Someone once said to me that the fight with cancer would be one of many battles, some days the cancer would win, some days I would win but whatever kind of day it was accept it, deal with the day and start again the next day. That phone call was my first win, my first chance to think positively. I had to embrace it and enjoy it, for the first time in 3 days the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach lifted and so did the fog around my thoughts. I still needed to speak with Nicola to get it confirmed but for now I concentrated on the win, this was beatable and it was time to start to fight.
I walked to the school that afternoon and stood at my normal spot at the gate to wait for my eldest. I had told a couple of friends by phone and when they saw me they came over to speak. Again the conversation was the one we all know "you have to be positive, you can fight this, if you need anything just ask" I nodded, I was truly touched that people genuinely seemed upset. I would never ask for help, I'm to stubborn and proud I suppose, and I thought that if I asked for help it would show I was losing or beaten and that as long as I could do it all myself then I still retained some control and the illusion of victory. I ate that night, the first food since my diagnosis, it was a simple spaghetti but I wanted to eat, I wanted to sit at the table and eat with my family. I even managed a smile with the eldest two as they talked about school, I bathed my youngest got him ready for bed and settled down with him and a bottle. I chatted to him again as he drank, nothing major just promising again that it would be fine, that everything would be ok. I spoke to Charlie a lot over the period of my treatment, it's probably because that was the only peaceful time in a house with 3 kids, that was my quiet and reflective time and when I could try and put my thoughts in order. Sleep still eluded me though, every time I became calm or cleared my head one thought always popped into it "I've got cancer" but tonight I could also counter it with "yeah but my chest x-ray was clear". The pre op assessment was fairly uneventful, it was normal routine health stuff really. Height, weight, some swabs for MRSA and blood pressure. I seemed in good health all things considered and my operation was confirmed for 6 days time, the following Wednesday. From there I went down to oncology outpatients and asked for Nicola, I wanted to confirm what I'd been told and just chat about what happens next. We chatted for a while and she told me it would be surgery then some radiotherapy just to make sure all was clear as discussed in my diagnosis meeting, I told her I dint really remember that bit. We started to talk a bit more about sarcoma and it was then I made up my mind that I didn't want to know anything more than I already did. Now I'm not saying this is the right way for everyone, this was a decision I made that would suit me best. I had watched the introduction video on the sarcoma website, well some of it anyway and I saw a couple of statistics. They scared me. In fact they petrified me. I decided that from that point on I only needed to know about me and where I was with my illness. I would only want to know what the plan was for me and if that plan was to change at anytime. Yes you could say I buried my head in the sand and that was wrong but like I said this was the way I was going to face it, it was my coping strategy. In the long term if I'm honest if this was to lead to some of the other problems I was to have regarding cancer and how I deal with it. So that was it for now, off I went with a surgery date and an instruction to try and rest a bit, to try and think about the positives. And that's what I did. I still had the "I've got cancer" thought every 10 minutes or so but I tried desperately to keep it at bay with positive thoughts. I wasn't always successful but I kept trying and kept looking forward to Wednesday when the tumour would be out of me and then it wouldn't be able to spread. I kept myself as busy as physically possible during the weekend, football with Harry, swimming with the family, cooking a roast dinner that I didn't eat, anything that kept me occupied. Sleep was fitful and then it was Monday morning. There was no work to go to today so I tried to think of different things I could do to fill my day and settled on going out to do a bit of shopping and buy some new shorts, t-shirts and a pair of flip flops for hospital. I wasn't sure how long I would be in for and any excuse to buy some new things and I'm off to DW Sports! The phone call came whilst I was out, I was at the Wyvern Retail Park and it was my surgeon's secretary. "Hello is that Darren, it's Mr. Perk's secretary. I'm just telling you that your surgery isn't going to happen on Wednesday now." 'Why? what's changed? I'm ready to go now, why won't they operate?" "I'm sorry I don't know, I've just been told that the surgery is not happening on Wednesday, I'm really sorry." With that she was gone and I lost it again, completely lost it. My heart raced and my breathing became difficult, my legs were shaking again and the fog descended into my mind again. Why was my surgery cancelled, they must have found something else, somehow they think it's not worthwhile to operate on me, well that's me then I'm finished. My mind had gone and the only thing I could think to do was call Nicola. The answer phone messages started again, call after call after call getting more frantic and panicked. All the positivity and control I had gained over the last couple of days flooded out of me and was replaced by panic and fear. I lost the rest of the afternoon and just couldn't concentrate. Nothing mattered until I could get through on the phone to someone and find out why. That call came at about 5, it was Nicola, and she started by telling me not to panic, I had to stop panicking. They had held an MDT meeting that morning and then went straight into clinic, which I knew was always busy, and no one had any time to call me. The decision had been made to treat with radiotherapy first, this type of tumour reacted well in general to radiotherapy and it may also help to shrink it and limit the amount of damage to my leg caused by surgery. My tumour was 100mm x 70mm x 50mm, about the size of a tin of baked beans, and also about the average size of a sarcoma on diagnosis. To imagine it hold your fist or a tin against your thigh, when I do that now it always makes me shudder but it does demonstrate well the size of it. To remove that with good margins would of caused me some severe damage and due to my age they wanted to give me the best quality of life possible after the surgery and not leave me with leg that was useless. There would now be some more scans and tests but things would be moving. I put the phone down and went and sat quietly in the conservatory, today had almost been another victory for cancer, I had let my panic and fear get the better of me again. To win this fight I would have to remember what had been told to me, I had to accept both but concentrate on the good. They wanted to save as much of my leg as possible to give me the best quality of life after my treatment. That meant I was treatable, I could survive, I would survive but I had to concentrate on that. At that point I could and I did, there have been times since I couldn't and I will talk about them in more detail later in this blog, but for now I had a plan and I knew I was treatable and now I had to start to fight.
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
June 2018
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