Beach and sky - a day on the Jurassic Coast helped
If I've given the impression from the first couple of matter-of-fact posts that I'm pretty laid-back about the situation: I'm not. The past few weeks have been - to use a cliché - an emotional roller-coaster.
At the first tentative diagnosis after the CT scan, both Irene and I cried. Later, it more or less crystallized into a situation of Irene crying several times a day, and my being poisonously irritable, though at first I didn't consciously realise to what extent. I went to work as normal the next day, and planned to go out in th evening and get good and drunk. I couldn't even finish a pint of beer: my stomach was in such a knot of tension that it gave me instant indigestion.
We got into uncharacteristic arguments down to differences in temperament. Irene tends to be pro-active; I tend to have a "wait and see" approach. This caused arguments over the wait for a diagnosis, when Irene wanted me to phone the hospital to ask, and I felt that was premature. I think I was feeling that something else had taken over the whole planning of my life, and found myself getting unreasonably enraged over trivial aspects of anything that involved planning; for instance, we got into a row over Irene wanting to check the bus timetable before our going into town.
We both found we were experiencing urges to run away. Irene said she wished she could be back in her home town at a safe time in her life; and I wanted to go and revisit mine, something I haven't wanted to for decades.
And there were just plain odd feelings. I began considering getting a full-sleeve tattoo in addition to other more discreet ones I already have (I don't think this is is an uncommon thought, when you see the number of cancer survival and chemotherapy-related tattoos online). And at times I had the paradoxical feeling, which made me feel very guilty and stupid, of actually wanting it to be confirmed as cancer, just to get rid of the gnawing uncertainty, and to know that they were finally on the case and doing something about that tiresome cough.
But for the moment, we've come through all that. We found ways to make the waiting tolerable. We had a pleasant walk along part of the Jurassic Coast; and on a hot summer's day, fed the squirrels in a local park, where we unexpectedly bumped into some friends and went for a lunchtime drink on the seafront.
The confirmed diagnosis was almost an anticlimax. We spoke to a very nice registrar at the hospital who will go far: he was exactly the right combination of businesslike, informative, and sympathetic - none of scary formality of the consultant we first saw, nor the excessive, almost creepy, sympathy we got from the liaison nurse. When he explained the situation - it's secondary cancer of the lymph nodes where the lungs branch - we didn't cry or even feel greatly upset.
We've since been to watch the carnival in a nearby town, and had a great time. I've gone out to the pub with friends on my regular Saturday evening, and felt fine: the tension may be there, but it's diminished to the level of manageable.
We know things are going to get worse, and there's still a deal of uncertainty - what happens next depends on what the PET scan shows. But we have at least got over the first stage.
- James
