Kicking off

Dearest readers.

I don't have enough thanks for all of you who have taken an interest in what's been going on with me. Your presence, distractions, words, cards, flowers, messages have given me a fantastic sense of support. I'm sorry that in return I haven't always been able to get back to everyone and I can't remember what I've said to whom and end up boring endlessly about the same things. So a leap into the 20th century seemed like a good idea for keeping anyone who wants to know informed - and maybe give me an outlet for venting spleen (while I've still got one). My apologies if the latter means there is too much information.

And before I continue - thank you to whoever sent the mystery flowers...I haven't been able to track you down, but it said 'With love x' on the tag

How did I get here?

On 20th January, I cycled energetically to GP with 'a change of bowel habit'. GP found lump in my belly - referred me for colonoscopy. I referred myself for a 3-day panic attack which coincided with looking after my mum on the south coast - a bad episode and a state of mind to be avoided at all costs, I concluded, During the next few months while I waited and waited for a decent diagnosis and then transfer to a treatment pathway, I found self-anaesthetization the best route - TV, downloaded Radio 4 dramas in the dark hours of the morning (especially those without much drama - Jeeves was very good at sending me straight back to sleep and sleeping was absolutely essential.) But I would never have managed to self-anaesthetise so effectively without being able to lean heavily on Chris, Maddy, Luke and knowing that all of you are waiting to pick me up.

January February March -
Colonoscopy at Chase Farm Hospital - 'nothing sinister' although the biopsies taken have not surfaced as results. Next suspect - ovaries - referred to Gynae at Whittington Hospital.
Ultrasound, MRI, CT, Ultrasound guided biopsy. Consultant 1, consultant 2 (scarily apologetic). Masses on both ovaries and on my large bowel. Consultant 1 again - something on my lung as well. Finally, the histology places it as 'ovarian' and there's another referral to UCLH. Also 'low grade' from which I take heart - wrongly it turns out.
During this time, I've gone from being completely unaware of a lump to being very aware of all sorts of bad stuff going on in my tum. A letter to the GP, copied to me, gave scary measurements.

April - UCLH and their Macmillan Cancer Centre - the place to be, according to various people who might know. Surgical gynae-oncologist - this is an epithelial cancer - it will have started on the surface of an ovary, a Fallopian tube or my peritoneum - gets called 'ovarian' in any case. Cells will have sloughed off and gone cruising around my abdomen in the fluids there. Where they land, they colonise - as well as those I already know about, I have lots of lumps, nodules scattered around my small bowel, on the omentum and peritoneum, behind my liver, in my pleural cavity and possibly diaphragm. Nobody has yet wanted to show me the scans... This is advanced ovarian cancer, but it often is, being a cancer that grows unnoticed in the same way mine has. It is high grade, but maybe this is not so impossible as it sounds - it is more amenable to chemotherapy and lumps are more amenable to surgical removal than the low-grade variety which can just cover all surfaces - like bioslime I think to myself.

In the middle of all this, and thanks to the Whittington specialist nurse, I was able to slide my pre-booked week in St Petersburg with Maddy snugly between the MRI and the appointment with Consultant 2. I had my anxieties, but it was just great - despite the cold. St Petersburg is an unexpectedly forgiving place for someone who needs the loo a lot, unpredictably and at short notice. Some highlights - crossing the frozen Neva on
foot, being in Mendeleev's apartments (Periodic Table and much else, you non-scientists), squeaky snow outside the Russia Museum, delicious pastries, vegan restaurants, defrosted persimmons.