Week 2 - Thursday 9th April

It's been one week since my diagnosis, and I've been truly humbled by all the comments from family and friends.

This is a weird time to be living, as we're still in lock down with Covid-19, and I know many of you are overdue hugs, as we've not seen each other for so long, but I'm so thankful we have all this technology just to make keeping in touch a little easier.  Yes, it's far from ideal, but we all have a duty to stay home to stay safe.  Even more so, I've got to be really careful, especially when I start my treatment.

Monday, I had a pre-arranged call with the specialist nurse, Maria, from the gynecology team.  She was there when my consultant, Jo, broke the news.  I had said to them both, that I was OK, but probably will have some questions, as it was quite hard to take all the information in.

Maria called me and asked how I was doing.  She informed me that the results of the biopsy's hadn't come back yet.  I informed her I hadn't heard anything about the PET (Positron emission tomography -  Click this for more info from the NHS website) scan.  This is an external company that do it within the hospital, so she chased that for me. I have since had a call and am booked for my PET scan on Wednesday 15th.

This is like the CT scan (doughnut scanner as I like to call it).  I will be radioactive for the scan (I have visions of The Simpsons now!), so that'll show up any cancerous cells, and the scan will take about 30 mins.  However, no food, squash or tea (no tea, rudeness!) from 6 hours before, just water.  The best bit is I get to wear my own comfy clothes.  This will be the final piece in putting the battle plan together (hopefully)!

I asked Maria about statistics for each grading, and she can't give that to me until we've had all the results through, and even then it's different for each person (which I totally understand).  She's going to give me another call Thursday afternoon (likely after you've read this).

Someone who works for the Co-op (in case you didn't know, that's my employer), who I follow, has had cervical cancer, and pointed my in the direction of Jo's Trust, who she said really helped her a lot.  So I've been looking at their website in bite sized chunks.

I love a good notebook and diary, and bought a couple in the new year from Hobby Craft.  My plan was that as soon as I got a bit of consistency with my working life (goal was to be a store manager), I would then start to get things done that I had been putting off, with the help of my diary and notebook.  The notebook is a healthy planner, and the diary is Harry Potter themed.  Perfect!  So I've been setting them up, so I can make notes, and keep track of things.  It should also help with keeping the blog up to date too!  Keep an eye on a future blog about this!

Duffy's Words "If you are reading this and are sad my encouragement to you is that … to know pain, you must first know how to love. Only the absence of love causes pain. So, go find it. Seek love in everything, even in a teacup."