The setback...

When I finally left hospital, with what can only be described as a sack of medication, I felt a sense of relief that, although I could barely move and was still in a lot of pain, the cancer was out and I would just need to endure the final rounds of chemo now (or so I thought!)

Along with all the medication, was a month’s worth of syringes, which I would need to administer daily in order to stop any blood clots from forming. Now, I don’t like needles at the best of times, which is ironic really with the amount of times I had been jabbed and prodded over the last year, so the thought of doing this to myself was a no go. The nurse tried to encourage me to do this before I left hospital, but as I sat on the bed with syringe in hand, I had some form of panic attack and was nearly sick, the whole ward must of thought, ‘get a bloody grip woman!’

I therefore had two options of who was going to administer the injections; my 5 year old daughter (who incidentally was very keen after watching too many episodes of operation ouch on CBBC) or my husband. I decided to go with the husband.

I psyched myself up for about an hour downstairs, before announcing to him, ‘its’ time.’ As I lay down, I saw out the corner of my eye him coming at me holding he syringe like a dart! I sat bolt upright and asked what the hell he was doing?! (At this point my daughter actually seemed the better option!) After making him practice on a satsuma, I eventually, and very reluctantly, allowed him near me!

We went through this drama for 28 days, actually 27 (one of the days, he got over-confident, dropped the syringe and nearly jabbed his own toe!)

After a week or so the area was becoming quite sore and bruised, so I started using some Emla cream, which I had been given for my portacath, on the area an hour beforehand, just to numb it a little (obviously you need to check with your doctor before doing this).

5 weeks post operation I was back in to have scans on the liver area to check all the cancer had been removed. After being told the operation went well, I was confident they had removed all the cancerous tumours and the final chemo sessions would just be to irradicate any cells which might be present elsewhere in the body.

I was then called into the hospital to meet with the surgeon to review how I was getting on post-surgery. After discussing the procedure and my healing process, he then informed me that unfortunately the liver tumour was still present from the most recent scans. This was because they were unable to ablate the correct area during surgery, despite their best efforts using ultra-sound, contrast dyes etc, and that another surgery would be required. A lump suddenly formed in my throat. It was in that moment I really didn’t think I was going to beat this terrible disease.

For me, I like to have a plan. I like to be able to tick things off and up until this point everything was following the correct course, but this had put a major spanner in the works for my recovery. I knew now that my final chemo sessions would not be the end of the journey, and the future suddenly became much more uncertain.

#bowelcancer #bowelcancerawareness #nevertooyoung #nobutts #Bowels2Cancer