Today is D-Day, or should it be C-Day for Cancer. Oncology, here we come. We arrive early again and take our place in the waiting room. Dr Sk calls my name and leads us into the consult room. She asks how I am and I say A Little Bit Terrified which is really a complete understatement. She says she understands. She begins by saying I know you came here to talk about chemotherapy but I need to discuss your test results first. My heart sinks. She’s wearing a mask so I can’t completely see her facial expression but just looking in her eyes I can already tell that the news will not be good.

We leave after about an hour. I am in shock. The scans have shown potential cancer in the lymph nodes in my chest cavity. Further testing required to confirm. If that’s the case then it sounds like it’s game over. My cancer will no longer be curable and it’ll be palliative treatment. This fucking thing really is going to kill me! I now need more tests and procedures over the next two weeks which don’t sound fun at all.

IV Chemotherapy will start in a couple of weeks. The first type of chemo will be the same regardless of where the cancer is. But, if my lymph nodes are cancerous, I’ll be at Stage 4. This will mean there will be no surgery and I’ll stay with this style of chemo indefinitely to try to slow down the cancer’s progression and extend my life. It’ll be a wait and see what happens situation. If the chemo doesn’t work, they’ll try other approaches until nothing works or my quality of life is too adversely affected. Dr Sk refers to it as cancer management but it’s really palliative treatment. I’m fairly calm in the consult room but once we leave I just lose it. I can no longer function. This cannot be real.

We walk around aimlessly for awhile. Susannah is as shell-shocked as I am. When we get home we find that the electrician is working on the house and the power is off so we dump our bags and take off again. We walk around Highbury shops and grab coffee and a sandwich at Wild Wheat. I nibble at the sandwich but I just can’t eat. I want to throw up. Eventually we head home. Mum spots us coming down the drive and all I can manage is a Not now – we’ll talk later.

Later comes too quickly. Mum has called in the troops and both my sisters are upstairs. I have cracked open some wine – getting healthy seems quite irrelevant today. I am shaking as I break the news. I try to be accurate yet not too doom and gloom but I am confronted by a room full of blank stares as they each try to process my bomb shell. My heart breaks for the thousandth time. I send them all a pre-written text with a summary of the news so they can update the rest of the family. After awhile Susannah and I go downstairs to our little haven to be together alone. We can hear the others have stayed upstairs and are having pizza. We drink. I write a Haiku.

Body Betrayal
Cells divide, mutate and spread
Cancer consumes me

I suggest a Haiku challenge to Susannah. She writes:

Your Heart, bleeds hot tears
but it’s never for yourself
It’s for us – but why?

I read it and cry.