Here we go again

I saw my surgeon yesterday.  He was actually the same one as last time, who told me I was not really his patient and he didn't know a lot about me and wouldn't need to see me again unless the tests he would arrange for me at intervals showed something needing intervention.  Since that visit I had a long chat with Jane the liaison nurse, expressing my dissatisfaction with never having had a consultant who accepted any responsibility for me or showed any interest in me.  She took it on board and within days let me know that I now belonged to the surgeon who had seen me.

This time was so different.  I knew before we went that the tests were not clear, because if they had been I am sure Jane would have phoned, and they would not have wasted a 9 0'clock appointment just to tell me all was well.  Having been called in from the waiting room we sat in his ante-room for about 5 minutes while he 'was reading my notes'.  I actually shed tears of nervous anticipation, and commented to Dave that they are  masters of suspense.  This time we had the chairs and he sat on the couch.  It was the first time I have been spoken to as a fully dressed adult on a chair, not a bed, and it did make a difference.  He told us there was recurrence at the original site of the cancer, and an area of dysplasia where I had seen the endoscopist hesitating and placing a 'marker' 4 weeks previously.  He went through the possibilities for radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which filled me with dread, but then came on to his own preference for surgery.  His enthusiasm for this matched my own instinctive desire to get rid of the offending cells, so we agreed quite easily that he would operate, aiming to remove both the affected areas and join up the cut ends.  If blood supply or unexpected extension of the tumour made this difficult he would remove the whole colon and create a colostomy, (a 'bag').

When we talked about time-scale it turned out that he had no availability much before our August holiday.  He did not feel the cancer was progressing rapidly, rather that it had been sitting there for some time, and was more than happy to plan the op for the week after we do the Four Counties Ring with Steve and Kate.  I shall have my pre-ops before we go away, and also colostomy training just in case, then a lovely carefree week away before arriving at hospital starved and raring to go on August 23rd.

This is all so different from my experience of emergency surgery last April, when everything was a question mark, the surgery was difficult because of the internal log-jam and I had no preparation other than a pre-med.  We both came out  of the consulting room feeling confident and positive, having been given enough facts to feel we understood what was happening and having had some input into the planning and intervention.

The really good thing is that there was no evidence of 'distant spread.'  This diagnosis hung over us from December to February with its grim prognosis, and we were both grateful for healing from that, whatever it actually was.  When the surgeon said yesterday that he hoped not to have to do a colostomy in August, because if he had to go back in in five years time that would make things easier, Dave picked up on the inference that he thought I could well be still worthy of surgery in five years time.  Whereas the oncologist had told us in no uncertain terms that 3 lots of chemo was the limit (who would want three lots?!), the surgeon seemed unphased by the prospect of a bit of future weeding.

The previous surgery has left me with quite disabling bowel urgency after eating, and frequent calls of nature during the night, waking me from sleep.  It is very much part of the plan that further surgery will aim to relieve this, and in fact that will make a huge difference to my life, the way I spend my days and the way I plan social activity.  Altogether, more positives than negatives.

What's God up to?  I don't know, but the day before my appointment I woke early and picked up 'Celtic Daily Prayer', the book we bought after the Church Weekend last July.  I read the set readings for that day, Psalm 118:1-3, Isaiah 58:6-12 and from Luke the parable of the Good Samaritan.  I was gob-smacked, and really felt even before we went to the appointment that God was in control, more than able to look after me, and that my priority was to 'look after the weak, break bonds, care for my neighbour.....'.  I can live with that.