Friday 13 November 2009

The First Bombshell

I left work early on the day of my appointment at Southmead Hospital. I was meeting the consultant Miss Burt and the specialist nurse Lesley Atkin. It was a hot day in June and the waiting room was not air conditioned and stuffy. As usual they were running a good hour behind....
I was feeling well and had recovered from the Appendectomy. As far as I was concerned this was a post operative check up to ensure that all was going well. My name was eventually called and I made my way into to an office where Miss Burt was sat behind a desk and Lesley to her right hand side. The desk was in the middle of the room and behind was a bed with the usual curtain rail around for physical examinations.
The introductions were done and the mood of the meeting was sombre from the start. Both Miss Burt and Lesley were very quiet and got straight to the point.
Basically when the appendix was sent to the lab for a biopsy after the operation they had found a problem.The lab found that I had a "muanous cystadenoma with associated low grade muanous adenocarcinoma" whet the hell did that mean?
Cancer, I heard.
At this point it all became a bit of a blur. There was some talk of one of the things they had found as being benign or benign like. I was told that I would need to come back and get a CT scan done. I told them that I had already got an appointment for this.
They also said I would have to come back for a colonoscopy and very likely to have to come back for another operation- a right Hemicolectomy. Oh no.
The CT would give them more of an idea of the problem along with the colonoscopy and enable them to put a care plan together. I was briefly examined and they were happy with the way I was recovering from the Appendectomy. I was handed The Patient Information Card for patients who had undergone a colorectal investigation and that was it.

I walked back to the car in a state of shock. I had cancer. But the shock meant that I hadn't taken in the conversation properly and didn't fully understand what was happening or my condition. I drove home, typically the traffic was congested,it was hot, I was fighting back the tears and in a state of shock. How was I going to tell Tracey?

I arrived home and found Tracey sat in the garden sunning herself and the girls out playing.
"come inside we need to talk" I said
"Eh?"
"Come inside"
We sat in the front room and I burst into tears and told her what had happened. She questioned me and I couldn't provide the answers as I hadn't heard what was said to me properly and could only really clarify what was happening in the next couple of weeks and handed her the Information Card.
Tracey was upset. The girls came in and we told them to go back out and play. We rung my parents and my brother and asked them to come around.

Later that night we broke the news to them. My mum was devastated....

That was just the first blow.....

1 comment:

  1. Hi,

    I have a quick question about your blog, would you mind emailing me when you get a chance?

    Thanks,

    Cameron

    cameronvsj(at)gmail.com

    ReplyDelete