It really is time to catch up with my story so far! Time just keeps running away from me. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand this whole nightmare will be over quicker, on the other, life will just pass me by. I’ve already aged a year since my last post, as it was my 65th birthday last Thursday.
Anyway, back to where I left off. I had the CT scan, stoma nurse visit and meltdown on the Tuesday. Wednesday was an uneventful trip to the GP surgery to have a blood test for Kidney function.
On Thursday morning I received a letter from the hospital. My heart was in my mouth. Had they decided to send the results by post? No, it was my appointment to meet with the Oncology consultant on the 11th August (the day before my birthday). At least things were moving.
On the same Thursday afternoon I had a phone call from the hospital. My heart was in my mouth. Was it going to be the Urology consultant with the results of my scan? No, it was the Oncology Department asking if I could go and see the oncology consultant tomorrow. I explained that I’d received a letter that very morning with an appointment for the 11th. The nurse said, there’s nothing wrong and no reason to bring it forward other than they’d had a cancellation and it was silly to keep me waiting 2 weeks when they had space the next day.
So I accepted the appointment and asked the nurse, just so that I could prepare myself, if the oncology consultant would be giving me the results of the CT scan tomorrow, as I’d been expecting the Urology consultant to ring with them and I’d just had too many surprises.
“oh bless you love, I can tell you now there’s no signs of any malignancy in your lungs”
What?, really? Are you sure?
”absolutely sure. We don’t make a habit of telling people over the phone but it’s silly you worrying about it for another 24 hours”
I wish I could have just reached down the phone and kissed her right there and then!
As soon as I got off the phone, I whatsapped the kids to tell them the news my daughter was straight on FaceTime crying with happiness. My son was stopped in his tracks as he was entering the cinema as a birthday treat for number 2 grandson who had turned 7 that very day I rang my Mum who got really choked up down the phone, and then I texted everyone else who had wished me luck for the scan. Well, almost everyone. I didn’t bother telling my ex-husband.
Well, Friday came and my daughter came to pick me up to take me for the appointment to see the Oncology consultant and we really had no idea what to expect. However, while we were travelling to the hospital my phone rang, it was the hospital! A very officious lady from the hospital at that. She’d rung to tell me that my Nephrostomy had been booked in for the 9th August, telling me where to report to, when to stop eating and to pack a bag for an overnight stay.
The thing I’d been dreading the most, a little over a week away. It hadn’t really had time to sink in before we were sat in front of the oncology consultant and she was reeling off a whole list of things that could go wrong and side effects and could I sign this consent form and pick up a sickness tablet from the pharmacy on my way out.
It’s fair to say that neither me nor my daughter took hardly anything in that was said - and we walked straight past the pharmacy without picking up the sickness tablet - because we were both still in a bit of a shock over the phone call about the Nephrostomy.
it wasn’t until we were nearly gone that I realised we hadn’t picked up the tablet. When we got home, we sat in stunned silence for a bit then my daughter rang the hospital to ask if she could pick the sickness tablet up when she dropped me off for the Nephrostomy. All sorted.
There was no time to think about anything much as my number 1 grandson had turned 11 on this day and the whole family were coming up to stay the next day and I was having my grandsons for the weekend while my son and daughter-in-law attended a wedding. The wedding also happened to be on their 12th wedding anniversary. It was all a very welcome distraction.
A week of calm followed. No appointments. Just calm. And my mood was quite calm too. A little disappointed though that on Saturday I should have been travelling down to my son’s to celebrate his father in law’s 75 th birthday and from there we were going to travel to my step daughter’s in Eastbourne for a family week by the sea. Instead though, I’d be having the dreaded Nephy fitted.
I’ll tell you all about that in my next post.
