Feeling like a Subbuteo player

 Today I was scheduled to meet with my new consultant (in the colorectal team). Last week, a lovely nurse told me that she hoped I'd be 'under' Mr Rasheed "because he's lovely..." and I was! SO that was my first fortuitous bit of news. 

Yesterday I had a horrible gastric upset, and it took me all day to work out the reason.... mackerel pate that I made (I thought on Saturday, but realised that it was actually on Friday)... I had finished this off on my marmite crackers (thank you Hayley Merdita, who hates Marmite!) and boy! did I pay for it..... on and off the loo for about 12 hours, with the most awful cramps imaginable. Grim. I was just relieved that it was better today, so that I was able to go for my follow up appointment. (The positive side of me would like to report that I lost about 4 pounds)

I normally travel to the Chelsea Marsden on the train, and then walk from Victoria, through Belgravia, which takes less than half an hour and means not worrying about getting the tube. But today, Peter offered to drive me up there - obviously concerned about my risky toilet situation from yesterday. We set off and made good time - knowing that this wouldn't be the case for the return leg.....

Peter dropped me off and then set off to battle with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Parking meters (this could be a whole blog on its own, believe me). I was early, but wandered in to Outpatients and checked in. I spent the time sending e mails, and reading, facebooking, and replying to Whatsapp messages, and then was called by an HCA. There's something about being called in to an empty room, however calm you feel, which gets your pulse racing. She left me there - to count the sockets on the walls - ELEVEN - can you believe a consulting room has 11 plug sockets?

11 plug sockets, a trolley with examination stuff (avert those eyes) and two chairs. Mr Rasheed came in after a few minutes,  and introduced himself, and we chatted about midwifery, and the state of Obstetrics in the NHS for a while. We then got on to toilet habits - I kid you not. It's a good job that Mr Rasheed is a lovely personable chap, because when you're discussing your bowel habits, it helps to feel at ease. I even told him about my proctogram experience in 2005 (remember coming with me Denys Rasmussen?) and we discussed colonoscopies and the joys of bowel prep! (How many of you are googling 'proctogram' now???)

Then we got on to me. And what had been seen in the CT scan and the PET scan. When you're giving somebody news which might not be good, I have found it's best to just come right out with it. This is what happened 2 years ago when I innocently woke up from my hysteroscopy -"it looks like cancer" was what I was told then, and although the bald truth is a shock, it's better than talking round the houses and trying to coat the words in sugar.

Mr Rasheed told me that the scan had shown what looked like a mass in the lower bowel, but more worryingly, there are sedimentary deposits (I think that's what he described, but that might have crept into my brain from A level geography), on the peritoneal layer. For those readers who aren't familiar with A and P, that's something growing (possibly) on the stomach lining...... which might (or might not) be a recurrence of the endometrial cancer of two years ago. 

So - the long and the short of it is: there appears to be a tumour in the bowel, but it just might be an inflammatory response to my long-since discovered diverticular disease. This might (or might not) be bowel cancer. But due to the sedimetary deposits on the peritoneum, there is a chance that IF it's a cancer, then it might have grown through from outside the bowel, and just might be secondary to the endometrial cancer.

Mr Rasheed needs to find out what tissue type there is in there... so the next step is (JOY OF JOYS) an urgent colonoscopy and a biopsy of the troublesome area (his words, not mine). There is unfortunately a backlog (appropriate term) of colonoscopy appointments, but they are going to rush me through speedily. He is meeting with the multi-discipinary team to discuss my case, and I have great confidence that I am in the very best of hands. 

The reason for the little Subbuteo football player in my accompanying picture, is to perfectly describe how one feels when one is on this cancer journey. I have been blessed with great health throughout my life, and still feel really well (despite old mackerel pate consumption) but this whole experience with cancer has made me realise that in the grand scheme of things, I am just a weeny little player, who is being flicked around at the whim of a greater being. I don't practise any particular religion (although I confess to praying to St Antony when I have lost something of great importance) but I definitely feel that in this scenario, someone else is holding the cards, flicking the player, moving the pieces. I'm just hoping that my controller is one of the top ten Controllers in the world (now how many of you youngsters are googling Subbuteo???) (By the way - I have discovered that the inventor of Subbuteo used this title because it's latin for Hobby - falco subbuteo -  which happens to be a bird of prey, and copywright laws didn't allow him to call his game Hobby).

Thank you to everyone who's accompanying me on this weird adventure, and I simply must mention poor Peter, who was losing his shit in the traffic on Chelsea Embankment, when i pointed out that if I didn't have too long to live in this world, I'd rather not spend it with a nasty angry old embittered man.

That was below the belt- and rather unfair.... but he did announce as we pulled up outside our house that the journey had been "really quite reasonable, hadn't it?"

(The controller might be flicking me around, but I'm going to pull some strings of my own)