Hello Lichade. 

Just wanted to post and say we will be thinking of you for your scan today. 

One of our very lovely members here [@davek]‍ will hopefully see your post soon and post with his words of wisdom and experience.

Keep in  touch and let us know how you get on. 

Best wishes. 
Jenn
Cancer Chat moderator

 Goodness me, I remember how totally terrified I was when my husband was diagnosed with the same cancer. 

  I couldn’t breathe, had panic attacks and basically stopped functioning for a couple of days. It does get better slowly but surely as cancer becomes part of your daily life. Just allow yourself to feel however you are feeling – there is no right or wrong here - I feel for you all. 

 What I will say is  whilst this is a particularly nasty cancer in terms of treatment (well, which cancer isn’t?) It is treatable/curable. You are likely to get lots of information in a very short space of time so my advice is to sit down with your wife, write down a list of questions, don’t worry how daft they may sound – no question is stupid at this point. Take her with you to the appointment, two sets of ears are better than one .  Don’t leave the consulting room until you have all of the answers you need.  There is excellent information on this website and on Macmillan. Please do not go on other websites – they are totally scary sometimes, and often badly researched. 

 The standard treatment for this cancer  is chemotherapy, and operation, then more chemotherapy. Lots of patients also have radiotherapy.  The surgery if you are offered it is called the Ivor Lewis  procedure. 

 My husbands cancer had not spread, his tumour was 2 1/2 cm  and he did really well on chemotherapy.  We have several friends who we got to know over the last 18 months  Who are 5, 6 and 18 years post oesophageal cancer. 

 What else can I suggest? Make sure you get your free parking at the hospital. You are now entitled to free prescriptions.   Keep in touch with us on here, it’s a great forum for help, support or just to vent. I have made some wonderful, wonderful friends on here. 

And as I said earlier, everybody’s lives will be turned upside down when They hear they or their loved ones have cancer.   It really is a game changer but please, please just let yourself react however your body and mind wants to react.  Do take care 

Ruth

 PS – you will get an awful lot of people giving you an awful lot of advice, cliches and platitudes.  My favourite (not)? “Stay strong“.  By the end, you will probably want to poke them in the eye ...don’t! xx

Hi Lichade,

I know that feeling only too well as I was diagnosed with stage 4 OC in late 2013.

Let's hope the CT scan brings you relatively good news and that it has been spotted at an early stage as the earlier it is detected the higher the chance of recovery. 

Good luck with the scan!
Dave

There’s some excellent advice here. I am 6 months on from radiation treatment for vocal cord cancer. It was caught early, I did exactly what the doctors recommended. I also have an appointment today, at Charing Cross, for the routine check up. There have been some very unpleasant moments during my treatment, as there always will be when radiating a sensitive area such as the throat, but I’m out the other side now and in remission. As for “ staying strong “, my particular advice would be “ don’t be negative “, you’ve been diagnosed early which is of paramount importance. Good luck today, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for the pair of us.

Hi I am having treatment for this at the minute.I too have a hiatus hernia and a reflux condition called barretts oesophagus.well on a routine endoscopy in November a nodule was discovered and a biopsy showed it was intramucosal carcinoma.as it was caught early and a ct scan showed it hadn't spread,it was able to be removed without surgery by a procedure called endoscopic mucosal resection.although a recent endoscopy showed that pre cancerous cells called high grade dysplasia had come back.I am now having halo ablation treatment which is basically burning of my oesophagus to hopefully get rid of the dysplasia before it gets a chance to turn to cancer.as you say that youre malignancy has been caught early you may be lucky enough to have a similar treatment to mine.good luck with the ct scan tomorrow and please keep us all updates with the results.if you have any questions please feel free to ask as im sure that everyone on here will try help with any worries you might have.                      Best wishes james