I have looked back over my posts and I can't see where I have written about my diagnosis......the discovery that I had bowel cancer, if I have then maybe it isn't such a bad thing to publish it twice for those who just happen upon my blog and don't know about bowel cancer.
The background to my diagnosis must be the fact that I suffered from IBS since I was a child. If I hadn't then I think I would have been more aware of changes in bowel habit, but I didn't even think twice about it.
I did have griping colicky pains and a sudden urge to use the loo on frequent occasions but I did nothing until I found myself awake through the night with terrible gut ache, so bad I phoned in sick and went to the gp. By then the pain had gone he checked my abdomen and decided it was a urine infection. I was quite happy to leave and forget about it.
A couple of weeks later I set off with the boys for a holiday in Luxor Egypt. We arrived in Gatwick with some time to spare and Adam said that he wanted to buy a wrestling magazine from wh smiths for the flight, I told him to be quick and meet us there. Joe got what he wanted and then Zak and then the most awful thing I heard our flight being announced as ready to go.....no Adam, joe ran around wh smith but he was no where to be found....then they called out for the family elkamouri really panicking now I went to information to get them to pita call out for him when suddenly I saw him meandering towards us from the other side of the airport, not being able to find his mag he went to the others shop.
We ran and we ran as they announced over the tannoy that our luggage was about to be removed if we didn't arrive at the departure lounge soon, the boys were way ahead of me jumping onto the next moving walkway, I was flagging finding it hard to keep up I just kept running and running when suddenly joe appeared behind me shouting this way !!!! Ii had run right past the departure gate.
We quickly went through with our tickets and passports only to arrive on the Tarmac faced with a bus full of passengers waiting for us..... We hadn't been on the bus more than two minutes before I announced to all that it was Adams fault, I couldn't deal with the shame.
We had a good flight and on arrival at the airport we got a cab to the hotel ibis. I made an arrangement with the cab driver to pick us up the following day with a guide to go and see the valley of the kings and queens and Hatshepsut temple.
The receptionist at the hotel was very nice and gave us a lovely room with a view over the Nile it was stunning. We unpacked and the boys changed and went down to the pool later we had a buffet meal, I only booked half board so we got breakfast and an evening meal and paid for our drinks, as I wasn't fussed about drinking this was a cheaper option.
The following morning the cab arrived to take us sight seeing. It was soooo hot baking, only a few tombs are open at any one time and out guide took us first into a small one and then to a couple of larger tombs, we weren't allowed to talk in the tombs but it was enough to see the ancient hieroglyphics. We had our picture taken next to. Tutankhamen s tomb which you can see somewhere else in the blog.
We saw the temple which was astonishing, it had been renovated over forty years back to its original splendour and was just amazing. Whilst we were there the most famous Egyptian historian was filming next to us, whenever you see anything on the news about Egypt he is there with his blue shirt and wide brimmed hat.
We spent the afternoon by the pool after I arranged with the cab to come back on wed morning to take us to the Karnak temple, then in the evening had something to eat.
Around 8pm I sat chatting to an English woman briefly in the reception area during which I started to feel a bit bloated. I headed back to the room and attempted to go to the loo to no avail. I felt really uncomfortable and just wanted to pass wind at least, but nothing.
The boys went to bed and I tried to settle but my stomach wasn't moving and now I was starting to have griping pains, these increased as the night went on and became more and more excruciating. I was desperate to pass a motion but however much I tried nothing would come, the pain came in waves rippling through my abdomen. I was curled up in bed, then on all fours, then sitting up, then lying down, then walking around, then back on all fours I had become a little bit out of control starting to moan and groan with the pain. As soon as it was morning I told Joe to phone the reception for a doctor.
A young Egyptian doctor came to see me, seif the receptionist came to the room too. The doctor gave me some tablets and said that if it wasn't better in an hour to call. It wasn't he came back tried to put a drip in put couldn't and then said you have to go to hospital.
Both he and seif went with me in a cab, the boys were in the pool by now and I didn't get a chance to tell them what was happening.
We arrived at the hospital and it was just a blur of people and me in the middle of it just in agony, I was vertically incoherent by now. No one gave me pain relief apparently it is policy. Seif and the doctor were talking to the hospital docs. I was taken to the private wing and had a room to myself, a basic room by uk standards but a haven for me none the less. The nurses were very sweet with their little English and my bit of Arabic we managed. They gave me an enema, my first ever! But i was beyond caring by now, put a drip in my arm and a tube down my nose into my stomach, a singular experience. I began to feel so much better and had a snooze.
I then was take to have an X-ray and also an ultrasound, the male nurse who carried this out did so whilst chatting me up!
