Here We Go Again...

So, in the words of Whitesnake (circa 1987)… Here I Go Again. Although that’s probably the only line I can actually lift from the song, cos it’s not the only road I’ve even known, I’m not walking it alone, and I’m not a hobo. Or a drifter (depending on whether you’re listening to the album or the single version…).

Let’s start at the beginning. Around about the Easter weekend, I started with a bit of a bad back. By the late May bank holiday I couldn’t get out of bed without commando rolling onto my elbow and pushing up on my knees to get myself upright. So I went to the physio, she squished me about a bit and it felt a bit better. For a day or so. Went back, more pain than I’ve ever experienced, back spasms blah blah blah and she suggested I went for an MRI scan to check it wasn’t a slipped disc.

So I went to see my GP (of course this wouldn’t be the cancer back would it? Why on EARTH would I go to my actual hospital to check it out. Idiot.). And my GP sent me off to a private clinic in a weird shed in Tottenham on a Thursday afternoon where I got changed in a portakabin and lay in a shed while the weird machine noises took over and I enjoyed 20 minutes of Heart FM.

And then, it all went a little bit wrong. On the Monday morning I had a call from the doctors, asking me to ring the hospital for the results of my MRI scan. I was in the office and I completely lost it. I couldn’t think why the hospital would want to see me for the results of a GP’s test. Well, I could think why, and the only thing that made sense was that it was back. It was the only, only reason for the hospital to get involved. And I couldn’t speak – just had to get out and away and lock myself away and cry in the loo and hyperventilate a bit. Which is where lovely Katie found me, scooped me up, hopped in a cab with me and came up to the Whittington to sit and wait. And wait. It was probably an hour and a half, but it felt like a bloody month.

Eventually I saw my breast care nurse – Vivienne. They’d seen something suspicious on the MRI but without seeing the oncologist and without seeing the actual images, they couldn’t say what it was. More tears. I didn’t want it. I’d done it all before and the thought of having to do it all again was absolutely hideous. But the oncologist couldn’t see me til 3.30, so Fanners was called at work, dropped everything and came straight up to the Whittington to sit with me and hold my hand and tell me we’d deal with it, whatever “it” was and pass me hankies while we waited for three hours to see my oncologist at the end of her clinic.

I liked her immediately – she reminded me a bit of Fiona Bruce. There was something suspicious, she didn’t know what exactly until she saw the images from the MRI, but it looked like the breast cancer had potentially metastasized into the bones at the base of my spine. She didn’t sugar coat anything, she didn’t promise me the world, but she told me in a way that made things eminently dealable with. She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t want to build up my hopes, only to tell me next week that I’d be starting all over again. And she was pro-active – if I did need to re-start chemo, I would need to have an echo, so she booked me in for one the next day. And if it had come back, I’d need a CT scan to check if it had gone anywhere else, so she booked me in for one on the Thursday. If you’re going to be told awful, hideous news, hope beyond hope you get told by someone like her. I had the exact opposite experience a week and a half later and it was the worst hour of my life (more on that another day).

So, for now, all we could do was wait. Ma and Pa B were on holiday in Greece and there was no point telling them anything until we knew what we were dealing with, so Fanners and I agreed that we’d wait until the following Wednesday when we saw Dr S for my results, and if it was bad news we’d summon them back from the sun then. So off we popped, home to a cup of tea and the cat and the awful limbo of waiting for results. Just as it was last time the not knowing is the absolute, worst bit.

Apart from on Wednesday, when it all went a little bit wrong again…