One word which means a lot

I was due to get my one year all clear last week (notice the positive language there?) but the conversation didn't go as planned.

I get checked every three months because I'm on a drugs trial called Sorce, and the doctor usually says, 'scans have gone to be checked, but looked OK to me.' This time I got just a 'they've gone to be checked'. I asked questions as she had viewed them, but the same answer and nothing else forthcoming. Add to that I've low phosphorous levels, which need rechecking and alarm bells were ringing in my head.

The plan's for me to take supplements, then another blood test, to rule out (or confirm) the problem lay with my diet. Now, I may not be one of the slimmest of specimens, and eat more chocolate than I should (it is a bean, so one of my five a day surely?) but I do have a varied and mainly healthy diet, thanks to Slimming World. I don't feel my diet is lacking in any nutrients (it's found in chicken AND bacon for goodness sake!) so I suspect something a little harder to fix.

Plus a little bit of googling later, my suspicions are confirmed. I'm not alcoholic (last drink was probably Christmas) and my seemingly life long membership to Slimming World was testament to not being anorexic (although MrC did say I could be a not very good at it anorexic. That was his attempt at humour, because let's face it, we both had something more serious in mind)

So no scan results + suspect blood results = worried me and MrC

And that feeling drags you down. You can't do anything about it but wait and see, be positive, think on the bright side and all the other cliches. For me each day was me trying to be Piglet when inside I was Eeyore.

You hope for the best, but are really planning for the worse. Would it be more surgery, recuperation, time off work, stress, financial constraints, you name it, it ran through my head. And there was nothing I could do other than take the supplements and carry on.

However, a week later than planned, I've gotten the call I wanted. The all clear. Didn't hear much else of the conversation. The low phosphorous is still an issue, one to be resolved, but taking the scan out of the equation, means its a nothing, a blip, something I can deal with.

I'm all clear and have been now for a year. That's the important bit, the rest is inconsequential and will be dealt with as and when.

I'm all clear

Clear

 

A brilliant word, one to cherish, savour and enjoy.

 

And to celebrate I'm republishing my celebratory picture from last year, my happy picture.

 

Enjoy!

 

I'm linking up with Michelle at Mummy from the Heart, check out other Reasons to be Cheerful

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Email from my brother: What's pooping in his cereal bowl?

Hi Fay,

How's it going? I hope you've got over the blip with having to come off your trial drug and are feeling happier. It's a funny thing happiness I reckon. Here I am in New Zealand and it's still technically spring however the days are hotter, the grass has been cut in the fields around us and turned into hay which is lovely, bumblebees the size of two penny pieces are drifting around, the baby chicks are getting bigger and fatter, Juliette got a new job she wanted, Eva is looking forward to Christmas with their six week summer holiday and Sam's just Sam the Toddler, ever ready for random hugs and kisses. But what am I preoccupied with? What is it that's taking a poop in my breakfast bowl? Well I'm glad you asked, it's dyeing a cloak the colour green.

I wanted to make a medieval cloak so that I can wrap it around myself on cold evening in front of the camp fire at SCA events. I found some woollen blankets at the local charity shop, sewed them together, lined them, put buttons on and button holes and then had to dye the finished cloak green. I did it in the old bathtub and the results are a bit lighter than what was expected. If I wear the cloak to an event I'm going to requests to lie down on the floor so folks can have a game of Subbuteo on me. It's was like the least medieval green ever. I could wear this cloak as a high visibility jacket. So we gave the kids a bath tonight and Juliette's like "Mark, what's all this brown stuff around the bath?" and I'm like "er, it's some coffee ...", and she's like "what the hell is coffee doing in the bath?" and I'm like, "er... me and Sam were dying some, er, cloth brown." In reality I was baristaring the f*ck up in that bathtub with litres of instant coffee to stain the cloak darker. I'll find out if it's worked tomorrow. It's a real worry for me I can tell you. So erm, how's your cancer going?

That reminds me, here's a puzzler about coffee. Am I the only one that if I buy a latte from a coffee shop or what ever and add loads of sugar from those little paper tube packets and stir it all to hell it's only the last mouthful at the end that is actually sweet? It is just me isn't it. I don't have much luck with coffee. At the indoor play area where I take the kids I always get a coffee in one of those lidded paper cups and it always drips onto my jeans. I try to clean the coffee spot up with a wet wipe and end up clearing a clean patch on my jeans around the brown stain. So then it looks like I've got some sort of dirty fried egg on my leg.

