Monday 12th Sept 2011.....I trot off quite happily to the chest clinic and find it is in a new part of the hospital,very smart and welcoming and in the waiting room is the biggest Macmillan display I have ever seen, no problem the clinic is shared by numerous doctors according to the written sign on the wall. I was soon called by a nurse for weighing ,ECG, blood tests and the inevitable breathing test no xray because I had already had one on Thursday. So ,finally the Doctor who asked " Do you know why you are here" Me" well yes a shadow was found on my lung and we need to know what it is" Thats right says she we need to know if it is cancerous or not!!!!!! What ..where did that word come from,I sort of shut down then and had to be dragged back to reality as she was wittering on about scans,biopsies and other wondrous things that had to be done. Finally I managed to ask if it could be treated but didn't get a good response just that they needed to know what it was before they could say. I was made an appointment for the following day for a CT scan quick or what!! Gets home and snaps the head off my friend(see profile) she only asked how it went,but no I couldn't be civil and snarled that the cancer clinic was lovely and they were going to really look after me. Then the tears came...swiftly followed by the whisky being poured and drunk and another and another. Well lets face it a tricky liver isn't as bad as cancer is it,shows how much I know. At some point we had a phone call from other halfs very aged aunt,she knew I had been to the clinic as we had missed going to see her on the Thursday and had to give some explanation,she asked how i was and I told her I felt fine...which I did cos the whisky had kicked in..oh good says she..I was worried it might be something serious. I think I passed the phone to other half I might have thrown it..not too sure..and cried an awful lot more. Then we realised we were due to go out that evening...to a quiz for Cancer Research...thats when I decided I was not going to be beaten just yet,so very strong coffee and a quick wash and off we go. I really should have been an actress my peformance was brilliant no-one could have guessed what was going on inside me.I even had the nerve to go outside for my usual ciggies although I have to admit not as many as usual. The irony...our team won!!!!!!!!!!! I had my scan the following day and things started to get a bit blurry from there......my youngest who still lives at home was asking why I was going for all these tests, my friend and other half are saying not to worry her till i know something for definate...like it was going to go away, I was the only one who knew for sure what it was,and thinking that way it could only get better couldn't it? Anyway at some point my eldest came round and I thought she is a big girl now and I should be able to talk to her and let her help me tell her sister.....she was very strong but I could tell she really wanted to break down a bit and wouldn't cos I was being strong for her..oh what complicated lives we lead. It was decided that she would come round at the weekend and we would talk to youngest together explaining that as yet we didn't know what it was but best to be prepared for the worst...it can only get better as the song goes. Believe it or not we had a very nice evening together a few drinks lots of laughs and not too many tears...i think they all came later for them both. I am a very practical person and like things organised so at some point I got out THE POLICY and thought arn't I a clever girl...I had the foresight to include a terminal illness clause to the policy.........right thinks I if it is the worst then I will go out spending some of this with my girls,my other half,my friends oh what a wonderful time we will have. I had already made the decision to quit smoking so booked myself in with a hypnotherapist..Wed.21st Sept...a non smoker and still am hooray,but a bit like horse/stable door etc oh well. I was also thinking what shall I say to my parents..they were due to go on holiday but were awaiting results back from my dads last tests(bladder cancer),it was a very difficult position but I needed to talk to them because by now others knew and I know what the jungle drums are like round here. Decision made off i go to see them and Dad shows me the letter giving him the all clear....Ok it worked for him so why not me, I told them what I knew, nothing definate as yet and told them as I wasn't ill or anything to get on that holiday which thankfully they did. Through all of this i havn't felt ill well not since they got rid of the infection ....which may have given me longer...not even a cough and at times I felt like a fraud and even convinced myself at one point that I didn't have cancer anyway,but that was before the PET scan Fri 23rd sept. Somehow I had been assigned a Macmillan nurse who was very good at phoning me before i got letters in the post and explained things very well...he is a saint..and rang to say that something had been found on the scan so next was a biopsy to determine exactly what it was. Off to Blackburn again 27th Sept for biopsy via endoscopy which was not very pleasant but just about bearable. Then its the waiting game again and lots of talks about what if...no-one listened to me...said I was being silly thinking the worst and it wouldn't do me any good,it was them in denial and being hopeful too of course......deep down I knew. I soon got annoyed with people telling me to think positive and the usual" they can do so much these days". I had looked up on the site the various types of lung cancer,against the advice of someone at the hospital..can't remember who..and picked the one i wanted,I was quite prepared for surgery ,chemo, the lot and told myself it would be ok in the end...whats a bit of pain if you are going to live,of course all this is before I get the results and thats for another day .
