This is what I wrote on 29 December 2013 after I received the results of a 11 December biopsy. It looked like carcinoma in situ so for weeks I was partly reassured but with no one to talk to about it over Christmas I was also confused and worried. It was not carcinoma in situ but “a nasty, vicious little tumour” said the surgeon when I was finally operated on!
“It’s quite surreal how bad my Christmas was. It makes you think about all the froth and bubble of Xmas and how insubstantial it is. Bad things can happen anytime; Xmas ain’t immune. It’s also almost funny. I feel like sending one of those Xmas letters but painting it very black: the opposite of boasting.
First of all I had the suspicious tissue biopsy on December 11. Then no results when they were meant to come through the following week, thus prolonging the agony. On 19 December I got a horrible gastric virus which lasted almost a week. No vomiting but nausea, fever, a general feeling of malaise and watery diarrhoea which I didn’t handle well because I ended up dehydrated. When I finally went to the doctor he said it was hard to confine it to one member of the family so I cancelled Xmas and stayed home by myself for the week. (Added now in 2020. I heard it as saying I should self-isolate, a term I didn’t even know then!) My best friends were out of the country or inundated by grandchildren so I didn’t even have anyone to talk to on the phone.
My son had followed up my results with the surgeon when I was too nervous to- a big regret on my part. I should have empowered myself. As a result the surgeon rang him when those results came out on Xmas Eve. Cancer, early, surgery. My poor son came round and delivered the news though the closed ranch-slider so that he didn’t get the bug. This was at my insistence. It was a relief to know but horrible to be so very alone. I think I have a martyr complex.
The “early” part sounds good and so does the fact that the surgery won’t be quite so big as last time. And yet, it IS cancer and who knows what they might find when poking around or in the CT scan? I’m pretty confident it will be all right but I know I have to prepare for contingencies. That oral cancer surgery with the tracheotomy and naso-gastric tube, with the patch from elsewhere in the body and therefore prolonged stay in hospital, is anathema to me. I’m a notoriously bad sleeper so the nights are long. With oral cancer surgery the improvement each day is slower than with other surgeries. Even the worst abdominal surgery patient feels a lot better after three days and can EAT. With this surgery you can’t eat or drink until the trache is out and that can be over a week. There are no meal times to break up the monotony.
And then there’s the rest of the family with at least one family member pretty depressed by the whole thing. In a year their father goes into care for dementia, their mother has her fourth cancer diagnosis. How long can her body withstand those horrible surgeries?
It’s hard to get out of self-pity mode. Maybe soon!”