The Easter weekend was long and warm. On the Friday and Saturday, as my wife slept, I went shopping, and browsing, in Charity shops. I walked c 20,000 steps over the two days.
On the Friday evening, I had a phone conversation with my two brothers, one on the other side of the world early in the morning, the other on a narrow boat.
The elder one, on the other side of the world, was supportive as he could be whilst asking practical questions about work, sick pay, working from home.
The other also tried to be supportive, though taken back by the size of the tumour. His wife tried to reassure me by telling me how bad it had been for a friend of theirs and for Rhod Gilbert, and they got through it. It was not quite the support I was after.
On Easter Sunday I visited my mother for lunch and we talked everything through whilst sat in the sun. She searched all the terminology, and we checked the level of my tumour against the diagram. T3, which was fairly impressive without being imposing or gaudy. T4 is the top trump, where the tumour breaks the lining of the bowel.
I drove home and did nothing. In the whole day I had walked c 1,500 steps and felt tired. We played cards after supper, and I sloped off to bed to sleep.
On Easter Monday my mother came to visit and the three of us looked at the Stoma – poo – bags and discussed washing / showering and the possibility of using cling film to wrap around my midriff and the bag.
The following day I was back to work. The alarm went off at 6.15; by 6.22 I had dragged myself downstairs to the toilet. At 6.23 it was as though someone had turned the taps on, and at 6.30 I felt drained and exhausted, with an empty stomach.
I passed up the usual early morning walk around the recreation ground and simply drove off to work, a 35-minute car journey through small villages and down narrow one-track lanes. It was peaceful and calm.
The following day I received the call form the hospital.
I was booked in for 3 weeks ahead. I would receive information through the post to confirm.
It was time to let everyone know, sending text and WhatsAp messages and Facebook messages and e-mails all round the world, trying to reply to people as quickly as they responded to me whilst not forgetting anyone. I scrolled my phone back and forth making sure everyone knew.
It felt a relief but also daunting as the truth and realisation of what I was going through hit me again. I had either been trying to deny it or just treat it like a broken toe. Annoying, but easily fixable.
I had applied for a charity support buddy to discuss fears and anxieties with. Friends could be supportive, with cake, but perhaps did not know exactly what I would face, and I hoped the buddy would. I got a call from the head office to discuss my situation.
I got a call from a recruitment agency asking how I was and what my work situation was. She was supportive as she could be when I told her, though I could sense she was disappointed.
I took a call from the local hospital Non-Clinical Support Unit to see how I was. I told her I had approached a charity for support before saying it was practical matters which concerned me most, and that I knew it would be painful. She went quiet on the end of the phone.
‘I take it that it will be very painful then?’ ‘You will be given all the help and assistance you need’, she replied.
It was a busy hour, and I was supposed to be working.
I had started bringing bread rolls to work for lunch, as opposed to re-heating the evening meal of pasta, chicken, vegetables etc in the micro-wave, in essence to eat smaller meals more often, but also see if it made me less runny in terms of bowel movements. It seemed to be working, but my rectum still felt like it was ‘burning’ slightly and if I sensed I needed to go to the toilet, I needed to go. My finger ends were often yellow with either cold or a lack of blood flow.
