As soon as I get to see the consultant and she goes through everything with me it is like I have landed back on earth again. I come out of this limbo state where I cannot concentrate on anything or focus on anything and nothing seems to matter anyway because at this point in time I have no future. I have been in an in between world where reality is slipping and sliding away from me into a foggy mist. As the situation is explained and I am given a plan of action I calm down and can deal with it. At least I know what is going to happen..... at least what the consultant imagines will happen!
Top tips for the waiting period...... DISTRACTION ........ it is the only thing that will get you through. Watching endless TV series or films, reading books. When you wake up in the middle of the night, just read for an hour and then hopefully go back to sleep. Talk to very talkative people on the phone telling you about their complicated impossible lives, works a treat. Listen to music in headphones, or the radio, anything to stop that running commentary going on in your head that is happily making mountains out of molehills.
I am still waiting for the reuslt on my kidneys but I have been given the go ahead to have treatment on Friday. I am so relieved. I asked about the growing cancer on my liver and spleen and she showed me the CT scan. It is incredible, the technology available today. A series of photographs takes sliced of the body then you can scroll through and watch how different organs and the spine appear as if by magic. She showed me how the cancer makes these small little holes in my liver and then the liver grows around them. I have an enlarged liver because of this. Apparently if half my liver was gone it would just grow back and replace itself. Amazing! It was harder to see anything on the spleen but there was a shadow on the inside of my pelvis which I could barely see, very subtle gradations of grey. It takes years and years of looking at these shadowy forms in order to be able to interprate them.
It is amazing how accepting I have become of 'my cancer'. I would not have been able to 'see' it on screen 6 months ago without totally freaking out I am sure. Now I realise it is part of me and not going away.
Thank you NHS, thank you scientists, thank you inventors of technology and computer programmes, thank you for all the PHD's and scientific research that has brought about this knowledge and expertise. Thank you Thank you Thank you. I feel blessed to be alive in these times.
You're so right.. waiting without knowing what you're waiting for is a stinker! Having a plan of action, even if it is a scary, inconvenient one, is better than waiting powerlessly! I know what you mean about the doctors and nurses.. they have so much competence and compassion.. it is remarkable, wonderful and deeply soothing. Keep going on your supreme health journey, amazing woman. Whatever happens, there is no doubt that you are wonderful and give so much!
ReplyDeleteI am catching up on your incredible blog Sianed - this post in partiuclar I found so deeply touching. Incredible that you are able to look at the images and accept cancer as part of you. That is the true heorine's journey. This shows me a way foreward too towards acceptance of things in my own life that I cannot change .
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