Maybe this should be titled 4 years after the two months previously....Aug 31 2007 the day i had surgery to remove a tumour in my colon.... 9 months previously 29.11.2006 the day my mother died as i sat holding her hand in the local cottage hospital in Thirsk north Yorkshire..... 30.7.96 10 years before that when my father died in the same hospital maybe in the same room, i wasn't there, no one was, he slipped away in the night, but i never regretted it i think that's how he wanted it, all tragic events in my life and all because of cancer.
Yesterday was my birthday 49 the inexorable move towards 50, cancer has changed my outlook on growing old it seems some kind of treasure to be found these days, accompanied by the search for clues and the rite of passage towards attainment, the need to fight the odds to find where it lies...longevity.
I guess my hunt began on 23rd August 2007 when after arriving in Luxor Egypt, the day before i had a buffet meal in the evening and started to feel bloated. I had a walk around and went to the loo hoping to feel more comfortable but nothing, my stomach in fact seemed to be getting bigger. Had a read watched TV and still felt uncomfortable, in fact i felt a bit of pain coming in waves. Further on into the late evening it increased the pain becoming hard to manage, relief only lasting a few minutes before another excruciating pain would turn my now distended stomach into knots. All through the night i tried to go to the loo, walked around, knelt on all fours but more often than not was curled up breathing through the pain whilst the three boys slept along side me in the room. At 10am when Joe was awake i told him to call reception and get a doctor as i couldn't take the pain any longer and it didn't seem like it was going to go away as i had hoped.
After two visits from the young Doctor and no change he and the kind receptionist Seif helped me to a cab and further onto Luxor Hospital. The boys happy playing with new found friends in the hotel pool had no idea that i had gone, they would later return to the room and find me missing and head off to reception to be told i had gone to hospital. Being astute kids and used to Arab culture the three of them jumped into a cab and came to the hospital, finding me in the private wing where i was taken via their casualty, in so much pain i couldn't even speak and just trusted that at some point it would all go away. After being admitted i had tubes in my arms with a drip and then one deposited into my stomach via my nose to relieve it of it's contents and an enema, gradually the pain subsided and i felt more human than animal again.
The boys crashed out all over my room and then after an hour or two headed back with my purse, luckily we had half board and they were all taken under the wing of the other kids families whilst i was away in all for two days. The next day they appeared with a wet tourist from the hotel who i had talked to briefly on the night i was taken ill, she had seen them leaving and quickly made to go with them rather than they come alone again. Turned out she lived within 3 miles of us, the boys remain in contact with her kids to this day, i saw her boy at the bus stop in passing a couple of years ago, very odd after meeting in Egypt.
The night i returned to the hotel i spent alone, the boys were at a room party of one of their friends, i hardly saw them the whole time. We continued to enjoy the holiday, they begrudgingly had a sail on the Nile in a felucca with me as there was something else going on at the same time that they were missing, but i think they enjoyed it in the end. On the last day we went on a balloon ride over the valley of the kings which was spectacular, and on the last day Zaki and i headed off to see the museum of mummification before the flight home.
I had decided not to eat anything after my pain riddled evening, not that anyone told me not to but i thought it was the best course of action until i got home, those who know how i love my food would realise how awful the pain was for me to have done that.
I notified the cabin crew half an hour after we took off that i didn't feel too well, i felt slightly nauseous which a bit later turned into very nauseous. I asked the attendant for a glass of water and got tonic, because the quinine helps with sickness but i had a complete aversion to bubbles at this point and sat with it for a while before getting the water. We were at the back of the plane and after my first visit to the loo to throw up i found a seat right next to it empty and sat there going in now and again when it was free as it made me feel better.
I had a benchmark in my head of not saying anything until we were in sight of the UK as one of the nurses advising me from the insurance company had said that i needed a fit to fly certificate in case the plane was diverted and i was determined to make it home. By the time we did land i had enough and asked to see a paramedic, he came on board after the captain announced the sick passenger, i felt a need to raise my hand at that point to fess up, as everyone looked around to spot who it was. He decided that i needed an ambulance to hospital so the ground crew helped with the boys and took them to meet Lu who had my car whilst we were away and i headed off to the east surrey and Sussex at Redhill. She came to the hospital withe the boys initially and once she knew i was being admitted took them off with her and they remained there for a week! The next week with their dad until i left on the 12th Sept.
