The week I lost my sense of humour......

Thursday, 1st December arrived and Alan and I found ourselves sitting in the waiting room at the Breast Clinic again.  To be truthful, although I was worried, I had already gotten my head round going into hospital the following week and having my breast removed.  I would deal with the mental side of it later, was my view.  I just wanted the cancer removed from my body as soon as possible.  My name was eventually called, only 15 mins late but it felt a whole lot longer.  We sat down in front of Casper and I noticed that again he was very solemn.  He told me that I have Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, Grade 3 - all double dutch to us so we had to ask him to explain.  IDC is the most common form of breast cancer (no comments from the back row please.....).  It starts in the milk ducts and can only work backwards towards the chest wall as it has no other way to go.  I asked what Grade 3 meant (I got to Grade 4 or 5 when I was learning to play the Viola, so hoped the higher the grade the better - naive again....).  Casper said Grade 1 was not aggressive and this would be ideal, Grade 2 was aggressive and that Grade 3....... well, he would have preferred Grade 1 - blimey, so would I but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.  Innocently,  I asked him when the mastectomy would take place.  Again, he gave it to me straight, but it took a while for it to sink in.  No treatment plan could be agreed until they knew if and where the cancer had travelled to.  What? Say that again.....Travelled? - who the hell gave it a passport?  I will be honest, the thought of it travelling hadn't even crossed either or our minds.  We had spent the week getting used to it being in the breast, the thought that it could be anywhere else in my body totally knocked us for six. I felt like I was in the ring with Amir Khan - every time I got to my feet, I got knocked back down again.  Casper told me if it was only in the breast it would be radical chemo/rads and a mastectomy.  However, it was anywhere else, they couldn't cure it, only seek to control it and treat the primary tumour (breast).  Frightened does not even begin to describe my feelings at that point.  I can only say I was surrounded by people, Alan, Casper two BCNs - all holding my hand and making comforting noises, but I have never felt so alone in all my life.  At that point I was convinced I had just been given a death sentence.  Over the coming days I was shocked at how pessimistic I was, for the life of me I could not see anything to laugh about or to feel positive about.  I have always thought of myself as a "glass half full kind of person", I didn't realise I was so negative.  On Facebook I described myself as feeling like Eeyore (my favourite Winnie the Pooh character), with my own personal raincloud.  Even now I cannot think of a better analogy to describe my mood that week.  My get up and go got up and went and took my sense of humour with it.

To determine whether or not The Git had indeed travelled required me having some tests - a CT scan to check your brain and other organs and a PET scan (bone scan to you and I) to look for any indicators in your skeleton.   I asked how long I would have to wait for these to be arranged, as I didn't want to sit around for another week waiting.  Casper looked at me, shook his head, said "the things I do for my patients....sigh", picked up the phone and called in LOTS of favours - My Hero!   My CT scan was booked for 2 hours later (the fibs he told to get that sorted lol) and my PET scan was booked for the following day.   We are so lucky to have these dedicated, professional, passionate and caring people prepared to fight for us and I will never be able to thank them all enough for the care and understanding they have shown over these past dreadful weeks of my life.  The speed they have worked at from diagnosis to now has, on occasion, literally taken my breath away.

Alan and I left there in shock and headed over to the X-Ray department for my CT scan - where to my embarrassment, I admit I just sat and sobbed uncontrollably right there in the waiting room - in full view of everyone - oh dear!  Poor Alan, his shoulder was soaked.  The lady doing the scan thought I was scared of the machine and tried to calm my fears, bless her.  I explained why I was crying and she got all choked up, gave me a hug and said they would look after me.  To do this scan they need to inject a dye into your vein which travels around and shows up all your arteries etc.  The scan itself is not painful, neither is the dye they use, though when they push it through you may get the feeling like a hot flush in your nether regions!!  I hate needles so inserting the cannula was the worst bit for me.  During the scan you lay on the table with your arms laying on the table behind your head - as though you are having a big stretch.  When the scan starts you slide in and out of a giant polo mint - breathing normally then holding your breath, as instructed by the bossy computerised voice.  Part way through they inject the dye into you, I've since had an operation where they inject yet more dye into you and, at this rate, before this year is over, I will be able to audition for a part in Tron!  The scan was over and done with in about 15 minutes and we were heading back to my mums shortly afterwards.

We had already decided to tell Alec and Hannah that evening, it wasn't fair that everyone else knew and they were still in the dark.  Plus which, we knew what it was now and had been told what would happen once they knew if and where it had travelled.  The children were brought to my mums and we sat them down to break the news.  I sat between them holding their hands, I couldn't speak as I didn't trust myself not to cry and we wanted to tell them with as little fuss as possible so as not to scare them too much.  Alan handled it brilliantly, he told them I had been having some tests and that the Drs said I had breast cancer.  He also said that we were in for a rough year but that we would all fight it together.  He explained that I had some more tests to go through before the Drs could decide on my treatment.  We played down the reasons for the extra tests as we decided we would cross that bridge if we came to it.  They both reacted exactly as we expected.  Alec went very quiet and did not say a word until I asked him if he understood, at which point he broke down, cuddled me tighter than he has for years and told me he loved me - unprovoked for the first time since he was about seven, after all he is a teenager and its not cool to tell your Mum you love her is it lol.  Hannah was scared and crying. She immediately asked the question we had been dreading "is mummy going to die", she asked that two or three times in quick succession, obviously not happy with the answer she was getting.  Alan assured her over and over that we are going to fight this with everything we have, that the Drs are on mummy's side and. although the medicine will be horrible, it will help.  We explained that I might lose my hair and start to look very unwell but this would not be forever.  Over the next few days both my kids surprised me.  Alec is 7 years older than Hannah and often sees her as a pain in the rump (as is the norm with siblings), he will go to great lengths to avoid being in the same room as any of us and spends a lot of time in his room on Facebook or his phone (I know this because I have just recently paid a phone bill of over £100 - can you tell he has a new girlfriend?).  Suddenly, he had lots of time for her, cuddling her and calming her down when she was upset.  Of course, things are back to normal now and they are rowing about something and nothing as I type.....

Hannah showed a maturity beyond her years.  I was wary of breaking down in front of her but there were occasions that following week where I couldn't help it.  She would calmly get me a tissue, cuddle me and she told me on more than one occasion "just look on the bright side mum, by next July you will be all better and we can go on holiday"  She also asked if I would consider wearing a purple wig, as its her favourite colour......  Kids!

It's at this point where I would like to get a bit mushy - look away now if you don't like mushy.  Come on, when you read that I love old black and white films, you must have realised what an old sentimentalist I am... you can't say you weren't warned!

These past few weeks have been scary, terrifying and full of the unknown, they have also been an eyeopener.  I truly did not know how many people love and care for me, Alan and my children.  The support we have received via text messages, letters, emails, phone calls, Facebook and flowers has been overwhelming.  We really are so grateful to everyone who has been and continues to be there for us.

Without a shadow of doubt, the love and support from our parents, sisters & brother and their families really has kept us going and, without them, I really do wonder how we would have gotten through this. I thank them from the bottom of my heart (see Dad, I could have said from the heart of my bottom, but I resisted the urge....oops).  I certainly don't tell them often enough that I love them all very very much. 

It's okay, you can look again now.  My next post will be about how we revoked The Git's travel permits and planned it's annihilation - boo-yah!

As always, onwards and upwards

Debs x