Made a note in my diary, simply says "BUGGER"

You know, this blog has never been about reaching people, more a place for me to rant.

Having said that, its readership was never higher than when I used it as a conduit to communicate with friends of family concerning my brother's accident and his fight back against pretty damning odds.

So in the interest of raising my number of readers, I am going to do the same with my own little tussle; so here goes:

On Friday, 8 August 2008, I had a CT scan which indicated a lymphatic mass in my chest. It's very hard to determine what exactly it is without a battery of other tests, but it does qualify as something 'not good'.

Today, 12 August 2008, I met with my oncologist for the first time, which was a frustrating experience only because I know no more today than I did last week -- other than the fact that I have to perform the following in the next week:

1. Lymphoma specific PET CT scan.
2. More blood tests that I care to mention.
3. A biopsy of the tumor by a thoracic surgeon.
4. Insertion of a chemo catheter.
5. Bone marrow biopsy.
6. Echo cardiogram -- The chemo can damage you heart so they need a baseline.

I told Nicky that she could come in to see the oncologist as long as she didn't blub, which proved to be useful in getting out of there as quickly as possible. Nicky told me afterward that when the doctor asked her if she had any questions, she was so close to crying that she simply shook her head, good girl.

How do I feel about all this?

I am little fearful about telling the kids; they are camping this weekend, so Nicky and I will tell them next week.

I am worried about how this and the following treatment will affect work.

I am, of course, worried about the worst possible outcome and having to leave Nicky and the kids behind.

Other than that, I have always had a matter-of-fact approach to my own mortality; I have always believed that when your number is up, it's up. Only time will tell.

All of our friends, including my colleagues at work have been absolutely smashing, although being English I am never quite sure how to deal with sympathy; my dad has always told me, sympathy can be found between shit and syphilis in the dictionary :-).

Anyway, I will sign off now. I will update as soon as I have more news.


EDIT:

Sorry about the number of re-posts but Nicky insists on copy editing everything I write nowadays.