The Speed of Change

What it takes to change the direction of your life: just one phone call

2 days ago I wrote an entry about my fears over the MRI scan I was due to have at the end of the month, and about what impact the potential results could have on my life. But how quickly things can change! Yesterday, I had a phone call from the hospital and was told that they’re not going to scan me before my appointment with my oncologist on 25th April after all. Instead I just have to repeat my CA125 blood test (the protein in your blood that is sometimes produced by ovarian cancer cells and therefore can be an indicator of ovarian cancer) a week before the appointment to check that my levels are still within the nomal range, as they have been for the last 6 months. Then when I see my oncologist I’ll find out those results, and discuss repeating the scan with him. So it’s not exactly going to produce the grand resolution I was hoping for!

It’s all just a complete change to what I thought was going to happen. Instead of going into the appointment in 4 weeks time to find out one way or another whether these illusive spots on my bowel are cancer or not, I’m now just going to be to discussing it still further. I don’t mind that in some ways, I mean I understand that even if it is cancer then waiting 2 months to re-scan wouldn’t really be enough time for it show much change, so repeating it so soon might not be very helpful in providing an answer. I just wish that I’d known that from the start because then I wouldn’t have spent the last 5 weeks worrying about it! I feel slightly more relaxed now I know I’m not going into the appointment with my oncologist to potentially hear something awful, but at the same time I now have the prospect of being in this limbo situation for even longer.

It is definitely one of the most difficult aspects of being ill, and one of the hardest to try to describe, just waiting. The whole time you know what you’re facing, even if it’s something really hard like having to have chemotherapy, then you can focus on it and mentally prepare yourself for it. When you don’t know what’s coming though you are in a kind of no man’s land - I don’t want to assume it’s going to be the worst case senario because if it isn’t then I’ve stressed myself out and wasted 2 months worrying over nothing. However, if I believe it’s all going to be fine I could be setting myself up to fall even harder if it turns out not to be. So instead I have to try and walk the fine line between the two: accepting that it could be bad news but not allowing myself to be so preoccupied with the idea that I stop living my life properly in the meantime. To be having to spend 2 months in this limbo was bad enough, but now it seems it’s going to go on even longer.

So, with just one phone call what I have been trying to prepare myself for over the last 5 weeks has been completely turned on its head. It seems there are no answers up ahead for me after all, just a lot more waiting.

Em