There are some results that you are excited to receive. Positive exam results that could potentially open up doors to the rest of your life, university, job of your dreams, gap year…
Pregnancy tests – well that could go either way to be fair.
Then then there are the results you don’t want to be positive. For the last few years, those tests have mainly been Covid, overshadowing everything else. Even cancer.
Relly Hate Tests
It feels like the cancer journey is nothing but tests. Mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, CT scan, blood tests. All of which are hard to deal with, the waiting, the different scenarios that go around your mind. And then you reach the surgery stage, and it doesn’t really sink in that you are still waiting for results. Are the margins clear, how big was the tumour? are the lymph nodes clear, do you need more surgery?
I always knew I was having chemo so to a certain extent the results were irrelevant. Until about a week after surgery when it suddenly dawned on me that I may need to have more surgery, may need all my lymph nodes removed meaning that I’ll probably get lymphoedema down the line. But more importantly, if those things were true, it also reduced my overall survival rate by over 30%. That was the bit my brain had not even considered and why the results started to really matter.
Here we go again
My mental health crashed yet again. I felt sick, physically, and emotionally sick with worry. It seems that every time I climb up, I get knocked down. I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. And my sleep gave me the weirdest dreams that I really wish I had written down, but it gave me a break from the impending doom.
Crystals were brought out again to help me, I gave myself reiki and just tried everything to get through those days before my next outpatient appointment, my results day.
Results Day
And so, the day arrives and hubby and I go along to the hospital. I see a colleague of my consultant who has rudely decided to take annual leave. He starts by removing the sterri strips and checking the scar which seems to be healing very well, surprisingly well, I think. This is now my first sighting of Ernie #2. I’m not as horrified as I thought I would be. But it looks strange. It feels strange.
And then the time comes. Almost as an afterthought. My margins are clear; my lymph nodes are clear. In fact, the tumour was only 16mm in total, so smaller than the MRI showed. This is quite unusual from what I can tell from other cancer patients, but I’ll take it. In fact, given all possible outcomes, this is the best I could have hoped for other than it being all a horrendous mistake.
It was unfortunately still cancer and still triple negative so that does still mean chemotherapy. Meh. But I have been through it before and survived so I have no doubt I can do it again. We need to mop up any stray cells that may have escaped. Think Pac Man chasing and eating all the dots.
And so, we wait again for the next step, oncology. What will I have and how many. And will I lose my hair.
At least there are no more results for a while.