The following morning after being booked into a very nice room on my own it was suddenly filled by men in suits and the occasional woman, they all squeezed in at the bottom of my bed and introduced themselves as my team. One in particular was to be my consultant Mr Aslan, they told me what was going to happen basically lots of tests and disappeared. One of the nurses came in and said that although Mr Aslan could be a bit abrupt every one of the nurses would choose him as their doc which was very comforting.
I did indeed have CT scans and then a colonoscopy which is when i saw the tumour like a donut in my sigmoid colon. After this Mr Aslan came and said we haven't got the biopsy results but i have lots of experience and in my opinion this tumour is malignant. He was firm and direct and it was a good way for me to be told, the bowel nurse who came in after he left was very touchy feely and sweet and had me in tears within a few minutes which was not really the best approach for me....such as after mum died, a few minutes later the sister came walking down the corridor arms spread to hug me, my reaction was to say before she reached me, don't be nice just don't be nice to me, just talk to me as normal. To be nice would have opened up a well that i wasn't sure i would be able to tap.
Within four days of arriving off the plane i was moved to another ward the step down ward ready for my surgery, at around 4pm on Aug 31st 2007 i was wheeled down to theatre where i had the epidural that i had insisted that i didn't want inserted before i caved in to the anaesthetists affirmation that it really would be the best thing. At the point that it was inserted needing me to bend forward whilst they fiddled with my back, i sobbed for the first time, although i knew i would sleep then wake up everything i think just came out at that point, maybe it was the sobbing or maybe the fact that i think the doc was practising his first epidural but when i woke up in a cold sweat wondering what was going on and what it was i was feeling i noticed another patient being told his epidural hadn't worked, i realised that i was in pain. A few minutes later the Doc confirmed this with a piece of ice on my leg, i got the morphine pump i asked for in the first place!
Sarah came to visit the next day we conversed despite me falling asleep after every few sentences, she was very patient The following day Carol next door bought Rachid down she Sarah and Rachid sat like the three wise monkeys by my bed, me still in my anaesthetic stupor would drift in and out, i apparently at one point talked about the boys visiting to which there was an emphatic lets just wait a bit...from their side of the bed they could see me hardly able to speak with tubes radiating from the line in my neck to the drip and bags hanging each side of the bed draining off the bowel as it recovered, i didn't look well....anyway i was told that i had a dukes C tumour 1 lymph affected out of 25 so would need chemo after recovery. On the 12th Sept i left hospital to head home.
October to April 2008 8 cycles of oxalyplatin and capecitabine tablets which have left me with numb feet. During the cycles i cut chicken with gloves on, whenever out, looked like i was about to mug someone with the scarf wrapped securely over my mouth and developed a particular obsession with uggs, after the initial infusion which left my arm painful to any touch i ended up with a picc line. A particularly horrific affair where they insert a tube into the crook of your arm and thread it along the vein around the shoulder and into the larger artery near the heart...a bloody procedure literally!
Ok chemo over cancer removed beaten that one!
29th November, recognise the date? except this is now 2010 and i am going for the usual check up. I had an MRI scan earlier in the year via gynaecology as i had some weird bleeding that couldn't be accounted for and a PET scan in Sept as my CEA levels had risen a CT scan too. I ended up chasing the results until they booked me in for an earlier appointment.
MS Linsell called me in and very kindly told me news i had not expected, that the lesions in my lungs which they thought might be chest infection scars { i coughed and spluttered around my poor mother the week before she died} had grown and were tumours. I would go back to oncology and have chemo again.
8 cycles of Irinotecan and Capcitabine again, hair loss this time. It started to come out and i began to look like a wild woman so one day i got the new dog clippers and before using it on the dog tested it out for myself. I didn't cry just took it as another step on the road, i actually wondered if it would be a good thing my hair was not great thin and fine and a new head of hair would be a bonus.... four months after finishing and i have a head of thicker shorter white grey hair which most people seem to prefer who knew!? It has completely changed the way i look!
June 2010 i find out that i have another tumour. Five weeks of radiotherapy prescribed...25th Oct yesterday my birthday 49! and i have my second dose of radiotherapy, they ask me my date of birth and only just register when i tell them that yes that means today is my birthday!
Today the 26th Oct..... the day after the day before.... when my blog began!
