Dear all, My name is Charne and I joined the Macmillan community a couple of months ago to look for support as a survivor and a carer. I am currently studying in Leeds university, however my home is in Switzerland.
Both my partners treatment and mine took place here. As the summer holidays began, any student has so much excitement to do nothing for 4 months but party, have fun and go out..upon my return in Switzerland my partner was complaining of striking headaches at work and eventually started passing put 3 or 4 times a day.
I remember the day clearly when wee were having dinner with my family and he passed out right in my arms and my father decided it was time to take him to hospital. His family is in Mexico and my parents stepped in as his 2nd parents. We took him to our local hospital and was told that no help was available as it was public holiday and we would need to come back...as we drove away from the hospital my dad driving back home, something in my mind told me that we needed to go look for more help.
After some arguing in the car, we decided to drive to the next nearest hospital (only about 10 minutes away) where my partner was placed into emergency care right away. Many tests were done and he was placed into intensive care for over a week but no definitive answers were coming out way...epilepsy?seizures?heart abnormalities? ? ? ? ? He was released later the next week with clear instructions to go to go for further analysis at a hospital called the CHUV (a hospital in the next city but with a reputation beyond any Swiss standard) MRI scans showed a tumour located in the left temporal lobe and surgery was scheduled soon after...we were all certain that it was simply a tumour that would be removed, there might be some complications in the surgery in terms of speech and movement but nothing he could not completely recover from. No 'C' word was ever used....
Surgery was supposed to take 4-6 hours and an astonishing 8 hours later his mum (who came from Mexico and I) were impatiently waiting to see him...I will never forget the sight of seeing him in hospital bed....I cannot even begin to describe it.
As I was leaving the hospital that night, I ran into one of the surgeons who said nothing but gave me the thumbs up. I felt peace.
My partner recovered in hospital for around a week and after one more week at home we received the devistating call that the tumour was more complex that we initially thought and we need to come in to the oncology department soon. Oncology?? What's that???? I never realised how little people who did not go through this or know someone who had, knew about any of the technical cancer-related terms. We were watching Greece, I had never seen the film and as a post surgery lift up he had bought it for us to watch..we never got to finish it.
The whole family was left in emotional disturbance and soon after, meeting the oncology team they were blurting out words my partner did not understand or want to hear. Thankfully my father was at the meeting and it took me a while to understand the severity of 'radio therapy' 'chemotherapy therapy' 'Level 3 CANCER' my soul was broken and my heart was reaching out to wipe all the tears of my partners face....
In that meeting we were made aware of a research program that was based in Geneva with research branches in Holland. This program aimed to treat non genetic cancerous tumours. From their expertise they thought it was non genetic and needed us to agree to this research to send it away for further analysis. Depending in the results we would be placed into 1 of 4 branches of treatment of which we could not choose, once the papers were signed.
My partner had already participated in other research programs the hospital was running (on a much smaller scale; e.g. During PET scans etc) and wanted to continue to help and agree to the program to much of the disagreement of my father and myself... I wanted to find the doctor that gave me the thumbs up and yen the thump upside down...I was so angry with this lingering picture in my mind but I soon realised that none of that would change the path we were about to face.
I have to mention my father is a very busy man and was due to visit the USA the week we found out he had cancer but his flight got cancelled in Zurich where he immediately decided to come home and postpone the trip. My father was able to be at that first meeting and the trip was changed to what happened to be the date we had to go sign the papers for the program. My father and I decided not to interfere in the decision and decided that I would go with and support his decision none the less. The morning of the visit I was Ill! Pain in the stomach and high fever meant that I had to stay home.
A couple of weeks passed and treatment was scheduled to start in a couple of days when I realised we had no time we had to be at the hospital, just a date. I called where they informed me that the results from Holland had nit arrived and treatment will not start for another week. Instead we were asked to come in for further blood tests etc... Much to our frustration we got on with life best we could and my partner actively started making differences in his life.
I had recenlty read a book by Louise Hay called you can heal your life and my partner actively tookart in the exsercises suggested. I found a cancer specific audio book from the same author in a form of I guess you can call it 'meditation'. Dietary changed were made, a bowl of berries a day, no more cows milk and all the crazy theories were put to the test. Louise Hay suggests that every illness in our body is self inflicted... Cancer in particularly comes from deep resentment and a lack of self love built over a period of years...my partner soon began the path of realisation that this was in fact the case.
We were due to start treatment the next day where I called to confirm the appointment and was again told the results had not arrived... I was fed up and called Geneva straight for the answers and still received nothing. About 30 minutes afterwards the head of Oncology called to inform us they had good news and we ned to come in....we were sat in the same exact place where they told us it was bad news... For the first time in months I felt a smile in my heart...we all went to the meeting where there were 4 doctors!!
They all told us that they did not understand how it's possible but after further analysis the tumour is now diagnosed as a Level 2 tumour. This meant no treatment just close monitoring. As we were leaving the hospital meeting room with this great news the head of oncology got emotional and we all knew that scientifically, miracles were not possible but what they had witness was a huge miracle!
Today we are still living with disbelief where I think every second how lucky we were for this to happen. I thank God every day for the miracle he bought upon us and am so great full for discovering Louise Hay, and so proud of my partner for embracing the changes in his life.
As most of you may know the emotional path that comes with something so big takes a long time to heal, and though this post may be one in a hundred I hope it was let any readers know that there is light in the Dark and there is a way for you to take control over this illness.
You CAN heel yourself and you CAN beat cancer! God (and if you don't believe in God, then life) works in mysterious ways. We wil never know why my fathers plane for cancelled, why it was postpone to the meeting he did not agree with, why I got sick and all the things our life changed to after the news.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone on this Macmillan community and beyond. I will continue to post on this blog as we go for further observations but in the mean time, we have finished Greece :), and I will head back to Leeds knowing the the toughest summer of my life ended in the best possible way that beats any 'doing nothing - partying -going out' holiday!
Keep positive and take your own life in your hands - it's 100% worth the try!
All the best, Charné
