Wednesday 5 March 2014

Back to reality....post Lisbon week

Tuesday 11th February
In order to not spoil my last Lisbon post, I omitted the fact that once we arrived home late on the Monday night we were greeted to a freezing cold house....yep, the boiler had decided to stop. Brilliant! Dull talk but I had been meaning to get a British Gas insurance in case this happened and had kept putting it off, more fool me! Thankfully an engineer came the same day to rectify the issue but this meant leaving work at midday to wait until they came. This wasn't something I relished, as the time I had spent on my had been the times where I felt the saddest. However, this afternoon ended up being a good one as taking a tea break, I got to meet Maddy Regan for the first time at only just over a week old. Super cute! Well done Glenn and Rachel you are amazing parents! Thankfully the boiler also decided to play ball and got going again (though subsequently decided to break down a further 5 times before an engineer came who actually found the fault and fixed it rather than the previous 2 engineers who had made me out to the idiot!).

Wednesday 12th February
Lee Homer; friend of the stars, ambassador of all brands and man of the people/ monarchy - huge thank you for keeping sane for this morning. The reason was that at 14.15 I had my follow up at the Parapet clinic.....for the biopsy results. The weather was terrible and that area was particularly affected by the floods so I was hugely relieved when I met Daniel so I knew we could face the appointment together. We then had an agonising 1.15 hour wait as the clinic running behind. We managed to work our way through the latest copies of In Style and Red before we were called through to the next waiting area. Walking into the consultant's room, everything seemed grey. So grey. As anticipated the previous week's prognosis was confirmed with embellishment...words such a grade 2 were said. I was then examined and mentioned around whether I should have found the lump sooner.....'Park it'. Two words that I now keep telling myself when I toy with this question...'You found it, you're here and we will treat it'. Yes boss!!! The only other thing I can recall of this meeting with Miss Predolac was that the lymph node biopsy had come back clear but that they were still concerned around the way they looked from the previous scans. So more tests were needed. I had hoped to have come out of this meeting with a treatment plan, perhaps a rather naive perspective, but having another week of tests felt rather frustrating. Martina accompanied us in this meeting and then took us to a different 'room of doom'...more green furniture and tissues. She explained that the tests were required to fully understand what treatment plan was needed for me. We then discussed likely treatment plans, as I/ we wanted to get a grasp on this. In my mind, I had reconciled with having a mastectomy and radiography..bing, bang, boom back to normality. It was at this meeting that chemotherapy was first mentioned as being a likely option. Bam - hit to the face....really? Why? Long term health preservation...something I didn't got to grips with until the wonderful Ces put it into context for me. Returning home after this hospital appointment was bizarre. It was confirmed, I officially had breast cancer. I didn't really cry this day, though the following day I felt as if I had spent the whole of the previous day in tears...I guess they must have been internal ones.

As with the evening after the first visit to the Parapet, we spent the evening with close friends, Rob and Ces, and saw Harrison take some wobbly early steps. Big thanks guys....your endless support is thoroughly appreciated and we will happily come over for more fish pie!!!

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