Last weekend we rented a bach and went to Waihi Beach. Just for a moment I'd like you to say how you think Waihi is pronounced. If you pronounced it "why-hi" go back and try again. If you pronounced it "why-he" you'd were spot on, well done. If you're wondering that the heck a bach is it's a New Zealand term that originally meant a small beach hut. If you're wondering why my jeans are so dirty that I can clean a patch with a wet wipe you have to go back in the e-mails about six months. However things with baches have moved on and we rented a two storey three bedroom full on house for about eighty quid per night that was still termed a bach and was better than the hut we live in for the rest of the year. One theory is that bach comes from bacheolor pad and I'd love to have lived in that house as a bacheolor. Five minutes walk over some sand dunes to miles of white beach on the shores of the Pacific Ocean (yes, I did pretend to be C3PO on Tatooine while walking over the dunes - "Don't get technical with me" I said to Eva at one point just for giggles). There can't have been more than twenty or thirty people on that beach all day and we had miles of the stuff to spread out on.

We shared the holiday with Juliette's sister, brother-in-law and kids and the rest of Juliette's family popped up for a sort of day trip too. One of the the highlight of the trip was when a pod of Orca whales swam by us off shore and you could see the wave crests created by their dorsal fins and tails. Of course another name for Orca whales is "killer whales" but "Hey kids, look, Orca Whales!" induces fewer nightmares than "Hey kids, look, Killer Whales!".

Juliette's dad brought up some cheap (less than $3) plastic kites and the son-in-laws had a go at trying to fly them in lieu of the kids not giving a f*ck about them. They only had one string and tended to spiral around and hit the sand unless you got them high enough. I can say with some pride that once I got mine high enough I managed to unravel all of the light weight twine and got my kite to fly what looked like about a gazzilion miles up. Felix Baumgartner would have said it was high up. It was aces and skill. The only thing that bothered me was the design on the kite which showed the sun wearing sun glasses. I couldn't help but wonder as I unwound the Atlantic spanning length of string why the sun would wear sunglasses. To protect it's eyes from itself? It dawned on me that the only reason why the sun would wear sunglasses would be to protect itself from the nearest star to our solar system way off in Alpha Centauri. I mean that's like a tiny pin prick of light. So then it dawned on me that the kite was taking the piss out of the sun. The kite was designed to taunt the sun. I was going to get the kite to fly as close to the sun as possible like some sort of kite flying 21st century Icarus. Game on! Then Sam shat his swimming trunks for the second time that day and Juliette made me reel the kite back in and put it away. So that didn't happen in the end.

Actually I've got to tell you that before I tried to taunt the sun I had offered everyone a chance to fly the kite (as in "look how awesomely high I've flown this $3 kite, want a go?") and Juliette's mum said she had never flown a kite ever. I passed her the plastic handle, she asked if she had to do anything, I said no and then we waited about five seconds and she passed the plastic handle back to me with a curt nod. Awesome.

After the holiday on the way back we men dropped the wives and kids off at the Goldfields Railway. This is a restored charitable railway which runs between Waihi and Waikino along the Ohinemuri River. We had to drop them off and pick them up at the other because we had the two cars and it was a one way journey. So we dropped them off at the Waihi station then in the car park we debated long and hard about doing a runner but eventually drove round to the Waikino station and picked them up at the other end. The kids loved it as this was the first time they had been on a railway train. I joked that at the other end I was then going to then show other old time stuff like a a vinyl record player, a VHS recorder, a cathode ray tube television set, a rotary dial telephone and corporal punishment. The looks I got seem to suggest I had suddenly morphed into Phil Harding from Time Team and had suggested we all do some flint knapping. Up in the Maungakawa Reserve by us is an old outbuilding that's had people graffiting it for the last hundred odd years. Some of it says stuff like "Dave and Sue, Sep 1994", but some is from 1947 and the like so you kind of respect it. My favourite quote on it is "Nothing is as old as yesterday." Think about that one for a moment... nothing is as old as yesterday. That is deep. I'm going up there later to add "except the day before yesterday obviously. Mark 2012".

