Chapter 2

Unfortunately, after a happy summer, Amy began experiencing difficulties swallowing food, and felt something wasn’t right. A scan on July 30th 2013 confirmed the tumour had already started to grow again and the doctors decided treatment would be radiotherapy. She began 12 courses on August 14th, but a few weeks later we were told that it hadn’t been as successful as hoped. The problems with Amy’s tumour was the rarity, and the position. So, the consultants turned to treatment as part of clinical trials.

Chemotherapy began in October 2013 which meant that year, she spent Christmas Eve and New Years Eve in Weston Park Hospital – still smiling.

Just a few weeks later, we received the upsetting news that the tumour was still growing. By this point, Amy had to give up her place at University.

In April/May 2014, the hospital decided to try radiotherapy again, but it was stopped after the consultant decided it was causing more harm to Amy than anything else. After a difficult week of not knowing what, if any, treatment could be done, radiotherapy was restarted. Following this, Amy was admitted to Weston Park for 2 weeks with severe dehydration, ulcerated mouth and extremely sore neck; the palliative care team got involved to control her pain.

July 2014, it was confirmed that her tumours were actively growing again, and Amy started more chemotherapy on the 16th. We delayed the family trip we had planned for the week until that evening. However, the treatment made her very sick and drowsy and she spent the next days in a wheelchair and we had to rush home to get her to Weston Park to help control her sickness. Over the next month, Amy spent a lot of time in hospital with infections.

In September, Amy was suffering with severe headaches, dizziness, and vomiting. The doctors feared that the cause could have been tumours growing in her head, or potentially a brain infection. She was again admitted to hospital for several days, but nothing showed on the scans, and the symptoms were blamed on pressure from the tumours.

In October, because Amy’s hands and arms were sore from all the injections she had with blood tests and treatment infusion, they decided to take her to theatre for a Hickman line inserted – a central line fitted in a vein in her neck. Again, she was a total star and was sat with a cup of tea and a biscuit less than half an hour later! This was then used for the chemotherapy that she had later that month. Amy went on to have further chemotherapy, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the tumours under control; by this stage they were visible in her neck.