The Diagnosis

And then episode 2, the sequel.

A horribly familiar plot, the core characters are the same but with more grey hair and more wrinkles. A few new people to add to the mix.

Whether it was priming from the past, trigger sensations or memories I knew it was back. An all encompassing tsunami of emotions. Questions flooded over, along with the anger, the guilt, loss of hope, shame and the overshadowing “Why me?”

The rollercoaster began again. Doctors, clinics, nurses, medicines, tests, therapies but all to confirm what we knew. It was back, recurrence.

But on this occasion the pattern that we’d followed before didn’t go the same way. The malignant symptoms seemed initially to resound to the drugs but after several months I could feel life slipping slowly away. It kept growing, eating away at me, draining those around me and a feeling of dissolution of life and impending doom

So to a new chapter. Hospital admission and a frightening entry into a stereotypical clinical building. A fear like I’d never experienced before. Strange, illogical even paranoid some would say but being a patient in a hospital is just unnatural and unnerving. You might expect that being a hospital doctor, having spent about 20% of my adult life in hospitals (yep that’s not including the general 30% sleep time either, so almost a third of my waking adult time) that I’d be used to them. Honestly, as a patient I was terrified. However the warmth and compassion from the staff was beyond simple care; Always there for me, as I sobbed, holding my hand when I couldn’t even utter words, attempting to boost my bottomed out esteem and supporting me as I rolled from treatment session to the next session. Multiple general anaesthetics to blast away, to shrink, to reset the malignant cellular processes.

And it worked well. Rapidly at the beginning. Initially anyway, optimism returning, a discharge home. But all too brief. Hopes dashed. Faith shattered. Pulled back from parole back into high acuity care. Although I may be proven wrong in the future. I think this was the worst of times for my family and myself.

Back to step one. Well, one and a half. Meant reevaluating my inner strength, reconsideration of giving up versus going on. And I chose life as much as anyone can. Fighting like I’ve never done before. Literally fighting for my life. But what does this superlative really mean? Like trying 110%. What does this mean?

For me it’s taking the treatments on time, regularly, faithfully. Engaging in therapies (sometimes exhausting and painful) and enduring the waiting. Even when every fibre of your being doesn’t want to wait the apparent eternity. “You need to give it time“, the worst phrase in the world. Impatience in our instant gratification, cappuccino and cinnamon roll world is not something we are learning to equate with the real pace of nature. I’ve used this term so many times professionally to others, patients relatives and friends, but with experience I always caveat it with an apology and acknowledgement that “giving it it time” is tantamount to psychological torture.

Nonetheless, I pushed on; step by step, day by day, rolling with the punches. Slowly the clouds parted. And after what seemed like an eternity, I returned to the love of my family at home.

An overwhelming embrace of unconditional compassion. The transition of us being together was not easy though. The open emotional wounds for all of us were still bleeding. And there was no quick fix, no haemostatic agent, no plaster. Rehabilitation – a noun to encompass a myriad of behaviours was for our family peppered with struggles and hurt issues, if not directly due to my illness, at least exacerbated by it.

To begin with, my actions didn’t follow my promises and quotes either. Further driving the daggers of pain. “What can I do to help you?” I would ask “I love you and I want to help”. But the reality was a litany of self absorbed behaviours, half completed actions and a selfishness that further drove a wedge between the fragile recuperating relationships.

With hindsight these behaviours are hard to fully explain. I don’t think this was malicious. The deep love for my family was unwavering. So what was it? Apathy, concentration, incapability. I think it was a combination of things. Firstly I think it was self preservation and prioritisation. A selfish putting myself first. A primitive survival instinct. Needing to be better myself before I could attempt to help others. The second was I don’t think I had the bandwidth, the mental capacity to help myself AND others. I’ve no idea if this is common or indeed unique but it’s the best I’ve come up with.

Chapter Three