Passing Cloud

You don’t know until you try…

What a day.

It’s always a bad idea to put mascara on when it’s a hospital day… but I always do in the hope that it will encourage me NOT to cry.
Alas, at this moment in time I resemble a beaten panda.

The cannula I needed for the ultrasound just wouldn’t go in. My veins have officially had it. They’re super hard, super sore and super stubborn…and I’ve had enough. With the nurse failing on the ward, it was up to my radiographer to have a go. Her technique was simple - jab hard and push, with a pinch of compassion, calmness and skill. It hurt, but it was bearable - for that I’m grateful.

Once she’d infused the micro-bubbles and carried out the ultrasound, I headed back up to the ward to have my bloods taken. My Mum suggested that they leave the cannula in place until the blood results came back. That way I’d avoid having to be stabbed at again if anything were to go wrong. We went down to the canteen to have a cup of tea, and within 20 minutes the nurse came down to find me - the blood she’d taken earlier had clotted too fast and they needed to have another go. Just as well I opted to keep it in the vein!

So, all in all, today has been somewhat distressing. Plus it’s an 80 mile round trip and having to concentrate on the road wipes me out completely. Thank goodness it’s all over for another day.

Drifting in and out of thought whilst in the day care unit today, I was thinking about why I’m doing all this… I got to thinking about the day back in September that my oncologist signed me off from conventional treatment. I was no longer a patient at the hospital I’d been attending for just over 18 months, I was officially passed over to the hospice for palliative care. I felt many things that day, but mostly I couldn’t comprehend how there couldn’t be anything else to save my life. I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 23 years old. I remember thinking - how can they just give up on me and wipe their hands clean of me - I’m just too young. It seems ridiculous. I have a perfectly good body, I just need to get shot of some out of control cells. It should be simple!?
So I reminded myself today that even if these trial drugs don’t do anything, it’s the fight for life that I still have that spurs me on to do this. You don’t know until you try - that’s what my Mum and Dad have always told me, and I believe it. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.