Hello, blog.
The last time we spoke, as you may remember, I had had a post-chemo check-up which had been indecisive, to say the least, as the oncology team hadn't then come to any real decision. However, then I had a phone call to say that they would like to do a second laparoscopy (funny things some people do for fun), to get a look inside my innards and see what's going on there. To judge by the way Crabby has been carrying on recently, he has joined the Tiller Girls - remember them? Eh, ask yer Mam - and is practising his high kicks, the artful wee blighter.
So, anyway. Today we have been to the JR - and where the Churchill is relatively new and shiny, as hospitals go, the JR is, to put it bluntly, a grothole - for what we thought was a pre-op assessment. It turned out it wasn't for that at all, though, it was to talk to the head of the oncology team, the lovely Mr Sean Kehoe and his sweater. (He really is quite lovely, but his sweaters look like his Mum knits them for him for Christmas. And who knows, maybe she does.)
Actually, Sean did most of the talking, he was discussing things that might have to come out, depending on what the laparoscopy shows, and by 'things' I mean 'bits of me'. Quite honestly, by the time he was through it would have been quicker if he'd just made a list of what would be left. Scary and depressing. I was doing okay ("Ha! What's a spleen or two between friends?") until he implied that I might be on the guest list for the next Poobaggers' Picnic. No disrespect to the current Poobaggers; much like the nursing profession itself, I admire them without wishing to be a part of their number.
I do hope it won't come to that. Quite aside from the fact that I don't want to lose bits of me, I am sure god gave them to me for a good reason, just thinking about a fortnight in hospital, some of it in intensive care, is enough to spark a panic attack. But as I responded so well to the chemo, and my cancer markers are now so low - down to 100something from somewhere in the thousands - I'm hoping there's very little in the way of tumour left.
Anyway, however it turns out, I'm sure we'll deal with it. I must admit, I do rather wish it were all over, though. Whatever novelty value there was in being ill has long worn off, and I just want to get back to what passes for normal. Or something a bit nicer than normal, I think I've earned that.
Oh, and a quick bitch about hospital waiting times - we were hanging about so long that I read nearly the whole of The Penelopiad. It's a slender volume, true, and I already knew the story, but nevertheless ...
