When I woke I was greeted with the familiar all encompassing dread. Having dealt with anxiety for 15 years I know the feeling well and had to dig deep for coping mechanisms. Rhian was coming home today and we had to tell her. How are you supposed to do that?
On top of this my chest pain seemed to be getting worse on a daily basis, from nothing before the weekend to being a constant pain whenever I took a breath in. Again without proper information my mind went to a dark place, I was going to die quickly.
It propelled me to keep busy during the morning by writing lists and doing what I could to get affairs in order.
By 1pm I’ve been clock watching for the last few hours, Rhian will be home in an hour. I’m going to turn her life upside down. Kira has decided she wants to give Rhian some room and will be out when she gets home and we tell her. I understand completely.
2.20pm Rhian is home. I can hear her downstairs, happy and smiling and talking to Katie about her trip to North Devon. I’m going to ruin her life, How do I do this? It’s not fair.
I wait for her to come to me, give her this time.
4.30 That was by far the hardest couple of hours and it was just horrible. I felt so guilty and Rhian was knocked for six. We just kept chatting, hugging, crying, full on sobbing and repeating. I know this is just the beginning but we had an acceptance after about 30 minutes.
Winston made us laugh as he picked up on our emotions and wanted to comfort us. Dogs aren’t stupid.
Like all of us she needed a bit of time to herself to absorb the news and then she started asking good questions.
I was glad when Kira was home and we could all hug and have team Davis complete and facing the long road ahead.
After a night in my own bed with lots of emotions, trips to dark places, Katie and I have a good talk. We talk openly about things we’d both been thinking of. I could die. What’s going to happen financially for her and the girls. I never knew we could cry so much.
Should we tell Rhian yet (she’s on a weekend away with a friend and back in a day, we decide not to and to let her enjoy her break)
Kira knows and we’ve said we’ll be honest with her at every step.
The problem we have is we’re not sure what happens next. We’ve been overwhelmed with information but it’s just a jumble of information.
Then I get a call from one of the renal specialist nurses from Frimley Park hospital who takes control. I’m having a biopsy on Thursday (today is Tuesday) and from there there’s a 7-10 day wait for results. However as they are certain from the presentation that it’s cancer they are also pre-emptively referring me to a consultant at St Lukes Cancer centre in Guildford. The hope is that I’ll get the referral appointment at the same time the results come in.
I have to have another covid swab before the biopsy but that’s it and that’s all been arranged for me as well.
I’m amazed things are happening so quickly, everything so far has been on the NHS and has been faultless. I’ve confirmed I have full cancer treatment cover on Bupa and can swap back and forth as needed but right now there’s no need.
I have another open conversation with the HR manager at work and am comforted at the sickness cover and death in service cover that means we won’t be impacted financially.
I also start to make a list of things I have to do, top if the list is write a will.
Lights come on about 7am and I keep flipping from acceptance to crying to feeling guilty that if I die it’s everyone else that’s left to deal with things. I hate that others are going to be upset because of me.
“What would you like for breakfast?” Someone rattles of a breakfast menu, I can’t face food but ask for juice, cornflakes. Bacon? No. Roll? No. Nothing else? No.
A Dr I saw last night comes and sees me with a few more questions, more details of what’s happening today. I can’t recall any of the questions he asked.
I wait. I want to go home and hug Katie.
The Dr comes back with a consultant, Anika something, wearing red scrubs. First red ones I’ve seen.
She explains again what has been found and what they’re looking for today. They’ve found some spots on my lungs while looking for blood clots. Took everyone by surprise. It could be cancer it could also be an infection, or benign or any number of things. They have to scan the rest of my organs to see if its spread from somewhere else.
She asks if I’d like her to speak to Katie and I explain that Katie works in the hospital and she kindly offers to update her.
Katie is in bits and there’s nothing I can do. I feel sorry for myself and her. What are we going to do?
About 9.30am I’m handed a bunch of menus and asked to decide what I want for lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch. I pick random choices, again I couldn’t tell you what I chose I just stared blindly while ticking boxes.
I keep pulling the curtains back round to seal me off from the ward. Man across from me wants to tell everyone his war stories and is desperate to chat. Sorry, I’m not.
It takes everything I have not to start crying uncontrollably on the way to the scan. I’m greeted by a cheery nurse with a Newcastle accent. This is strangely comforting.
I have the scan and am taken back to the ward. I lie down and start sobbing again. I don’t get long to wallow as lunch arrives as I have to compose myself.
