I’m going to kick start this with a picture of me in a tree.
This was taken Christmas Day at Waverley Abbey. Past Gerry
doesn’t know it yet but she is soon going to miss sitting comfortably. You
enjoy that perch Past Gerry. Revel in the Christmassy moment.
Three days after the picture was taken (and luckily because
I can count I make that the 28th December) another letter landed on
my doormat. Future Gerry will get used to these. It had on it a medical stamp
(Future Gerry will get used to this also) and I realised that it was very
likely to be my colposcopy results. I’ll admit my pulse picked up at how
quickly they had arrived and the cuntsoltant, sorry, I mean consultant’s words
wafted through my mind. ‘If there is
anything to be concerned about then you will receive the results letter nearer
the two-week mark.’ It was two and a half. With a break for Christmas. You don’t get told you have cancer via letter. You get invited to an appointment where they tell you that you have cancer. The appointment letter isn’t so much of a request as an urgent request with no information other than your consultant’s name. If, like me, you have access to modern technology (what did we ever do before Googling was a thing?!) you will look up your consultant’s name and find that he specialises in: -
Well…
It was at this point my partner and I diverged in our
approaches to this scheduled future appointment. My partner was, in keeping
with his personality, calm and rational. He refused to think of the worst-case
scenario because the worst-case scenario hadn’t happened yet and, in his mind,
may not ever happen so what was the point in counting something as a certainty?
I believe he borrowed from the philosophy of Newt Scamander
(of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) …At this point I was thinking to myself, ‘if they do diagnose me with cancer, I got this. I totally got this.’
Yeah.
I will tell you now that I had/ still have moments where I
think the above and then there were/ are moments where I think, ‘I haven’t got this. I totally haven’t got
this.’ And the fun part of that game is that your brain will just choose
what it wants at any given moment on any given day.
The night before the diagnosis felt like a rather perverse,
twisted Christmas Eve (ooh I have an image for that!)
Six days later (on the 3rd January… counting
again) I found myself back in that irritating ante-natal/ gynaecology waiting
room where I got gawped at by more pregnant couples sitting in the wrong area.
Had any obnoxiously chirpy nurse approached me asking about a scan that time
round I probably would have gone three rounds on their ass.
Luckily, because I had a face like a thunder-arsehole (is
that even a thing? I’m going to make that a thing) no one was perky and no one
approached me aside from the nurse whose job it was to call me from the waiting
room into the consultation room.
On route I passed three rather serious looking medical
professionals (turns out they were for me) before I was left alone in the room for a few minutes.
Those few minutes were the longest in my life. A strategically placed box of
tissues on the table was my first big clue that something was amiss and my
second big clue was the conversation being held by the three serious medical
professionals that stood outside a not-quite-properly-closed-door; it went a
little something like this: -
Nurse: Does she know why she’s here?Consultant: No. We’re telling her today.
I don’t really know how to describe the actual moment I was
told I had cancer in any particularly humorous way so I am sorry if it falls
massively flat.
The conversation itself was bizarre and I have no clue if this
is how it goes down for everyone but I feel like they stick to a formula: -
1.
Explain what has happened to you so far (you
know this bit, you and your body part of specialised interest have been present
through it all)
2.
Tell you that the pathology results have
confirmed that you have invasive cervical cancer
3.
Explain that you are now going to be passed over
to nurses who will go through what happens next
4.
Shake your hand
5.
Leave
During any part of the above you may or may not take a minute to
cry. I did between steps 2 and 3 and then found myself apologising profusely to
the nurses and consultant for doing so. Like what the actual fuck?! I have
clearly been trained by The Very British Organisation of Receiving Devastating
News but Should Still Always Retain One’s Britishness.
Gerry’s Hot Tip on how to respond to your cancer diagnosis
if you ever one: -
Nope. Nothing. I have a whole bunch of nothing to give you. You’ve
just got to absorb the news and let it run whatever course you and your mind
chooses. It does, in a way, become another ‘choose your own adventure’ except
the adventure is pretty fucking shit.
If you ever receive such news there is no right or wrong way
of dealing or feeling and the way that you think
you’re going to respond is probably not the actual way that you will respond.
The human creature is funny like that.
Maybe, just maybe, if it had been a different cancer or if I
was told that it was at a later stage then my reaction might have been
different. Or not. I don’t know. Shock has a lot to answer for at this stage.
First off I am a huge crier. These are some things that have
made me cry for a variety of reasons, some good and some not so good: -After step 5 (above) I was asked if I had anyone with me. Because I am a lucky girl and have someone who loves me enough to come with me to these crappy things my response was ‘yes, my partner is in the waiting room.’
The nurse then said that they would bring him in. This is
when I responded in horror and waved my hands about in an overly dramatic way. ‘No,
no, no!’ I told her, ‘you don’t need to get him, you see he’s looking after my
coat!’
They assured me that he could bring the coat with him.
What followed was the nurses taking all details they could
possibly take from me, plus explaining the situation to my partner in a very
friendly and calming manner whilst I spent the time worrying about the health
and well-being of my coat. ‘Did you bring it with you?’ ‘I’m nipping to the
loo, make sure you keep hold of the coat.’ ‘My coat is on the floor, I don’t
want it touching the floor.’ ‘We need to go and get my blood taken now, have
you got the coat?’ ‘They’re sticking me with a needle now, is that coat doing
ok?’
The coat is the oldest coat in the history of coats. I just
don’t even know. It has about three used tissues, some crumbled up polo's, and
old train tickets in the pockets but from the way I was reacting you’d think I’d
found the Heart of the Ocean or something.
When it’s all done and they send you on your way with a
promise to call you ASAP you just walk out the same front doors of the hospital
you entered except it all feels a bit different. You feel a bit different. You’re
not entirely sure what’s just happened to you and you’re not entirely too sure
what’s going to happen to you but you know it’s Not Good.
I turned to my partner yesterday and simply said to him, ‘I wish I never got diagnosed. I wish I
never had cancer. I wish I could just be exactly the same person I was before any of
this happened.’
The thing is wishing changes nothing at all. You need to focus on getting that fucker out. That’s the most important
thing and that’s what I said to the nurse at the time. Get the fucker out.
So off you go, unto the breach.
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