I want to preface anything I write in this blog with a caveat; everyone's different, everyone's diagnosis is different, everyone's treatment plan is different and everyone's reaction to diagnosis and treatment is different. This is merely my story.
It's partly written for my own selfish needs of wanting to get certain things off my chest, but perhaps it might help people to look at their path in a different light, or maybe people can just mutter under their breath about how irrelevant my ramblings are. So let's crack on.
On the 9th November 2016 I had a sigmoidoscopy after suffering what I and my gastro consultant thought where ulcerative colitis symptoms for a number of weeks - an illness I'd suffered from for 15 years.
You're awake and with it for the most part during a sigmoidoscopy, and as much love I have for Dr Chopra, her pokerface dropped when she clocked what was really going on in my colon. Not that I found out a definite diagnosis for another week. She said, trying to compose herself, that there was a chance that the lump in my rectum could be cancerous and I'd be booked in for CT and MRI scans quickly. Fast forward to the 16th November at 15:00.
Sat at home by myself the phone rang. Dr Chopra had the results from the biopsies she'd taken during my sigmoidoscopy, she asked if I was a lone, she said that she wasn't completely comfortable giving me the results over the phone, but how could she not, the tone in her voice already told me what she had to tell me. She spoke and the room darkened. I had cancer.
I sat for a few seconds after hanging up in shock. I cried. Then I sent a text to my wife asking her to come home from work. I couldn't call her, every time I tried, my composure left me and cried again. So I sent texts to my family, to my friends, until my wife called me, at which point, between sobs, I told her I had cancer.
