Page 394 - She's One Crazy Lady!

In all o“
restrictions, we couldn’t even have a hug and, boy, did Marilyn need a hug! I needed a hug. We all needed a hug. A huge black cloud was hanging over us. Whatever type of cancer she had would require some kind of a miracle cure.
ur dealings with cancer we had not even heard of the word ‘sarcoma’ let alone an
Following her CT scan there were ‘Multidisciplinary Team Meetings’ about Marilyn’s case and eventually she received the news to confirm it was cancer, but a very rare cancer – an ‘Angiosarcoma’ that was affecting the soft tissue.
What was an angiosarcoma? What were the implications of such a diagnosis? In all our dealings with cancer we had not even heard of the word ‘sarcoma’ let alone an ‘angiosarcoma’.
Time to find out more...
Angiosarcoma
‘angiosarcom”
a’.
I found several articles from verified national cancer support groups and discovered an angiosarcoma is a very rare cancer that develops in the inner lining of blood vessels and lymph vessels and can occur anywhere in the body but is most often found in the skin, breast, liver
and spleen. An angiosarcoma can be the result of having had radiotherapy for a previous breast cancer – a radiation-induced sarcoma – usually in older women. Prognosis is poor, it is difficult to treat and there are currently no established standard treatments. It can be cured IF found early enough. Articles read that a lot of research work was being carried out to better understand this type of cancer and to find more effective options – there were few clinical trials available due to not being able to gather enough patients to organise and run them – the cancer being so rare. Surgery to remove the offending tissue, with wide margins taken to ensure all the cancer has been removed, was the usual procedure with possible chemotherapy and radiotherapy later.
That is what Marilyn was faced with.
We all hoped that her treatment, whatever it entailed, would be done locally but were told she would have to go to Nottingham where they had a specialist sarcoma unit. This added to Marilyn’s worries but we had to go with it, thankful that, at last, she would get treated. But again we had to ask had it all been left too late?
The black cloud lingered.
Trips to Nottingham increased. At her first
What were we to expect?
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