Sunday 5 May 2013

Emotions and Stones!

The last week or so has again been a roller coaster of emotions,pain and sorrow. I will get back to that later.

I have been thinking about writing a post about good coming out of cancer! Hang on put those rotten vegs away! I didn't mean it was good to have been affected by cancer just that good things can come off it. Have you done things differently since you or a loved one have been diagnosed? Could be something simple like getting up on a miserable morning and instead of thinking "Oh damn it's raining again" you thought about what you were doing that day.
It's good to stop and think of something that you are grateful for instead of feeling sorry for yourself , I know it's easier to say than do but it works!
How many new friends have you made whether they be people you see or friends on a social network that will always be there for you?
I'm not going to say anymore I will leave you to think about that. Think about the good things and turn those negative thoughts into positive ones!!

Ok so the last week or so has been a complete jumble of every emotion. Beating Bowel cancers Patient day, as always, was a good day. Really valuable information, good company, great setting and the food was excellent! It was a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some of our virtual friends.
We all painted our nails to let a really poorly friend know we were thinking about her.

The next day I had the worst possible news that another amazing,beautiful young lady our friend Hannah had passed away. It's awful that someone so young can be taken when she had her whole life in front of her.

A little while later I started to get pains in my stomach and back and new straight away it was gall
stones playing up again. So after a few hours in A&E I was admitted to hospital again. What an awful
few days, doctors telling me on two separate days I would have op, nil by mouth and cancelled again!  It was eventually decided to discharge me on Friday having to wait for referral done back in February. It seems its possible they won't be able to remove gall bladder by keyhole because of scar tissue and mesh from hernia repair which is why they couldn't fit me in as an emergency!

On the Thursday morning I read of the death of another young lady, a mum of two young children. That was the final straw and I cried for Hannah and Katie and Laura and Alison and all the other people taken too soon. I began to doubt that I was strong enough to volunteer anymore, didn't know if I could deal with all the sadness. Being in hospital gives you too much time to think. It wasn't helped by a lady in the bed opposite me coming in to have her tummy drained after being diagnosed last week with advanced ovarian cancer.

Then I started to think about what I said earlier about turning negative into positive. A friend often says she couldn't deal with all the bad stuff but someone has to!!

I thought about Hannah a lot while I was in hospital and how brave she was despite everything she was going through. I told a young doctor in A&E about her and he was shocked at how young she was. The doctor looking after me on the ward was in tears when I told her about Hannah.

Neither of them knew you could have bowel cancer so young!! If doctors at a busy teaching hospital don't know then more lives are going to be lost!

So there was my answer I, You, We need to keep spread awareness!!