It also occurs to me that nowadays you post something now on an internet forum or what ever and chances are there's some sort of ratings system for it. So every now and again you can't but help pop back and check out if anyone thought what you said was any good. Usually it's "Likes" or green thumbs up or red thumbs down but there's nothing like that for graffiti at all. From now on I'm going to go into public toilets and mark each statement with random green thumbs up and red thumbs down. So you'd see "I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through the fields, Only to be with you, Only to be with you. I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, These city walls, Only to be with you. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for." (add six green thumbs up, four red thumbs down.) And then underneath someone could have written: "Have you tried taking your sunglasses off before you look Bono?" (add five green thumbs up, one red thumb down).

I think I'm in bit of a funny mood because my hands are still dyed green from the cloak (gives self two green thumbs up) so I'll say cheery bye for now. Speak to you next week.

Love Mark xxx



 

Email from my Brother: Think on

Hi Fay, So I read your blog about your hair dresser fixing up your hair.  It does look good.

I’m wondering though if all the hair loss is worth the drug trial though.  I mean if you’re all clear at the moment and the drugs aren’t “proven” yet, is it worth the agro? Because I’m finding it very hard to take the piss when you’re hurting emotionally.  So it’s time to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about how your condition affects other people i.e. me.

What’s the difference between a monkey, an orphan, a prince, and a bald man?  A monkey has a hairy parent, an orphan has nary a parent, a prince is an heir apparent, and a bald man has no hair apparent.   I just got that joke off the internet.  You can’t use it again though.  Not because it’s copyrighted, you can’t use it again because it’s sh*t.

So the guy who died in the car crash had his funeral this week.  Horribly enough we had our own near death experience in family this week too.  Eva’s cousin Rachael (same age as Eva, 5) came around for a sleepover last Saturday and she nearly died.  The girls were helping Juliette make chocolate covered cornflake cakes and with a little bit (lots) of help from Sam managed to throw ingredients all over the place.  So I got our Dyson handheld vacuum cleaner and was hoovering the mess up.  The cornflakes kept blocking the nozzle so I had to stop and bang the tube every couple of minutes but eventually I finished clearing the whole thing up.  Then I gave the vacuum one last tap and the hinged door on the bottom of the Dyson sprang open and dropped everything all down my jeans, my feet and in all directions to a distance of about five feet.  That’s when Rachael said in a sing-song voice, “Oopsey!  Looks like someone’s made a mis-take!”.  And I very nearly throttled her to death.

So I had my birthday last week (like you!) and the best present I had was a chainmail coif I ordered for myself back in June.  I had a bunch of stuff from my family sure, including about eight hand made birthday cards from Eva (handmade, how cheap can you get!(joking)), but I can wear boxer shorts and T-shirts any day of the week.  How often do I get to wear a chainmail coif?  What’s a chainmail coif?  It’s a basically a chainmail hood.   Each 6mm ring has been hand riveted in a sweat shop in India by some child who was probably wondering why someone wants to buy a big, heavy, oily piece of obsolete armour.  Because it’s awesome, that’s why kid!  Shut up and keep working.

It’s got to be said when I put the thing on I look like a movie star.  The movie star in question is the old bloke that’s been guarding the Holy Grail at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  It’s the silver in my beard I think.  I’ve got a medieval sallet helmet too which basically looks a bit like a dorky German WWII helmet.  When I put the sallet on over the chainmail coif I look like a metallic penis with a face.  Brilliant.  Can’t wait to wear it all at the Ohaupo School Fireworks Display in November, the guys there are going to love it.

The diet is going well.  Two days a week we eat only 600 calories.  So far we’ve lost zero weight but we do appreciate the food we do have on the five days we’re not pointlessly limiting ourselves.  Yesterday I was so looking forward to having toast with butter on in the morning I made my own butter from some cream we had left over from Saturday.  And we already had butter in the fridge.  Hot toast with butter, yum!   Last week I took a tip from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and put a bowl of porridge oats to soak in milk in the fridge overnight.  This made the porridge the next morning taste extra extra creamy.  Thanks Hugh.  I don’t normally bother faffing around with food but being mega hungry seems to focus your thoughts a bit.

Unfortunately none of the kids have turned into giant hams like a Tom and Jerry cartoon yet though, because I wouldn’t mind some ham.  I’ve just been watching Pinocchio with the kids and there’s a scene where two foaming mugs of beer are drawn from a beer barrel and I’m wondering if I should have another glass of tap water or save it for later, because you know, you’ve got to have something to look forward to.  We agreed to do this “diet” for three weeks before quitting and we’ve just completed Week 2 of 3.  On the off days it’s only the packets of chocolate digestives, slices of cheese cake and multiple pints of beer that are keeping me going.  What’s the point of diet where you don’t lose weight, eh?