I returned to my room and a while later the boys appeared!! They had gone back to the room at the hotel and found me gone! They went to reception and had been told I was at the hospital so they got a cab and here they were! It was good that by then I was virtually back to normal so they flopped out on the sofa in my room for a snooze. Later they got a cab back to the hotel after I made sure that they knew where my purse was in case they needed anything, as it was they had made friends with a few kids who got them drinks with their all inclusive bands and whose families took them under their wing.
I was never told by anyone at the hospital what the problem was just that I needed to sea doctor when I got home. The following day the boys arrived again but this time with the woman I had spoken to the night I was taken ill, she was still wet having jumped up when she saw the boys leaving not wanting them to travel alone again. It turned out that she lived in Lewisham too....small world the boys remained in contact with her children after the holiday.
By now I wanted to go one doctor wanted me to have a colonoscopy another said I had to stay, I became upset and the nurses indicated don't worry they would sort it, they talked to another more understanding doc and he let me go but said I had to come back on Friday the following day to have the colonoscopy.
I went back to the hotel and that night spent the night on my own in the hotel room whilst the boys went to sleepover with a friend in another part of the hotel!!
The next day I asked seif to go to the hospital with me, they had my passport and I needed to pay my bill to get it back, I withdrew 500 pounds in dollars from the cashpoints this was all I needed to pay. I got my passport and went to see the doctor in a busy clinic, he told me i didn't need to have the procedure just to seethe doc on return home, even though it was a colonoscopy I was going to have I made no link with bowel cancer, I didn't have any thought abut what it was I was just glad I felt better. I got a fit to fly certificate from the doc as advised by my insurance nurse and left.
I did not eat for the rest of the holiday or drink anything fizzy. I can't remember if I used the loo at all. That afternoon me and The boys went for a sail on the Nile on a felucca, the boys were not happy about this at first as they had things planned with other friends but it was a lovely thing to do peaceful and beautiful as the sun went down.
I booked a ride in a hot air balloon over the valley of the kings for the Sunday morning, we just spent the day around the pool on the Saturday. The boy who took the hot air balloon bookings chatted me up too and asked to remain in touch, he was quite tenacious. I sat with a couple of young British girls that evening on the terrace chatting and remarked on how full on the Egyptian men were.....they didn't know what I meant not having he my problem, I think I must have a look they like as I was constantly approached when I was outside the hotel, my limited Arabic does come in useful at times, imshi the most meaning go away!
We had to get up really early on this day morning and had them waiting for us already before we were all up, I got the boys to move as quick as they could and we landed bleary eyed in reception and were taken by minibus to the riverside picking up other travellers on the way.
we then got into boats with a covered area where breakfast was waiting for us, we sat with a middle aged couple from Australia and the wife's sister, they were very nice.
we arrived on the other side of the Nile and were taken to the launching site where there were at least ten or more balloons lying on their side with gas flares blowing them up. It was still dawn before the sunrise and they looked like huge lanterns, they gradually got bigger and bigger until they were all standing proud and we were told which baskets to get into and scrambled in.
I had never been in a hot air balloon before same as the boys an as i don't like heights i was a bit apprehensive about how this was going to go. One by one the balloons gently lifted off until there was a stream of them lighting up the sky, we rose higher and higher and i didn't mind at all it was lovely. Gradually the sun rose and we saw the pyramids basking in the glow, it was magical. We continued to travel and floated over other historical ruins, we ended up on the green side of the Nile and the pilot played with us as the date palms came towards us and it looked as though we were going to crash into the tops we would just skim them, you could have reached out and plucked yourself some dates. At one point passing over what looked like shells of houses i realised that it was the open roof of somebodies home and could make out the shape of two bodies under a cover fast asleep, right beneath us.
The flight lasted about an hour and we landed in the desert with children of eleven and twelve begging for money all around us they had been following the balloons on their last few meters.
We still got back to the hotel in time for breakfast and then spent the rest of the day again by the pool, the boys favourite pastime hooking up with all their new friends.
Our final day was Monday, i was sad to say goodbye to Seif as he had been so kind, he took my number and did keep in contact with me for a good few years by intermittently wishing me a happy new year or just asking how i was. this stopped about a year or so ago the number i had didn't work and then i lost it. I still have the same number but i doubt i will hear from him again.
In the morning Adam and Joe stayed by the pool and Zak and i went to the museum of mummification, where we saw mummies in various states and animals that had been mummified. Zak really enjoyed it and we got a horse and cart ride back to the hotel.
We flew that afternoon back to England and ended up in the same seats we had coming, i even had the same Asian couple sitting next to me.
About half an hour into the flight i started to feel queasy, just not right. I asked the flight attendant for some water as i had been avoiding fizz, but she bought me tonic as it is good for sickness. I started to feel very uncomfortable and ended up in the toilet to throw up which made me feel better for a while.
