The symptoms were so obvious I should have realised sooner: dry cough, tiredness, weight-loss, night-sweats, all pointing with a big arrow to a lymphoma, in my case a nasty non-Hodgkins type, practically filling my stomach. A formal diagnosis was made following a biopsy in October 2017 and my whole life changed.
Chemotherapy started a few weeks later, in November, and finished in March this year. I was lucky, I only felt really sick for a few days after each chemo session, otherwise I was always desperately tired and wanted nothing else than to sleep. My appetite was good but everything either tasted bland, awful or strange. Water tasted metallic and odd. I was warned off takeaway foods and mixing with large crowds, to keep off public transport if possible and avoid close contact with anyone with any infections.
Over Christmas I had my first trip to A&E via ambulance because of a simple cold developing into a serious infection, caught from my innocent three-year-old granddaughter and spent five days as a hospital inpatient recovering.
My PET scan revealed possible problems with the left side of my brain and I had a precautionary CNS injection into my spine. This became infected, causing the worst headaches I’ve ever experienced. To play safe my consultant said I was not to have any more injections but instead suggested a different procedure which called for two five-day stays in hospital. I was given a drug which I had to flush through with almost constant trips, every 30 minutes, to the loo, day and night. My fellow ward patients were very understanding but I know I disturbed them for which I still feel slightly guilty.
A few weeks after the chemotherapy finished I was put on to a 15 session radiotherapy treatment. For three weeks in April I attended the Royal Berkshire Hospital’s cancer unit and underwent a short 30 minute session, holding very still, with arms painfully raised above my head while my left kidney and abdomen were exposed to high intensity energy blasts. I was warned that the treatment would likely damage the kidney and I’m currently waiting for a scan to see how much damage, if any, has been caused.
The NHS have been brilliant. From the consultants, cancer nurses, general staff, even the food at the Royal Berks was super, everyone was kind, considerate, professional and focussed on getting me better.
I’m due a PET scan in Oxford in a month or so. This will reveal if anything is left of the tumour. I’m feeling confident all is well.
Recently, I was talking to a good friend of mine about birthdays. Hers was in October. She said did I remember what I gave her last year as a present. I couldn’t remember – it was probably flowers. She said I gave her the worst present ever. My diagnosis of cancer. And that’s really the point of this essay for it’s easy to get wrapped up, and to my mind, quite justifiably too, with your own problems and fears.
But I had lost sight of what my diagnosis did, and has done, to loved ones around me. My friend who camped out in my house after my chemo sessions to make sure I didn’t choke on my own vomit or who constantly changed my bed sheets because of my drenching night sweats. Or my daughter, who organised child minding at short notice, or pleaded for time off from her work to drive me to hospital and travel literally hundreds of miles to keep me company in waiting rooms, queuing for yet another consultation.
And there’s other effects on family and friends, that only now I’m beginning to realise. The look of utter shock, sympathy and tears when my elderly father saw me for the first time with my completely bald head. The realisation that friends do not know what to say when they heard of my diagnosis. In most cases they’ve simply stopped contacting me, probably unsure where I’m still alive.
So this is a request to those of you who have followed a similar path to myself and are feeling rotten, angry, in pain or depressed. Give a thought to those who are helping and supporting you. Give them a thank you, or a cuddle.
It’s hell for you, but must be hell for those who love you as well.
