Before I refer to the title of this section, I will fill in the gaps from my follow up oncology appointment from the 28th October. The pain in my right side has been gradually getting worse as I slept and has been giving me a lot of broken sleep. However on the evening of November 4th the pain was unbearable when sitting down in the evening watching TV so I went to lie down in bed at around 9pm to see if that helped, but that did not help and I was in a lot of pain. My discomfort was audible to my wife above the TV, so she came upstairs to see how I was, judging by the look of fear in her face at the pain I was in I guess I looked pretty rough. My wife called 111, who in turn then sent out an ambulance to come and see me.
The ambulance crew checked me out and gave me some codeine to help with the pain (I had already taken paracetamol and ibuprofen) before then taking me into hospital to have me checked out even more with blood tests etc. So I got to go on my first ever ambulance ride to hospital, continuing my year of firsts for different experiences. In hospital I had the usual obs, blood tests and covid test, before being seen by a doctor, they were happy the pain killers had taken effect so sent me home with more codeine tablets, my wife then got to come and pick me up at 2:30 on a Friday morning.
Once I was awake on the Friday, I phoned the cancer care nurses at Reading to tell them what had happened the night before and to see if they could get me a CT scan appointment ASAP. They thankfully managed to get me one for the Saturday morning bright and early, which I obviously attended.
And this leads me to November 8th, I was just on my way home from a walk when my phone rang and it was the cancer care nurse I have been speaking to. Unfortunately the scan showed that the lump on my right side was likely cancerous, she could not tell me much more but booked me an appointment to see the oncologist on November 11th. At first this really didn’t sink in with me, but the moment I told my wife as I got in the door I started crying. A couple of hours later I tried calling my parents to tell them as I felt I was more composed by then, but my wife had to take over the phone call as again I started crying. I treated myself to a whisky in the evening.
To try and sum up my feelings at this news, I just feel gutted, I always had a fear something could come back, but this quick feels unfair and almost defeating in a sense. Having had to really dig in mentally and physically since January to get through the original diagnosis and treatment, now it looks like we’ll have to reset and do it all again. I have questions ready to go for the oncology appointment on the 11th, to really find out what happens next and where do we go from here. I had just felt like I was getting back to a bit more of normality again, having worked two full days at work before the ambulance trip and generally doing a bit more.
So, the appointment on the 11th, myself and my wife went into the appointment not knowing what to expect, we were first of all advised that yes the cancer shows as being back on the scan. By this stage they did have more test results from the tumour removed during the operation which shows the type of cancer I have will keep coming back and is incurable. This would reduce my life expectancy; my initial feeling was one of wanting to be sick at first and shocked. I then asked if this meant I was terminal which the oncologist said is a term that he does not want to use. My wife then asked about the reduced life expectancy (afterwards we both said we were thinking I that I could lose my life in my 60’s or something), the oncologist advised that with some more chemotherapy treatment being a success that I could have another 2/3 years (5 maximum) if the chemotherapy didn’t work then I could lose my life within a year. They would look to start chemotherapy around the beginning of December, so to have given me around 3 months to recover from the operation in September. All I remember from this point onwards was just crying from both of us, after the appointment we just got in the car quickly and drove home to then head straight to the drinks cabinet to get a whisky for me and vodka for my wife. We then made phone calls to family and friends throughout the afternoon to tell people what was going on, these were horrible calls to make and I am sure horrible calls to listen to.