I noticed a spare chair right next to the door so moved into it leaving the boys a few rows behind. Whenever the loo was empty i would pop in.....heave and then return to my seat. I watched the clock ticking round a five hour flight, it was excruciating.... bearing in mind the fit to fly cert and the nurses warning about landing elsewhere if need be i kept going till i knew we were over the channel. I had already told the flight attendant that i had been in hospital, they said someone should have informed them but this hadn't happened.
Once i knew we would land in the UK i asked the flight attendant to get a paramedic on arrival, i had been sitting there working out if i could manage getting the luggage by now i was visibly shaking and just felt so bad just ill not in pain. I decided i couldn't, if the car had been parked at the airport i may well have found he strength to struggle on and drive home but as my friend Lu had it whilst we were away and was meeting us i just gave in.
The plane landed and then the captain announced that there was a sick passenger on board and would everyone mind remaining seated until the paramedics were on board.....i could see everyone looking around and felt like raising my hand in acknowledgement, yes for it is i holding you all up. In the end it wasn't too bad as i was at the back of the plane they let everyone in the front go. I told my tale to the ambulance man and he said that i needed to go to the hospital with him.
The ground crew took the boys passports from me and Lu's number who i had spoken to and told what was happening, she ended up having the boys for a week for me.
I walked off the plane into the ambulance and ended up at the east surrey and Sussex hospital. I was in a and e for a bit and Lu came there with the boys and my suitcase, we pulled some things out of it that i would need including my x ray! and then she left with the very tired boys.
I was taken onto a ward for the night, well actually a nice room to myself and after getting pain relief had the best sleep.
In the morning my room was suddenly filled with various nurses junior doctors, heads of department, registrars and my consultant. It was all a bit of a blur they had looked at my x ray luckily still having an old fashioned screen to use. My consultant introduced himself as mr Aslam and as quickly as they arrive they left. One of the nurses came in and said that although Mr Aslam could come across as abrupt he was very good and most nurses would be pleased to have him looking after them which was reassuring.
I remained in that room for a couple of days during which i had CT scans and then a colonoscopy, i truly had not considered what was causing my problem until then i felt well now and in my optimistic way just assumed everything would get sorted one way or another.
I was awake and watching the screen during the colonoscopy and saw the camera snake through my colon until it came across a huge donut like thing blocking its way, there was no way it was getting past that. Mr Aslam told me that it was a tumour and that this was the cause of my problems. I then was tided up and left in my bed in a little cubicle next door.
Mr Aslam then came to see me, he was very straightforward he said that they needed to send a piece of the tumour that he had got for a biopsy but that he had 25 years experience and that he felt that this tumour was malignant, did i know what he was saying?....yes i did. So that is what it is, ok we cut it out and carry on.
The bowel nurse came in then and was very sweet and kind and made me feel more upset than the doctor had.
I returned to my room until the next day when i was moved to the step down ward, where i would go after my op, there was a spare bed and they didn't want to lose it.
On Friday 30th August 2007 in the afternoon i was wheeled down to theatre. I had the epidural that i didn't want in the first place and then went to sleep.
I woke up on the step down ward, it was night time and in a bed in the corner i could here a young guy complaining of pain and heard the Doctor say his epidural hadn't worked. I was in a cold sweat and feeling very weird i couldn't work out why but when i heard this i realised i was in pain. I called the Doctor as he past and he said he would come back. He did and ran some ice over my legs could i feel it? yes i could!! mine hadn't worked either so they set me up with a morphine pump.
When the biopsy came back they found that i had one lymph node affected out of 24 and that chemo would be a probable option. Nothing had gone through the bowel and i think i was very lucky, later my oncologist would talk about two lesions on the lungs that they thought maybe chest infection scars.
The long and the short of it is i spent 12 days in the hospital after that. He managed to avoid fitting a colostomy bag for which i was grateful and once the bowels started to move a bit i was able to go.
The day before i left my wound was found to be infected and the sister asked if i would stay a bit longer but i wanted to go, i was lucky that the district nurse at my surgery was very good i called them to let them know i was home and she came to see me and got me registered onto the system although this should have already been done. I guess the problem of two authorities being in the mix.
One day she asked which way henryson rd was and i asked if she was going to see jenny a friend of mine who was nearing the end of her battle with breast cancer. She was so for he next few days we passed messages through her. When i was able to get out and about i went to see her, she was in bed and not responding at all, she had three boys like me the youngest carl was only 13 and crying in the lounge......Jenny died the following day 11th Oct 2007. I see the boys out and about the oldest two were in their late teens early twenties when she died....they are all doing ok. Jenny was the glue that held them together, but they are managing and getting on with their lives.