Anyway, take care of yourself, don’t get too down about your hair loss because remember, when you come off the drugs it’ll all grow back.

And then you’ve got to contend with stubble rash around your nethers.  Think on.

Love,

Mark xxx

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Reasons to be Cheerful - Silver Linings #R2BC

Been a while (it feels like forever, in reality two weeks) since I last joined up with Michelle's Mummy from the Heart Reasons to be Cheerful meme #R2BC
All I will say about the absence is sometimes things are just too hard and even I can't fake it until I mean it. But I'm trying (and no-one say 'very' or you'll get a Paddington Bear stare!) 
The living room is being decorated! Yay, at last! It's been 16 years since it was last revamped, when I thought the deep pinky red was cool, contemporary and comforting. All these years later it's just tired, old hat and frankly past it's best (don't even try and compare it to the author of this post or I will give you the 'mother is not impressed stare'! Take it from me, a step up in severity from Paddington's)
Floor's being laid Friday, furniture (a la Ikea) delivered on Saturday and will take about 3 years to put together. If it looks vaguely okay I'll post photo's. Who am I kidding? It's going to look 1000% better than what was there before. Will be somewhere to relax and chill out. Can't wait.
I reached my four stone Slimming World award two weeks ago, still buzzing about that!

I reached my 30,000 tweet and wrote a post which got for me quite a few comments and views. I always love getting comments! 
I'm getting some pretty horrid side effects from the clinical trial drug. Feet hurt most of the time (around 7 on the pain scale) I'm tired, irritable, depressed, rashes, sore hands and scalp, mouth ulcers blah blah blah. However, unless my mind is playing a horrible trick, it does mean I'm not in the placebo group and therefore getting cover from a recurrence.Silver linings and all that.

E-mail from my brother: Stab! Stab! Stab!

A new mail from my brother and the bathroom saga continues!
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Hi Fay,

So it’s good news on the scan front I read.  Hurrah!  Words can’t describe how good that news is.  You’ll also be pleased to hear that we’ve got our bathroom finished and we’re happily taking showers and having hot soapy baths like normal people again.  Not really.  The bathroom is not finished.  Obviously your good news has lifted our spirits immensely … but hey, we could really do with a proper shower now the night time temperature has dropped below zero degrees here.

It took two days this week to waterproof the new bathroom floor, one day to get the tiles partially laid and will be next Tuesday before they’re finished.  Then we can fit the bath, toilet, vanity unit etc if the project manager can find the back of the fag packet he wrote his plan out on and fish out the old envelope he jotted down the subcontractor numbers on and give them a call to come round.  Juliette says that if it takes another week before there’s even a hint that we can finally have a shower she’s moving out and taking the kids with her.  So I’ve paid off the builders to go slow and look forward to watching Lord of the Rings Extended Edition and sleeping in until I’m no longer tired!  Yay!

Part of me thinks I should have done more of the work myself but then there’s that pesky learning curve.  I polyfilled the nail holes last week and it’s amazing how such a simple task can become a problem.  The first set of holes looked like I’d mixed the polyfiller in my mouth, sneezed it onto the wall and then wiped the residue off with my cuff.  Come the end with a bit of practice I got the nail holes looking like they’d been polyfilled by a team of nano-robots and lasered true by the Swiss.  But I just don’t have the time to be mucking about at the moment, the daily grind continues.  We had a washing pile so large this week that it was voiced by Brian Blessed.  The Ice Box where we’ve been taking flannel baths has lived up to it’s name this week too what with the temperatures dropping below zero and all.  It means that if you flush the loo after 2am you have to wait until sometime after the sun has come up before the pipes unfreeze and you can flush it again.

We had our project manager come round this week and all he could talk about was a TV show he saw about Inuits living in an area so cold that if you took a wet shirt and twirled it around your head six times outside it would snap in half because of the cold.  Brilliant story.  Now see this echoing bathroom, devoid of all porcelain accoutrements?   When will it be finished you motherf*cker?  I said this of course in my head while I nodded to his Inuit story.

