Steve has invited me to become a contributor. And I hope to add some insight as to how it is from “the other side”.
He says everything so eloquently, and for a man who is hard to get much out of in a conversation (those of you who know him will know what I mean lol), he writes beautifully and it helps him process what is happening.
He’s already posted about his end of the diagnosis process but here is some of it from my view point.
That first night, when he was admitted, all he told me was that they “had found something on his lung” – oh well, I thought, they find things on lungs all the time, it’s likely to be some scarring from that nasty nasty chest infection he had that literally floored him for 3 months in early 2019. He didn’t tell me that he had been told it might be cancer. I (honestly) thought he was being overly dramatic, and that in the morning they’d do another few tests and we’d bring him home and all would be well.
The next morning I went to work, I told my boss I’d have to take him home at some point, and that I was sure it was nothing to worry about.
(Perhaps I should mention at this juncture that Steve’s glass is always almost empty, mine is always almost overflowing – we usually balance each other out nicely :))
Then I get some messages from Steve saying he’s seen a consultant who has told a bit more about what they have seen on his chest CT scan, and that there’s lots of dots. And that the next thing they want to do is a pelvis and abdominal CT scan to see if there’s anything else to worry about.
My glass very rapidly empties.
In the last few weeks he’d been having blood tests, and one of the things they had identified was that his iron levels were high, and they had done further tests to make sure his liver function was OK, as this could be a cause.
My head immediately went to “what if it’s liver cancer, it must be liver cancer, and it’s already gone to his lungs”. My colleagues and my boss told me that was obviously a very bad worse case scenario, but honestly, I was jumping to conclusions and I shouldn’t worry just yet.
Because of Covid, I can’t go and see Steve. I’m in the same building, it’s frustrating. His consultant “is going to come and find me” and talk to me – hours later (probably only 1.5, but it seemed like a lifetime) I track her down, and she asks me to come down to the ward. I see her and she puts me in a room and says they’ve just got Steve’s second CT results, and he wanted to go through them with me with him. Did I want her to go through anything first, or get Steve in. I ask her if it’s bad news, and she tells me “it’s worrying”
She goes and gets Steve, and it plays out as he has explained in other posts.
He goes back to his bed. I go back to the office, except I get as far as the office of a wonderful friend and colleague, and I fall in her door and sob. She mops me up, we have an honest conversation. Kidney’s are ten a penny – you can live without one of those. Tumours in both lungs – that’s bad news. I’m not daft, she knows I’m not daft, she’s a senior nurse and tells me straight.
I get back to the office – I sit in my corner and retreat into myself. My wonderful colleagues listen and offer what support they can. They remain my rocks.
I go home, I tell Kira. We go back and collect Steve. We bring him home.
And we cry, and cry, and cry. And Hug. A lot of clinging to each other happened in those first few days.
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