There has been progress on the referral from the dentist. Firstly I got notification that it had arrived safely the other end. Then that the attached paperwork was acceptable. Then I was told that it was being looked at by a Specialist. Minutes later I get the final notification of which hospital I'm being sent to. Unfortunately this is the same hospital I had my cancer treatment at. I haven't been back there in years and it stirs up some very unhappy memories.
My husband is having similar unhappy thoughts and we talk about his worries. My face is puffy and he says it looks like it did when I had cancer. He is concerned that it's back. When the dentist showed me my Xray he said that the mass you can see is definitely just an abscess and not anything sinister. I've previously told my husband this but he doesn't seem reassured. He then starts asking me about what happened when I had my wisdom teeth extracted at a hospital. This was years before we met and he wonders if it will be a similar sort of procedure.
This stirs up more unhappy memories and is not an experience I'm going to share with him. It started with a dentist trying to take out my wisdom teeth in his surgery. Something went wrong and I ended up in A&E in such pain that they gave me morphine. The teeth were eventually removed under general anaesthetic and my face did not look great afterwards. Bad swelling and bruising that took days to go down.
My husband goes off to clean out the kitchen cupboards. I know from when I was having my cancer treatment that it's his way of distracting himself from worrying. Personally I prefer something more relaxing. I decide to have a game of Candy Crush. I love Candy Crush. I was introduced to it by a teenage patient when we met on the Chemo ward. I don't play so much these days but we still monitor each other's progress and exchange free lives. I remember that for while we formed a Candy Crush team with some other cancer patients, and because we were all playing so much we won loads of free boosters.
Unfortunately before I started playing I decided to have a quick look on the internet to try to find something to reassure my husband with. Bad mistake and I should know better than to go anywhere near Google for medical information. I soon found lots of horror stories and accompanying photos about teeth extractions after radiotherapy that went wrong. Found out about worse side effects than I knew existed before. Then I start the sort of fretting that I haven't done in years. What if the cancer has come back? What if I get cancer somewhere else? What if it's all a symptom of some other terrible disease?
I give myself a very strict talking to. I know better than to play the What If game. I remember being told that it helps that if for each negative thought you think of something positive that might happen. Like what if I win the lottery?
Eventually I settle down to playing Candy Crush. It certainly gives you something relaxing to concentrate your mind on. I play well and win several boosters for my current team.
