I suppose it was all going too smoothly. Everything ticking over steadily towards Christmas and The Grand Surgical Experience. A nagging sense of waiting was lurking in the back of my mind but not a major stress. I had a lot to be getting on with but it was all manageable.
It is back to being manageable again and the waters are back to their usual Poldark calm but, for a couple of days, it felt like I was stuck in the passenger seat of a runaway juggernaut of radioactive slurry heading for the only water source left in the world.
This is the short version. I haven't gone into details about the hours of emails, phone calls, text messages, frantic internet searching, three nights literally having nightmares and only eating chinese takeaway for a couple of days in shock. Nor will I detail the amazing support from family and friends that helped anchor me but they have.
So, having allowed a good ten days for my second hospital to sort itself out and send me an appointment to meet the plastic surgeon, on Monday morning I decided it was time to find out (expletives) was going on. I tried the hospital, got put through to a nice man on waiting lists and then onto the surgical secretariat, to leave a message. In the meantime I left a message for my specialist cancer nurse to ask about seeing my oncologist to talk about aspirin and to ask if she knew anything about surgical dates.
Tuesday morning, I hit the phones again and left messages for the surgical secretariat again and another clutch for the specialist nurse.
Then, suddenly, my student lodger sent an email. With no notice, he was moving to a new abode, taking all his belongings, giving no forwarding address and keeping my house keys. After polite concern on my part to ask if he were in trouble whether I could help, he retorted he was absolutely fine and demanded I pay him back his security deposit there and then if I wanted my keys back. Complete shock, utter bewilderment, many supressed expletives. The radioactive juggernaut was suddenly rolling, fast. It raced downhill all day.
Come Wednesday, I finally got through to grab a conversation with the surgical secretariat at my second hospital. She said I had been referred to a third hospital, in Edinburgh (without my knowing) by the plastic surgeon (who seemed to work everywhere...but mostly privately). The referral had happened maybe a day or two ago. (That was (expletive) over a week after the intial referral to the second hospital.) Anyway, the third hospital should have the referral by now but the second hospital didn't have any (expletive) phone numbers or names to help.
I phoned the third hospital and, taking an educated guess at whom to target, I was instead put through to a completely random but very helpful colorectal surgical secretary. Of course. She did some extensive detective work and very kindly located the right department and I got through to another very helpful surgical secretary. That secretary went on a hunt and tracked down the plastic surgeon's referral letter, explaining the plastic surgeon had referred me up to this hospital for a clinic appointment on 04 January. A month away. The juggernaut lurched badly. Apparently this was the earliest clinic time he had and was quicker than staying at the second hospital to where, after seeing the surgeon at the third hospital's outpatients' clinic, I would be re-referred. WTAF? I queried why it would take the surgeon five weeks to see me after referral. Five weeks?!? Well, the surgeon had cancelled clinics and Christmas was coming up. Cancelled clinics. Was I actually on any surgical lists? This was unknown. Un(expletives)known. Juggernaut careering.
The lodger sent a few more demanding emails. I was managing them but the slurry in the back of the lorry was slopping around alarmingly.
By now, I was ready to scream and use up my entire expletives repertoire. (It's enormous though, sadly, it only materialises in full when I'm in proper shock.) Mercifully, however, I was on a train. Always helps to be in public when you're hitting the roof.
At the house, I called in back up and got the (expletives) locks changed so I would at least feel safe that night.
Come Thursday, in the middle of a ream of (expletives) emails still whipping to and from the (expletive) absconding lodger, I finally had a conversation with my (expletive) specialist nurse as the juggernaut bucketted along.
Mercifully I was on another train. It was a terse, clipped, style of discourse. I didn't swear at all. But she could hear I was really struggling to hold it back. We agreed I could email my original consultant surgeon and her to explain exactly why (expletives) I was so (expletives) stressed about the idea of having no (expletives) surgery for (expletives) fourteen or more (expletives) weeks after first seeing my (expletives) GP and ten or more after their agreed (expletives) diagnosis. AND. Why (expletives) had I not even met my (expletives) oncologist yet despite being under their (expletives) care for (expletives) Tamoxifen and managing The (expletives) Lump pre-op. Writing it all down for a pathology discussion was cathartic. A sense of regaining control of the juggernaut and putting the brakes on began to dawn.
Friday morning I felt calmer, just. The specialist nurse called. So the Tamoxifen with its violent, early hormone distruption is working then? Yep. And yes, you can meet the oncologist. In a week. I was so resigned to everything taking 'a week' I forgot to throw out an expletive.
After I gave a firm stir to the pot of methods I'm using to get my money back from absconding lodger, I went for a stomp on a beach and along the coast where they were filming a drama series about office workers by day and prostitutes by night, or something. I told the gaffer in the car park I was not auditioning. He thought I should. Although I was not going to be hitting the prosecco to celebrate, things were looking up.
I had got the juggernaut to grind to a halt for the week. But I can feel it still slopping around behind me for the weeks ahead and it's still slipping forward ever so creepily. It is not a welcome addition to my peace of mind.
