That Elusive Cure 32

I’d gone to sleep with a headache. Sleep was the wrong term to use. I lay in bed and tossed and turned and wished for sleep and a head that didn’t feel like it was about to burst. Thursday morning arrived and I woke up seriously thinking one of my eyes was going to pop out. I held a hand over that eye and rustled around in the medicines drawer in my bedside cabinet, grabbing both the paracetamol and ibuprofen. The pain had manifested as a balloon-like pressure that lived just behind my forehead. I took the medicines, swallowing the handful of pills with a swig of the still too-hot tea Jimmy had brought me, but they didn’t seem to ease the pain in the slightest.

What would I do if my eye did pop out? Call 999? Run screaming to Jimmy? I pictured myself tearing around the house cupping an escaped eyeball in one hand. The pills must have been taking an effect. The pressure eased up just a shade and my eye stopped feeling like it was about to burst free. I glanced at the clock. Less than an hour to go before the appointment. I didn’t really see the point in making sure we were on time, the doc was always at least an hour behind, even if we were the first people on the list. I knew why and didn’t feel resentment towards Mr Noble. He invariably got caught up on the wards with patients who were arguably in a far worse state than me.

I climbed out of bed as Jimmy exited the bathroom, clutching my stomach as it did a roll. It wasn’t the cancer that was going to kill me, it was the stress before these result appointments that would get me. Friends of mine on a bowel cancer forum had even coined a word for it: scanxiety.

We got to the outpatients department in Clatterbridge right on time. Jimmy and I weren’t really talking much. We’d gone through the possible results we might get as we always did as we drove to the hospital. The way we saw it these were the outcomes. Firstly, the tumours would be unchanged. Secondly, there’d be some reduction. Lastly, the tumours would be bigger and in more places. We didn’t dare entertain the chance the pod had done some good to me.

We sat down in the waiting area. Three rooflights created an atrium-like feel, with three groupings of chairs under each light. Consulting rooms ringed the chairs. I grabbed a magazine and opened it, not reading the pages, just staring at Mr Noble’s door willing it to open and for his nurse, Jill to appear and call us in. Jimmy sat next to me, not even taking his phone out. The two of us sat like that, fixated on the door as other patients trickled in and the waiting room slowly filled.

“Kathy, do you want to come in?” The voice came from behind.

I turned and found Jill half out of a room I’d not been in before.

“Do you want to come in?”

I tossed the magazine back on the table and Jimmy and I followed her, sitting in the chairs beside the examination bed.

Jill sat in a chair opposite. “Mr Noble is really sorry, he’s been called away on an emergency. But he felt it was really important for you to get your results today, so we’ve kept your appointment and you’ll be seeing Dr Saechao instead. Is this okay or would you rather reschedule?

Jimmy and I exchanged a look. I read the same feelings in him as I had in me. “I’ll see this other doctor. Not sure I can survive waiting any longer.” I tried to laugh, but my nerves were shot and I was sure it came out sounding like a mad scientist.

We were used to Mr Noble and his balmy way of handling appointments. After more than two years I knew what my results would be just by the way he walked into the room.  

Dr I’d-forgotten-his-name-already walked into the room. Instead of our tall, Swedish-looking doc with a ready smile and manic nature, we had a petite Asian doctor with a blank face. He shook our hands and didn’t even bother to sit. He laid a folder with my notes on the bed and glanced at them.

How bad would it be? Was my time of thinking me cured or nearly cured up? I’d end up with Sally this time. Last time the darkness descended was after my cancelled surgery. I should have been admitted. Even Jimmy said so after weeks passed and the dark veil began to lift, and we realised just how bad I’d been.

The doctor didn’t mince his words and told us straight. “I’ve got the results of your latest scan here.” He flicked through several images. He settled on one of my lungs. “This latest combination of drugs has been very effective. You no longer seem to have any tumours in your lungs.”

I felt Jimmy’s hand on my leg. He squeezed hard. Tears sprung, and I blinked and tried to stop them with some controlled breaths.

“In your last scan we found eighteen tumours in your liver. We can only find two now, and the two remaining are down from 36mm and 32mm to 18mm and 10mm.” He shuffled through the scan pictures. “You have had an amazing response to the latest course of chemotherapy, and Mr Noble has suggested that surgery might be an option again.”

Tears really fell now. I wiped at my cheeks, and nodded, unable to speak. Jill passed over a box of tissues and I grabbed a couple. Surgery, a magical word that I’d been told would never again be open to me. I held onto Jimmy’s hand, not daring to look his way.

“We’re sending your file to Mr Wright, over at Aintree.”

That was our liver specialist. The one that had cancelled my surgery last minute a year earlier. I’d been deemed too unstable and no longer operable. That was the day I went from having hope to being classed as incurable.

“Your case will be discussed at the next MDT meeting.”

Doctor whoever-he-was looked to me to try and judge my reaction to the news. I give him a thumbs up and tried to stifle my sobs. I’d be discussed at the MDT, that meeting where all the docs got together and decided the best course of action for patients.

More things were said, but I’d stopped listening. All I could hear was the word surgery. Jimmy and I kind of floated out of the room after the meeting ended. The carrot of living was being dangled in front of me and the tears just wouldn’t stop falling. We went for a cup of tea in the Clatterbridge café. I needed to gather myself.

Of course this meant far more than the doctors here realised. This wasn’t about a course of chemo that miraculously worked. This was the proof I needed, the pod worked. It was a lifesaver. Somehow, between Jimmy and Bob they had to work out the secrets and fix the machine.

A friend had told me a quote by Dennis Potter after his cancer diagnosis. He’d said the blossom that spring was the blossomest blossom he’d ever seen. Since I heard this, I’d been searching for the same beauty, and had come to the conclusion that this was a lie. Everything turned to shades of grey for me. Maybe this man did see the blossomest blossom. But for me, with the possibility of life being given back to me suddenly, through the tears that still wouldn’t stop, it was like a light turned on. Now I saw the blossomest blossom. And the leafiest leaves and the bluest of skies and the puffiest clouds and everything around me was extra bright and extra colourful, everything, everywhere and all at once.

And the thought that came to mind was, thank you Janie.