My Leukaemia journey started in an unplanned unexpected hurry. Most peoples journey to cancer and leukaemia starts one of two ways;
Expectation of something wrong – biopsy and scans are taken and one fateful day the news is delivered. I have no idea if this is better or worse – I guess you ready your mind for the news to some extent but either way it can’t be good.
Or you go down option 2 like I did. Three times to the local doctor over a period of two months, a lost x-ray from the first visit. Apparently (second visit) “don’t worry if there was anything wrong they would have called you…………..”err you mean I was already developing fluid in my lung at this point and I’d consider this to be definitely filed in the something not right pile (initial x-ray turned up months later)
Visit 3 to the doctor (same one as at the beginning) quite rightly pointed out I didn’t look well and sent me off for blood tests
At 7pm my doctors surgery called following my blood test earlier that day with the express news to go straight to hospital and I will be fast tracked – (no word on why / what the issue was – long covid – had been mentioned)
do not pass go
do not collect £200
As I arrived at Blackburn A&E I spent 36 hours on a trolley bed, first on the corridor and later in a room with curtain between me and a river of hurting, often angry, drunk, frustrated or downright rude patients and staff in various coloured unforms trying to make sense of the madness. This was a Monday night but felt like the apocalypse.
When I say downright rude I mean people who swear constantly, shout and are abusive. Having arrived around 7pm on a Monday I watched a patients girlfriend go out of the department returning with a KFC bucket while her delightful boyfriend laid on a trolley and proceeded what I would loosely class as a party playing music from their mobiles to the obvious benefit of everyone else – no one batted an eye.
Overnight the zombies came out, drunk, drugged addled patients wandered around putting everyone on edge with the odd entourage enriched patient demanding immediate attention for reasons I couldn’t really fathom other than he felt important and had a gang of followers / entourage in his wake. The fact that he was marching about the place made me wonder just how ill he was. If he happens to ever read this I point him to the chapter People are strange (secretly I hope he’s dead and stopped being a burden – my short exposure to him gave me enough to make the snap decision that the world will be better off without him. I am allowed this level of vitriol because I believe as at that point it could have been me or him. I found my mind worked in funny ways.
During Tuesday, a day spent between the corridor on a trolley bed and then a cubicle I watched a women drink her way through party pack of stella while daughter with cuts and bruises waited for care (mother comfy on the bed drinking and playing on her phone, daughter relegated to plastic chair to occasionally weep – if I hadn’t been so ill I sincerely hope I would have done something more to help – as was all I could do was lie there.
The News came at 6am on the Wednesday – I was asked if someone could be with me as the doctor had news so I rang my wife at 5.30 am and she came back to my trolley bed in an A&E cubicle.
An amazingly kind junior doctor (he knows who he is and I sincerely hope his followed his dream and is now happy and married) came to see me around 6am and prior to having a long conversation gave it straight;
you have leukaemia
And
your left lung cavity is full of fluid hence you are struggling to breathe
I wasn’t just sideswiped – I was totally derailed – things like this don’t happen to me. All the shock I’ve experience in the past has always been the result of an accident – crashing something at speed and mostly the adrenalin kicks in and it’s a sensation I know, swiftly followed by a mental systems check.
Now was no oh sh1t moment prior, no fear of hurt and imminent injury, no crash, there wasn’t any adrenaline, my mental system check failed because there was no blood gushing, sharp pain and all my limbs worked, I’d never been ill before. I was afraid, scared and didn’t know where to turn.
For no reason I suddenly panicked – my wife would need money for the hospital car park……….. this would take a while…………… I’m supposed to be going to Vegas to give a speech for work in a week…………my head went to far off places