One of our cars has started stalling for no reason too so I took it into the garage.  They told me that they plugged the computer into it and the car couldn’t tell them why it was stalling.  I suggested waterboarding the car until it talked but instead they suggested resetting this computer so it starts “learning” how I drive again.  It’s a Honda Odyssey, not bloody Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.  I don’t need it to “learn” how I drive.  What’s it going to do, give me a score when I finish a journey?  The computer needs to “learn” not to switch the engine off when I’m doing a right hand turn at low speed.  Simple.

Other than that we’ve only heard one rat in the loft since I killed the other one last week and even that one has stopped nosing around up there.  I reckon it was looking for it’s pal and came across the tiny rat head on a spike I set up there as a warning.  Underneath I’d written the words “I’m behind you! Stab! Stab! Stab!”  I like to give rats nightmares.  Of course I didn’t do anything of the sort because cutting a rat’s head off and putting it on a spike is entirely too icky and as a rule I don’t like to anthropomorphize anything.  Anyway, the rat that’s left is probably the wife of the rat I killed and now she’s gone off with a broken heart.

Continue to take care of yourself, give some serious thoughts about visiting us here down under when your winter sets in and our summer kicks off because by then we’ll definitely have a bathroom.  Probably.

Love,

Mark xxx

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As always Mark......

Reasons to be Cheerful week 24 #R2BC

It's linking up time with Michelle from Mummy from the Heart for Reasons to be Cheerful.

I'm sure everyone knows already but I had the results from my first body scan and it came back as all clear. I celebrated with a post full of smiling animals which I know is silly, but it made me laugh when I compiled it.

This also meant I was eligible to take part in the drugs trial. I'm going to be having regular scans and bloods test, which means any instances of a recurrence will be found early. Got to be good!

I've started a new blog called My Clinical Trial (http://fay-ze1.blogspot.co.uk/) to see me through things. Glass Half Full has helped me through a lot over the last 18 months. Am sure getting things out onto virtual paper will help with any side effects!

And today .....big drum roll..... MrC and I actually managed to get to the cinema. It's a rare event and it was good to get out together. It's not that we have ties like kids to keep us from going out, but just recently one or other of us have felt too poorly, we just couldn't sync up. But today was the day. Yay! Doesn't take much to cheer me up

I've still got a way to go to get my confidence back, but I can see that it won't be long now.

I don't like the dark, but I do like light at the end of the tunnel

I get some important scan results at the hospital tomorrow. They'll tell me if I've any other little Ted's hiding away. All weekend I've been thinking about it. I've come to some conclusions, stuff I know about myself. I like lists, so I wrote one

• I like planning things, to have something to look forward to, which don't include a hospital visit or operation.
• I like organising events and people.
• I don't like planning things and having back ups in case 'I'm not upto it or appointments will get scheduled'
• I like absolutes, I like to know the process, what's going to happen next. I like being informed, the energy of being in the know. Not the bleak and windy wasteland of ignorance.
• I like to know where I am and what is expected of me, not lets see what happens
• I like to control myself, not events control me. I especially don't like emotions for the same reason!
• I enjoy being self sufficient and strong.
• I dislike relying on other people.
• I enjoy feeling successful in who I am and what I do.
• I don't like feeling guilty for putting family and friends through this too. If I could manage alone I would.
• I enjoy order, but feel the last few months have been chaos. A chaotic mass of emotions, events, appointments, pain.
• I like goals and achievements, things to aim for.
• I don't like the dark but I do like light at the end of the tunnel

I can see that light, I'm imagining getting back to work soon. And I need a goal, something to aim for, something to focus on and get me fighting fit.

I did have plans for this year, things I was going to do. 2012 was the year I was going to reach my goal weight amongst other things. Over the weekend though, while I wrote my list I resolved to put back into my calendar an event I'd talked about back then. I'd decided to take part in the 30 miles St Luke's Hospice Midnight Walk. I completed 13 miles last year as part of my recovery, enjoyed the challenge and wanted to up the stakes.

However as much as I like a challenge, 30 miles is a bridge too far (plus MrC put his foot down) I even think 13 miles will be too much, as I'm still struggling with two! But I've registered for the 7 mile route, on the 21st of July.

I'm sure I'm going to be told good news at my appointment but even if it's not what I want to hear, I now have a goal, something to look forward to, a way to improve fitness and lift my soul, to raise money for a worthwhile cause.

My blog header has the following, it's tag line

Tackle each challenge with a strength of purpose and an expectation to succeed.

Please click My Just Giving Page and help me take those steps (literally) to bring me out of the tunnel and back into the light and put some order to things! There's nothing like money to motivate!