Katie is desperate for information, sounds like she’s going through the wringer but there’s nothing I can do. She’s not allowed to see me either due to our ward being for people who’ve been COVID swabbed but with no results yet.
The consultant comes back around 1pm they have my 2nd scan results and she’d like to discuss with me and Katie together. She’s already got Katie in a nearby room. We see each other and just sob and hug. Consultant looks a little awkward but tells us they’ve found a mass on my right kidney too. Worst case scenario is that it’s a kidney cancer that has spread to my lungs.
Ok so I can get worse news. Who knew! They now have to get a urology consultant to see me.
Katie is asking intelligent questions while my mind races of down the worst possible path. After about 15 minutes the consultant leaves Katie and I in private. We sob and hug. Katies been doing it all morning on her work colleagues and I’m quietly pleased she’s been able to do that. We agree we need to tell Kira but won’t ruin Rhians holiday by telling her yet.
I leave her to go back to the ward without looking back. I want to have some dignity as I walk back to my bed. The curtains have been pulled back again, I pull them back round again. I lie down and cry. I don’t want to die.
Katie has gone home to tell Kira. I’m devastated I can’t be there but know its not something Katie can keep from her.
The urology consultant comes to see me at around 3.30pm. Explains in a roundabout way they’ll also need a biopsy, a team will be meeting to discuss my case this week..or next. Tells me possible outcomes, if it’s cancer, they can remove some or all of a kidney but they will probably give me chemotherapy (which is now called something else but I can’t remember) via tablets which could reduce the mass, could also reduce the ones in the lungs too.
He leaves. My head is spinning. Then suddenly I have a clearness. I may have cancer, I may die. I may not. But I have to get my life in order. I have to make sure Katie is protected financially as well as emotionally. I have to make sure I leave instructions for everything only I know how to do. I start a list. It feels positive.
I feel pragmatic, what will be will be. I write more of my list. I have to make sure she has all my passwords.
I was cutting the grass and got a lot of chest pain and was very out of breath. I panicked a bit as it hurt to take a deep breath and was starting to hyperventilate. There was a stabbing pain in my lower left back on every breath in.
Katie insisted I call 111 and my belligerent self thought she was being over dramatic.
I called them, they called an ambulance. Oh.
Paramedics checked me over and everything seemed ok, nothing going on with the heart. BP a little high, again. But paramedics wanted to get me checked out as there was something going on. Off to the hospital after being given a couple of paracetamol.
Hot flush in the back of the ambulance, felt a bit sick but sure that was just travel sickness.
Taken to Frimley Park, straight into majors, room M9. I would be here from 14:45 to about 23:00.
First nurse puts a cannula in my right arm, pink, takes lots of blood samples for testing. Usual story, I’m an awkward bleeder.
Finally see the Dr at about 15:30, lots of questions, history, no obvious conclusions yet.
Dr wants me to have a chest X-ray. Paracetamol finally seems to be working.
Go for chest X-ray at about 4.30pm and when I come back the nurses were quite excited, they’d been looking for me. Blood tests had shown a possible clot so need to have a chest CT scan. also need to have a green (bigger) cannula installed. Now have one in each arm. Also asked to give a urine sample. Decide to do that straight away. It’s like treacle. So dark, never seen it like that before.
Go for CT scan at about 5.30pm. Never had one but told I’m getting some dye injected and have to complete a questionnaire. Scan was painless no where near as bad as my Shoulder MRI last year.
While I’m having the scan I notice the pain taking breaths is coming back again. Quite quickly. But no longer in my left lower back but now on the upper chest on the left. Like a hot needle when breathing in.
I get wheeled back to room M9 and call for a nurse for some pain relief and she says she’ll go an find a Dr. This is about 6.15pm now. Pain is becoming excruciating. I have tears in my eyes, literally rolling around on the bed in pain. Nurses keep coming in saying they’re waiting for the Dr. I just ask pleadingly for something now.
Eventually a nurse comes in with 2 codeine, and I manage to swallow these hoping for some quick action. Pain still seems to be rising.
Pain starts to ease about 20 minutes later but is still very present.
The young Dr comes back at about 8pm, he gives me some IV paracetamol which start to work very quickly.
He starts asking about a lot more history, why did they think seasonal asthma, have I had any pain before today, urine problems, back pain. About 15 minutes asking lots of questions and I’m just assuming they’re still looking for answers.
