Tuesday,
28th February, 2012 – the day that felt like our world stopped spinning....
First,
let me rewind back to the 24th November, 2011, where this all began. That
morning in the office, a work colleague said to Chris, “what's wrong with your
neck?” Chris had a glance in the mirror & noticed that the left hand side
was swollen, immediately she thought this was a sign she may be about to have a
stroke!! WTF??
Chris
took herself off to a local medical centre; the Dr explained that the swelling
was related to her lungs & referred her for a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray
was complete, with no issues identified. The imaging Dr suggested Chris have an
ultrasound of her neck area, this showed enlarged lymph nodes. The same Dr
suggested a fine needle biopsy. Outcome ‘contains a population of benign
lymphoid cells showing reactive changes. No atypical or malignant cells seen’.
Chris
returned to the Dr at the medical centre, he ordered a round of blood tests..
There seemed to be a ? in relation to the white blood cells. Bacterial
infection? Reactive?. The Dr reported that Chris had nothing to worry about,
that the swelling was probably due to an infection & would go away. Chris
requested a copy of all her results as she had noticed that the blood test
results mentioned a few areas of concern (in general health) that the Dr should
have alerted her to. So long story short, Chris has it in the back of her mind
to take all her results to her family Dr...Dr V (totally thorough & super
conservative).
Anyway
you know what life’s like, as the weeks pass, Chris doesn’t get to Dr V as
quickly as she’d like to, so let’s forward to late December 2011. Chris has
noticed the swelling in her neck hasn’t subsided & actually it's gotten
worse, this is more than a little weird.
That's
it, Chris makes the appointment to go see Dr V. Dr V checks over all of Chris’s
results, does her check over & orders more blood tests. Chris mentions that
her lower legs are really itchy, for which she is prescribed cortisone cream.
29th
December, 2011, blood tests are done. Chris doesn’t get to see Dr V again until
the 03rd February, 2012, as Dr V was on leave. On that date, Dr V lets Chris
know that she would like her to see a Dr (Haematologist) at Westmead Hospital,
but tells her “Don’t worry”. Once home, Chris searches the net for
Haematologist and at that time realises what a Haematologist does
(Haematologists are blood cancer specialists).
The
first available apt was the 28th February, 2012, geez that's close to our
travel date, yes indeed, that's right, our dream trip was planned to San Fran,
Vegas, NY & Mexico, flights were leaving on the 29th March, 2012.
Again,
time flies by & Chris’s neck isn’t letting up, its angry, swollen & now
moved to the right side, with hard lumps forming.
So
there we were, sitting at the Haematologist’s office, it was February 28th
2012. It seems Dr Blood is a great character, who liked a good joke. Chris
& Dr Blood had an instant rapport. He does a full body check, closely
feeling the lumps in her neck. After the touchy feely checks are done, he sits
back down, looks over all her results & says, “Do you know why you’re
here?” Chris & I looked at each other & then back at him, Chris says “I
know what you do but I don’t know why I’m here”. So then he elaborates on what
a Haematologist does & says, “Well Chris, it looks as though you may have
Lymphoma.. cancer...” Suddenly, everything kind of went into slow motion, just
like in the movies. We were thinking, WTF??? He then proceeds to say that Chris
needs to get some further tests to confirm his suspicions. We tell him about
our travel plans & he asks, “have you got travel insurance?”. When he said
that, I think that was when we both started to realise just how serious this
actually was.. The air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. He gave a
brief overview about Hodgkin’s Lymphoma & sent us (shell shocked) on our
way.
