman burst into tears in front of me and today I had the police search my train for a wanted fugitive. I hope it wasn't me.

P.p.s I also found some amazing shoes today reduced from £65 to £5.They're bright pink and covered in sequins... All is not lost. At least if I die I can do it in style.

P.p.p.s Neeeeeearly forgot, the past two times my liver has been checked it's come back as a bit abnormal. Nothing to majorly worry about now but if it keeps doing to then I'll have to have some extra sexy tests. Oh yeah baby. My iron was also a bit high. Too much meat (probably). Or I've been sleep eating nails.

P.p.p.s Also neeeeeeeearly double forgot to say, I've been moved down to four month appointments. Four months without hospital! Just think of all the chaos I can cause :D Lock up your daughters and your rugs and your vegetables.

P.p.p.p.s I was also at the late effects clinic today but nothing significant was said. We actually talked more about tattoos than we did cancer. Oops.