2nd October 2015. My best friend's 29th birthday. Instead of celebrating it with her, I was sat in the ENT room along with my partner and mum being told I had high-grade non-hodgkin's lymphoma. The exact type unknown; apparently there are over 120 different varieties! The biopsy has now been sent off to a specialist unit and who knows when we will hear more.
Even though I had prepared myself for this news (yes, I did the dreaded googling), the diagnosis still came as a shock given the ENT doctor originally told me he thought it was hodgkin's as opposed to non-hodgkin's. There is a lesson to be learnt there about reading up on stuff before you have definitive answers. The diagnosis has changed my outlook given I thought I had the 'better' of the two types and I now have to alter my mindset again. No more googling for me.
The waiting around is the worst part and partially the reason I have decided to start this blog. It is definitely not something I would have ever considered before. I have been living a fast-paced, career driven life style and that has suddenly come to an abrupt halt. I miss my colleagues, my teaching and even the complaining about my marking. What I would give to be drowning in exercise books and emails right now! The days already seem endless and I have only been signed off for two weeks thus far. I know I need to find myself a new hobby because at the moment I feel useless and at standstill. How do people not work and what do they do with their days? I guess I will find out aboard this rollercoaster ride that I am about to go on. That seems a fitting metaphor, if a little clichéd, given that I despise rollercoasters and they give me really bad motion sickness.
