Staring at the bowl of tomato soup

1 minute read time.

time 21:27. Never blogged before, dont know how i should do it? do i do it like a star trek log captain? if thats the case i would like scotty to beam me up. Trying to do it whilst i eat tomato soup. Not sure how succsesful this will be. This may end abruptly and unfinished if i spill it on the keyboard (and yeah that is a high probability!)

Didnt realise i could write my feelings down in a blog. I have 5 months of trauma, tears, happiness, love, arguments, sulks, cuddles, Kisses, scaryiness, hospital appointments, pukiness and side effects i need to get off my chest. 

Rewind to Dec, Mr M got a sore neck. Like a pulled muscle. It will go away we thought. it did not. One small lump later a nurse diaganosed a 'gland' that will for away in a couple of weeks. How she knew this over the phone is quite amazing. She celarly had her crystal ball out. Two weeks later Lump doubled in size, insisted on a Dr appt, Dr takes one look and refers to hospital. Oh dont worry we think, this must be a blocked thyroid or something, cant be nothing more, your young fit and healthy. Fast forward 5 days.  Sitting in front of a nice consultant. Questions asked, Tube shoved up hubbys nose and more questions asked. Was asked to stay for needle into lump for biopsy and ultra sound. Start to feel worried, then tell myself that they are being over cautious. Hubby has ultra sound and needle, appears out of room looking bad, Sits down and whispers to me; 'thats it Babe we are in real trouble now'. They want me to stay for needle straight into middle of lump. They have serious concerns.' Feel Sicker still but Reasure hubby that they have to cover there arses. Leave armed with another appointment for a fortnights time. 

will type some more later; the soup is getting cold. 

Anonymous
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember
    Hi Jode123, I hope your soup wasn't too cold! Does mark have confirmation of what type of cancer? Sadly your story sounds like many others on here but keep reading to the end as a lot of happy endings too, just keep positive. ClareC xxx
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Hello Jode 123.  As Clare has said, there are so many stories here and lots of happy endings, too ..... and she is right about the positive attitude. Being told that you or your partner has cancer is so terribly traumatic and the waiting for decisions on treatment can be unbearable ...... but once the plan is in action then things can move fast and you go with the flow.

    It's nearly four years since my treatment for mouth cancer started with surgery followed by radiotherapy, but although it's been a rough journey I am still here ! This Macmillan site is a great place to be for help and support ( in my case, initially the Head / Neck Cancer group ) but you can make some more lovely friends along the way. You never have to feel alone in this ........ the Mac family are here.

    Love, Joycee xx

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Hi Jode,

    My lovely friends said it all already... just wanted to say welcome and well done for taking that leap into writing it down...  and as Joycee said, welcome to the macfamily we are quite good at holding hands on the bumpy bits and smiling at the good bits with you...

    And hope your soup was nice and hot still

    Hug to you

    Little My x

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    It would be excellent to be able to beam up into Star Trek, as I believe that they had cured cancer in that universe. Although that may not be series canon, it may be out of one of the James Blish novelisations ...

    ...what? Who said 'nerd'?!

    Anyway: diagnosis. It's a funny old thing, innit - for values of 'funny' that equal 'you have to laugh or else you'd scream your head off'. My poor GP was convinced that I was short of breath due to an inflammation of the lungs and tried to treat it with antibiotics. It wasn't until a rather scared and out of her depth locum sent me for an X-ray that the true story started to emerge.

    Huh. That was, perhaps, less encouraging than I intended it to be. But you get the general idea: post on here any time you need someone to listen and, sure enough, people will pop in to give you whatever support they can. If you're lucky, it might even be someone who talks some sense. This, sadly, is not one of my talents.

    Good luck with the next appointment, and I can, in fact, tell you one useful thing: keep badgering them, and don't let up. The only way to get through cancer is by kicking and screaming.

    Best wishes

    Hilary

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Hello Jode.

    I'm sorry you're going through tough times. This is a good place to come tho and I hope you find it helpful.

    At the start of 2009, my (now) husband had a small lump in his neck that we thought was some harmless gland thing but turned out to be tonsil cancer, which is apparently relatively unusual. He had had no other symptoms and was as far as we could tell in the best shape he had been for years.

    It took several weeks of scary waiting & changes of opinions & hoping & hopes dashed & what-ifs but he was taken into hospital & had one tonsil removed (not the one with the tumour) and another biopsy. He had a lot of pain with swallowing and took a while to get over it, but did. Then he was in hospital to have a lateral neck dissection which was quite major surgery and left him with a big scar & a droopy eye, but he didn't have throat pain after it and could eat normally.

    THEN he had to wait for the swelling to go down so he could be measured for his radiotherapy face mask. THEN when the mask was ready he had his RT, which at first didn't seem to have any ill-effects, but he ended up with tender skin (not badly burned or anything) and a very, very painful mouth, throat & tongue. I'll spare you the details and fast-forward to

    TODAY he is as far as we can tell 100% fit & well & healthy & energetic. He has regained virtually all his sense of taste, his dry mouth is copeable-with tho drier than pre-treatment. His salivary glands were affected and his saliva is a bit thicker than it was but again, he manages to eat & drink everything he wants (curry, red wine, stinky cheese, crisps, chilli, all the stuff he thought was gone forever).

    I won't lie and pretend it was all easy. (It was a feckin nightmare and I was and still am terrified of losing him because he is the kindest, funniest, GentleMan and my Silver Fox) but we did emerge out the other side.

    I don't know you and have only seen Episode One of your story so send my love and best wishes to you and your other half. I'm presuming he had chemo (my man didn't) so maybe he's had/having a tougher time.

    I was going for a 'light at the end of the tunnel' approach: if that's inappropriate, I do apologise. I lost my dad to prostate cancer recently so I am aware there isn't always a happy ending, but I wish you both well.

    And please keep posting.

    Big hugs xx xx xx