The first diagnosis…

The week leading up to the first diagnosis was a mixture of anticipation, dread, fear and very often, denial.

I work as a paramedic and there is nothing worse than hearing.. “well I checked my symptoms on Google.. “. Dr Google knows shag all. He will take the hurty toe that you’ve had for 5 years (which by they way has suddenly become unbearable after all these years at 3am. On a Saturday. Of course its acceptable to call 999 Susan. Have you heard of paracetamol?) and turn it into a brain tumour with a life expectancy of approximately 6 hours.

So what did I do? I was googling breast cancer quicker than you could say 999.

I found lots of positive, motivating stories about cancer, but for every positive story there was a negative one just crying out for me to click on and read.

The Saturday after our trip to the breast clinic, I was working a 12 hour day shift. I’d spent every spare second I had googling one negative cancer story after another. I felt compelled. I think I was still in denial and if I convinced myself enough that it would be positive for breast cancer then perhaps maybe it wouldn’t be? FYI, that doesn’t work.

We had been called to an elderly lady at a care home that had had a funny turn. I remember her being a lovely lady with plenty of stories to tell, but as is often the case with these kind of patients, she was very frank in telling us that she was ready to go. It’s a conversation I’ve often had with many of my older patients. My normal response being ” Well Elsie, your not going anywhere today if I can help it!”. This day was different. I had my first wobble. Suddenly the prospect of what we might be facing became all too real. I made my excuses to my crewmate and made my way back to the ambulance, trying not to hyperventilate.

After both walking around for a week like tits in a trance (pun intended) we were back in the waiting room of the breast clinic. This time we took things a bit more seriously.

I remember the Mrs saying the night before that she didn’t want the week to end. That’s exactly how I felt when they called us through. Let’s just turn around and walk out. Return to our little pre-cancer bubble, drinking sangria in the garden and forget this ever happened.

The consultant and nurse met us with gleaming smiles and professionalism but you could see in there eyes what was about to come. It was breast cancer.

Surprisingly it didn’t come as a complete shock. Deep down we both knew it was cancer all along but sometimes you just need that tiny little bit of hope to stop you having a complete mental breakdown.

Bad news it was cancer but the good news was that it was small. So small in fact that even the consultant seemed surprised it had been found this early! A plan was quickly put into place. Cut it out, a bit of radiotherapy, job done.

The consultant pencilled in a date for the operation that co-incided with our long awaited holiday at the end of the month. I’d already told the wife that if we had to cancel then so be it. It was a holiday. We could change or postpone it.

“No frigging way!” Was her reply. “I’ve waited too long for this holiday.. Cancer will just have to wait!”

That’s my wife ladies and gentlemen. Not even cancer can tell her what to do.

As it turns out they were happy to postpone the operation for a few weeks.

We were ushered into the bad news room (we nicknamed it that because whenever we went in there it was never anything but) with the breast cancer nurse where we had a little chat, some tears and a few giggles. If ever there can be a funny side to cancer then trust us to find it.

From the clinic we went straight to the pub. I made my way to the bar, blatantly pushing in front of people but I didn’t care. If ever two people needed a drink it was us and I wasn’t in the mood to wait for Doris to order four senior citizen cod and chips and then count out twenty quids worth of change.

Those double vodkas went down a treat. Funnily enough so did the next ones. And as we sat in that beer garden trying to make sense of everything, that was when we decided that this day would forever be known as f##ked up Friday. Cheers.