All this started 16 months ago and looking back, it was a nightmare slowly unfolding. The human mind is a wonderful piece of equipment. It can remember astonishing detail and forget horrific trauma all at the same time. It can, of course, also magnify trauma, reliving the horrors at the drop of a hat (the hat being multi-facetted, indeterminate shape, size and colour, and totally random) and scents, sounds, sights etc can be reminders of that trauma. I don’t have many triggers for the memories and for that, I’m thankful.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was ill for quite a while, without realising, and I leaned heavily on Trev for support. I didn’t realise that I was becoming reliant upon him and my daughter for even the most basic of tasks and chores. I stopped going out alone. Trips to the shops etc were out of the question unless I had someone to go with me. Even a trip to the Post Office and back wouldn’t be possible until Trev came home from work, or Danielle called round. This happened over the course of a few years. It snuck up on me and I can only see it now, in the rear-view mirror so to speak.
I don’t know why, it just was.
Having said that, we were in the middle of a global pandemic and things had changed drastically. Appointments were mandatory-masked and one on one. I had to face most of this on my own. Scary indeed!
At some appointments, I was told that Trev could have come with me – but it was usually too late to get him in by the time I found out. I learned to ask beforehand whether he could come with me or not. A lot of the times it was just so I could ask questions later. He has a more logical mind, and he remembers the medical details better.
The first appointment with the consultant was just before the Radiotherapy started. We were in the waiting room for quite a long time before we were called in for my appointment. My empathy told me to be patient. It’s a difficult time for everyone, I imagine. The person in front of me was likely to be getting some terrible news and I know that if it was me in there, I wouldn’t want to be rushed out of the office to make way for the next patient. I waited – after all, I wasn’t really in a hurry to find out what was wrong and what the remedy was going to be. I settled into my own mind and made the most of the ‘before’ time – before I got the official diagnosis, before I found out what treatment I would need, before I found out if it was treatable or not.
The consultant and attending nurse were so very kind and patient. We sat and introduced ourselves after he had introduced himself and his assistant. I remember thinking he was oh so very young to be giving out such terrible news, prognosis, diagnosis and likely outcomes etc day in, day out – random things that popped into my head to distract me.
I don’t remember much of the conversation – cancer, small, but awkwardly placed, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery and it should all be over by Christmas.
Then, toward the end of the interview, he said, “May I examine you?”
By this time, I was beginning to feel like the communal bowling ball – I’ll leave you to work out that little gem.
I took off my boots, dropped my trousers and underwear and got on the examination table. “Turn to the wall, bring your knees up.”
The examinations were all painful – not physically, but mentally cringe-inducing. There’s probably a deep-seated reason for the feeling of extreme embarrassment, and I have an inkling of what caused it, but I’ll not go into that right now, just know that the examinations were high on the list of things I hated out of everything that happened.
I chatted away to the consultant’s assistant as a means of blocking out what was going on behind my back and at one point, I stopped talking. The silence came as a shock, I guess. He said, “Carry on talking, I’m listening.”
I said, “I was just wondering… what was going through your mind on the day you decided that this was what you wanted to do for a living?”
He laughed. It was a short, snort-type laugh, but it made me smile and that laugh broke the ice in a small way. Humour is my go-to defence in most situations, and it would prove to be my biggest and most effective asset in the year to come.
I’m glad to say he wore gloves, AND washed his hands before we left, even though shaking hands was discouraged during the pandemic.
He told us he’d make a treatment plan in the next few days – which he did. Radiotherapy for five and a half weeks, with lots of other medication included. The reality of the disease and severity of the treatment was starting to hit home.
Trev was already working from home because of the pandemic, but when the lockdown was lifted, he was able to continue working from home in order to support me. Because of the daily trip into the city to get Radiotherapy, and the fluctuations of times, his work were exceptionally supportive. They immediately allocated his outside appointments to other colleagues and asked what else they could do to support us.
The first radiotherapy appointment was a leap into the unknown. I have never been ill in my life (yes, colds, bugs etc, but nothing that hospitalised me – not including the times I’ve been in hospital giving birth, of course) and on the first appointment, we couldn’t find a parking space. It wasn’t a disaster, and it really shouldn’t have caused the level of anxiety I felt, but it did. We planned to leave home a full hour before the appointment and even then, Trev was late. He dropped me off close to the department I needed and went to find a parking space. My energy levels were low back then and I couldn’t have walked the distance from one end of the hospital grounds to the other. I went in, found the department I needed (I had to ask where it was), explained that I was waiting for my husband to arrive, and I sat down. The time for the appointment came and went. I became anxious and rang Trev. He’d found a parking space and was on his way.
He finally got to the hospital wing and rang me again. He couldn’t find the department.
The consultant we spoke to (at last) was so supportive and understanding. I apologised and she said it wasn’t a problem as she was catching up on paperwork. I remember the strangest details, the most illogical particulars from that appointment, but I don’t quite remember the specifics – what she told me to expect, what the meds were likely to do… I don’t remember what she looked like, but I do remember that she was incredibly kind and patient.
I walked out of the appointment armed with a small sack of medication that I MUST take at the exact same time of day EVERY day, 12 hours apart. If I missed taking one lot, I must leave it unless it’s within an hour. I don’t take tablets as a rule and the amount and directions for taking them were overwhelming.
That’s when I found out where the car was parked… No wonder it had taken Trev a while to get to me – at least he’d had a downhill walk. The return trip to the car was a lot of uphill and more than a mile. I’m so glad he dropped me off. Because of city parking restrictions, he’d managed to find the closest public parking space – not residents only. We had a lot to talk about on that walk back to the car and a lot to think about.
More tomorrow.
