shock news!

This is going to speed up now, because I'm getting bored of looking back at it, and my memory is going a bit fuzzy.... I came back at the beginning of November from a very pleasant sleeping holiday in France to find a letter from the hospital telling me that the blood, x ray and needle test I had had were all normal. I breathed a sigh of relief - I hadn't realised how anxious I had been until I was let off the hook like that. I celebrated with a pint up the road and waited for my - what I considered a formality - appointment a couple of days later.

This time I had to wait an hour to be seen. The clinic was incredibly busy and some people there had been waiting from the morning session - so I guess I was lucky. I whiled away the time catching up on the celeb gossip and some afternoon TV (which for some reason is even worse than the morning) until I was put into an examination room for a bit more waiting. I'm not sure why the hospital does this - presumably to up your anxiety levels. A different doctor came in this time, and instead of telling me I was fine to go, everything normal, she told me that the ultrasound scan looked suspicious and that they were going to do an FNA and maybe also a MRI scan to see what was going on. I was a bit shocked. I'm not sure how quickly we got onto the C word, or who brought it up first, but she assured me it was very treatable, that surgery would sort it out, and basically there wasn't much to worry about. Of course not, it is after all only cancer.... Flailing around for another possible explanation for the ultrasound I asked if it could be anything else - but she obviously had decided that that was enough. "Could be TB" she replied rather snappily I thought. Not very likely - particularly as the chest x ray was clear. She left, I left, a bit more shocked, and stumbled downstairs to hand in my card for another ultrasound scan.

On the 16th November I had my next FNA this time by ultrasound so that they could be sure that the cells were from the right lumps. All pretty straightforward and the ultrasoundist put a note on the test to make sure that it was processed in time for my next appointment at the lumps clinic on the following Weds.

I went to this appointment on my own - which I regret. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation try to take someone with you all the way through - it definitely makes a difference. Anyway - things were a bit calmer in the clinic this time and I only had to wait briefly in the waiting room with the distracting things to do. Then I was shown into another examination room for some more anxious no-distractions waiting before the consultant came. He brought with him a little mouse student doctor who looked rather uncomfortable throughout the consultation I thought. He told me that they had found abnormal cells in my thyroid and in my lymph node and the solution was surgery and raioactive iodine. Hurrah! To his credit, when I told him I had read a bit about it on the internet he looked quite relieved - I obviously knew it was very treatable and wouldn't be doing any of that embarassing breaking down, getting in a state stuff. Funny thing is though, I don't think the C word was mentioned during this consultation, although I think we both knew what we were talking about. He told me I would be having an MRI scan and would have the appointment within the next two weeks (a very important distinction I later discovered, from having the scan within the next two weeks, the subletities of the wording escaped me at the time...). He was very kind and tried to be reassuring, and I left, on my own again, to shakily cycle home. At NO POINT in any of this process so far did ANYONE mention ANY sort of support being available from ANYWHERE. I have since discovered that this is common for thyroid cancer patients, and I'm sure for other sorts of cancer patients too.