 

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 23 #R2BC

I like to look back at the week on Friday's and record some of the good bits and link up with Michelle from Mummy from the Heart. 

I finally came home on Saturday from Mum and Dad's. Its great to sleep in your own bed. I was being waited on hand and foot and it was brilliant, but being home means I am moving around more, which has got to be a good thing! 

I finished a lot of my last crochet project, a shrug. However I have no idea how to finish it off! The pattern has me flummoxed, so am going to take it round to my Mum and see if between us we can work it out! So in the meantime I've started a new project, a linked motif poncho type top. It's made up of squares, which are joined up as you go along. I need over 90! Going to look great though when I've finished.

I also meal planned, did the internet grocery shop for the ingredients and cooked a couple of meals from it too! I'm over the moon about that. Everything I can do to get things back to normal the better

I've lost 4 pounds in weight! Yay! Before my last operation I had gone totally off plan, was eating what I wanted when I wanted and was practically wallowing in chocolate because I was feeling very sorry for myself. I'm very pleased that post op, even through the soreness and pain, I've managed to eat sensibly. Long may it continue!

Had my first drugs trial appointment which although I had a few issues (see here for the post) it went well. They're very pleased with my progress considering I was only 10 days post op. I love it when the medical profession say that because I always think I should be feeling better than I actually do. Makes me realise I'm being a bit hard on myself.

Today (Friday) I've a scan to check I don't have any other tumours hiding away. Its a big deal, but can't put into words how I feel about it, maybe post something over the weekend. I get the results on Tuesday and then start the drugs proper on Wednesday. Exciting, worrying and the emotions in between. Light at the end of the tunnel comes to mind.

So next week will involve at least 3 hospital appointments, good job I'm good at waiting! 

It's been a busy week, I'm improving well, today I'm feeling good. That's why I do this meme, to think, record and keep hold of this feeling for when things aren't as great.

Treatment Option - as a person please

I've had my first drugs trial appointment and things didn't go smoothly.


Mum and I arrived at the unit detailed on the card five minutes before appointment time. I'd researched where it was beforehand as I wanted to keep my walking to a minimum. I'd only had surgery 9 days ago! Reception didn't have my name on the list but didn't seem worried. After ten minutes I started to think something had gone wrong, but my fears were allayed when my cancer nurse who I'd seen just once before, walked in. But she wasn't there to see me, but for a meeting!

I showed her the card, hand written, her hand writing and she couldn't apologise enough. She knew straight away she'd made a mistake. We arranged to meet actually down at the oncology unit, she'd be there straight after her meeting.

So off we toddled to figure out how to get there. My hospital is a bit of a maze (to say the least!) has lots of floors, some wards and units can only be reached from certain banks of lifts. The main entrance is in level 6 for goodness sake! It's a maze I tell you! But we got there and took a seat.

An hour later we're still seated. I've been people watching and listening under the guise of 'reading my kindle' My main observations? Why wear socks with sandals? No-one picks up litter or throws away their coffee cups and some people look so much sicker than others :(

After I'd run out of people to see and my bum was getting sore from the chair, I decided to see what was occuring and went off to reception to explain my predicament. A very friendly chap called Martin made a few calls before visiting me at my now chair of pain to say my nurse is AWOL but they're still looking. I did however get a visit from her opposite number who apologised and sounded like she meant it. She was going to do a bit more ringing around and come back to me. Five minutes later, my nurse was there, her meeting had turned into 90 minutes not the 10 she'd expected! She was extremely apologetic and rushed me through to the research unit.

So two hours after my appointment time, I was sat finally having blood removed and blood pressure taken and chatting with my consultant. At last! I've got a CT scan booked on Friday, the results will be rushed through and as long as they are ok (I don't have any other cancers hiding away in my bowel, liver, pancreas etc etc **) I will start the drugs on Wednesday.

Although things had gone wrong and took longer than expected the way I was treated made all the difference, as a person. I was kept informed, the people I spoke to we're friendly, empathetic, apologetic but more importantly sounded like they meant it. Things go wrong, it's how it puts right which makes the difference.

I can see light at the end of the tunnel, the next step will be getting back to work!

** Notice how I brushed past that point? It's quite a big thing, to get the confirmation I don't have any secondary cancer's lurking. I'm confident it's going to be ok though, just a formality, however will feel better after Tuesday!