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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.