We were in the DayWard for a long time. Nurses came in and took bloods for different blood tests. The oncologist came to insert a bladder catheter. They put Paul on bag after bag of fluids. And they put him on antibiotics. I held Paul's hand, stroked his arm, stroked his forehead and spoke to him gently telling him that I loved him, that we were getting help now and that everything would be all right. . He seemed to be…
Paul had to go for a further set of scans in early February of 2017. By that time he had been off Chemotherapy for almost five weeks and we were both concerned that the cancer might start to grow again if we didn't continue Chemotherapy soon. One week after the scans we had the appointment with the oncologist.
"The scans are the same as the last scans from November," he informed us.
We were silent. We both…
"You see," the oncologist said calmly, "what has happened here is that your cancer has spread into the liver."
I can still remember the shocked silence in the room. Even though we had been expecting to hear this, when we actually heard it, we felt really shocked.
I don't know what Paul was thinking, but I know that I thought: Once cancer has metastasised to the liver it is really bad.
The oncologist…
Before I continue telling our story, I want to share a thought I am really passionate about: Scans for patients with any form of advanced cancer have to be performed every six months. It is not right to only perform scans when the patient has developed symptoms or when specific tumor markers have gone beyond the normal range. Many tumors would be discovered a lot sooner, and in many cases they would be much more treatable…
Before I continue sharing Paul's and my story, I thought I would briefly comment on love and our relationship.
I suppose most people would say that their relationship was something really special; and yet, when I look at many relationships around me, I feel that Paul's and my relationship was truly something very special and different from a lot of relationships I know.
Firstly, when Paul and I met, it felt…
