I started this VERY LONG story with a sore tongue would you believe.
I have a mobility issues due to my spine. Three surgeries later and my spine is held together with nuts & bolts. But my legs hate me, so I stumble a bit. I thought I'd stumbled again and bitten it but after a couple of weeks it hadn't healed and felt worse. I should say I'm diabetic as well so have a higher risk of infections than normal so thought that was itt. It wasn't healing because it was infected. So being it was back in the days that you could. I went and saw my GP, got antibiotics. Nothing changed so back again in two weeks, different antibiotics. Two weeks later, I think I'll refer you to Max Fax at the local hospital.
Less than two weeks later, I was sitting in a normal, plain room hearing the words "You know you're on target cancer pathway". Still not sure what he meant but the whole room vanished into a black hole and I felt like I'd fallen down a elevator shaft. I made an appointment for the next day for the biopsy to be done. I went outside and called my two children (mid twenties) children, my mother and sisters. My husband and in-laws having died several years before.
Within four weeks, I'd had the biopsy & results, the bloods & scans. I got referred to Macmillan UCLH and UCLH. It would have been quicker it this all happened over the Christmas & New Year period. I was booked in for surgery in the first week of January which would include a tracheostomy and a Nasal Gastric tube, if I even see them on TV I gag or even vomit if they show the procedure. The ENT medical staff were brilliant but I sneezed or vomited my tube up. Think a straw going up your nose, down your throat into your stomach because you have a hole in your throat... Then I sneezed or... And the tube, instead of up my nose, down into my stomach instead went from my nose , out my mouth. I was in A+E that often they knew my name etc. I was seen Saturday evening's in & out, in under 90 minutes. I think I was making some of the big hard drunk sports guys ill...
Because of other chronic medical conditions, I had to be admitted the night before and because I was having the tracheostomy - into ITU. It turned out to be a good thing because the other person's op got delayed. Not cancer, just general ENT, due to shocker, no bed. Something went a bit wrong in theatre. They removed the cancer but my blood pressure &/or 'something' went wrong. The graft & transplant/repair job was called off.
When I came round, they explained to me that the op was incomplete and I might have trouble. I was later told that I healed better than they expected WITH the graft.
A few weeks later, six weeks of radiotherapy. Followed by seven years of check ups. I had extra due to the lovely pandemic.
Now nine and a half years on and I'm diagnosed with breast cancer on the same side. Grade 3 Stage 2. Lymph nodes affected. Some tests outstanding.
I've had my PET scan, they've had their MDT meeting. I go see them in two days... I wonder why my stomach is pretending it's a washing machine. My brain isn't much better. To say I'm anxious and er, bricking it?
More to follow as & when.
Love and hugs to all xxx
