“Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.” -Steve Jobs
The day of the oncology appointment had finally arrived so we could find out the way forward. I was still an inpatient at the hospital following the 999 saga, so Andy wheeled me down to outpatients to see my surgeon first and then the oncologist. This was much to the disgust of the hospital staff, who like to keep inpatients and outpatients separate; I was asked several times if I was in the right place sat in the waiting room in my pyjamas!
What came next was an absolute blow to the head. We were told that the cancer was the worst and most aggressive form of cancer there is (T4b, N2b, M1c, EMVI positive grade 3 adenocarcinoma of the splenic fracture - for those of you who know about these things) and that it is incurable and the chance of recurrence is extremely high. They plan to carry out a six month chemotherapy treatment comprising of Oxaliplatin and Capecitabine in an attempt to keep control over the disease and have also made a referral to Basingstoke hospital, which is a centre of excellence for this type of cancer, to seek their advice.
My first reaction was, “But what about work! I can’t have that much time off!” Apparently this is not an appropriate thing to be worrying about when you have just been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer; that’s what my friends, family and colleagues say anyway! 😜
The staff in the Macmillan unit were fantastic, especially when we came out of the consultation room and, thinking the corridor was empty, I said rather loudly, “We’ll that’s just fucking shit isn’t it?” and then burst into tears. A nurse appeared from nowhere and ushered us into a quiet room.
This was the day I stopped believing in karma. The concept of karma has got me through some of the darkest times in my life and it has served me well as a crutch to get my head out of negative spirals when things seemed so unfair. But the really bad things that have happened to me before could almost always be blamed on someone else, allowing the karma concept to work for me; it doesn’t work for cancer...I’ve never done anything that bad!
Chemo was due to start in two months to give me a chance to recover enough from the op.