Then he drops a bombshell. “I have some bad news. Do you want someone to be with you”.
I say no.
“We found something on your CT scan…….”
I zone out. I can see his lips moving but I’m not really picking anything up.
“…lung….spots….abnormality…cancer..sorry”
I’ve gone numb.
I actually zone right out, I must be dreaming, I can see myself on the bed, like from a camera in the corner of a room, then instantly I’m back.
“..anything you want to ask?”
I ask what this means and he says I have to have another CT scan but of the abdominal and pelvic areas, they need to see if the spots have originated from anywhere else. He asks me more than once, have I ever been exposed to asbestos, ever smoked.
They’ll admit me overnight and do the scan in the morning.
I feel empty. I need to see Katie and hug her. I text her that I have to be admitted but say nothing else. She sets off for the hospital.
I go straight to worst case scenario, “I have lung cancer” why me?!
Katie arrives at 9.45pm with a text “just queuing to get in 🤣”. How do I tell her..?
Then the nurse brings my overnight bag, they haven’t let Katie in to see me. I start losing it. “I have to speak to her”.
“Can’t you phone her?”
“No!, I need to see her”
I remove the o2 sensor from my finger and an alarm starts sounding, I remove the blood pressure cuff and head for the exit and phone Katie.
We meet outside A&E, I see her and crumble. She gets me to a wall to sit down. I tell her through sobs “They found something on my lung”
We cry, we hug. “We’ve got this” she keeps saying. “Whatever this is, we’ve got this!”
After a few minutes we part and I have to go back in and Katie has to drive home. Our world has just been turned upside down and we have to be apart. Fuck you coronavirus.
My chest hurts, I cannot get back into the A&E room, I want to cry, I want to curl up but I’m standing in the A&E waiting area and just want to get back to my room. After what seems live forever but was probably only a minute someone comes out and I go in. I find my room and bed and cry. Sobbing makes my chest hurt.
Katie texts me from home, we’re not telling the girls yet so she cannot cry on anyone’s shoulder and I hate that she has no one.
I go up to the ward at 11.15pm. G4, bay e4. There’s 3 other men in the room and I’m shown to a bed in the corner. No pillow.
I get weighed and well as have BP, HR, temp taken (this happens every 4 hrs while I’m here).
I lie there, staring at the ceiling. People are snoring. Loudly. There’s lots of things happening, my mind is rushing around.
I say to my self, “I’m going to die.” I have tears rolling down my face, I sob quietly, never having been so scared.
Like most people, the first part of 2020 was spent working from home while the world faced the global coronavirus pandemic. I was also recovering from a rotator cuff operation in December 2019.
This meant that by may/June 2020 I found myself getting really out of shape and told my self I needed to start exercising again. I’d not really done anything other than dog walks and a few bike rides in 6 months and I was feeling it.
In the middle of July 2020 I developed an annoying tickly cough. My first though was coronavirus! Lucky the NHS testing process was well developed and I had a test at 7.30 the next day, a Saturday morning.
I had to tell people I had a test as we’d been meeting people and I did screw up the plans of some friends and family but luckily I got the all clear that evening. 12 hours from test to results via text, fair play NHS.
So what have I got then? I had an e-consult with the Dr and we established I was coughing more in the morning and evenings so came to the conclusion it was seasonal asthma, probably triggered with pollen morning and evenings. Take a brown puffer and see if that helps.
It didn’t. By mid August I noticed that I was getting out of breath just taking the rubbish out to the bins, going up the stairs. I didn’t believe this was all down to fitness. Another e-consult and the Dr asked me to get some blood tests done to check what’s going on.
The tests showed that everything was normal apart from low vitamin D and high iron. He asked for a second set of tests to drill into these two things. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worst before the results came back.
Lots of people are asking me for updates, want to know how my treatment is going and generally interested in how we’re dealing with my illness
One of the things I found out straight away is that as soon as you have a major illness you lose all dignity. Doctors and nurses want to ask all sorts of personal questions and are very interested in bodily functions.
Men don’t like to talk about this stuff but it’s important. So I decided to share all the stages of my treatment, warts and all.
I’ll show the ups and downs with all the emotional twists and turns. I’ll also try and do it with a bit of humour. I’m happy to talk and laugh about my illness. It’s possible this may come as a surprise to some but you have to laugh some times.
I’m also setting the dates on the posts to be the actual date of an event. So don’t be surprised to see posts from the past until I catch up.
