It’s been a strange couple of weeks. Christmas has come and gone after weeks of build up. New Year has been as well, with some celebrations. We have had the family here on holiday from Ireland.
And yet I have felt disconnected from it all. It’s as though I am living in a little pocket of cloud untouched by anyone or anything around me.
To put you in the picture for over two years I have had ongoing problems with a chronic and explosive diarrhoea. I am not going to give you all the details but suffice it to say, there was some mismanagement of my symptoms by the hospital that I attend as a state patient.This was not due to the doctors, let’s make that clear from the start, but the admin staff who are a law unto themselves. For instance when due for a colonoscopy I was booked in for another procedure instead. However, a further exploration with some excruciatingly horrid procedures having been performed without any form of sedation or anaesthesia made me declare I was not going back. Then a chance meeting with the doctor whom I see regularly at the hospital I attend had me thinking I should investigate further.
Unfortunately when I had to see this dear man. he wasn’t there that day and I was seen by a younger newer doctor who wanted to know why I hadn’t been back seeing that i was now officially diagnosed with cancer. I was so taken aback because before this final diagnosis I was of the opinion (as advised by the surgeons at the big hospital up the hill) that my type of polyp in the bowel would take between ten and twelve years to develop.
Now quite honestly, at age seventy two I wasn’t bothered about what happened in ten or twelve years time. But what they were saying now meant I didn’t have ten or twelve years. NOW was the reality. NOW was what was happening and I wasn’t quite prepared for it. But then, is one ever prepared for this diagnosis? I don’t think so.
All this happened a few days before Christmas. My family were arriving from overseas the night before I was due to go back to the big hospital on the hill to have more scans done etc. I wasn’t going to say anything to them till after Christmas as I wanted them to enjoy Christmas with us. Now I had to tell them straight up front. I had no option. The saying of “Man Proposes, God Disposes” came to mind. It was out of my hands.
I went to the hospital having left them with my bombshell, and the look of shock on my son’s face will always remain with me. He suddenly saw how vulnerable and fleeting life could be. The tests confirmed everything, and as what was now termed ‘an emergency case’ getting special preferential treatment. Scans like MRI and CAT take months to get, but here I was being ushered through like a VIP. Both were done the same day.
I was told the results would be available shortly but int he mean time I was to be given an appointment with the Oncology Department of the big hospital on the hill. This is now due in late January.
So here I am, my mind in a maelstrom, and feeling as though I am walking on eggs. I have since seen my doctor at the hospital closest to me, and he had been so supportive and empathetic that I am more conditioned to it all. We’ve discussed the various scenarios that may happen. And that’s where I am.
But the question now is. Which is worse: the ‘dis-ease’ I am feeling about the prospect of what I am facing, or the disease itself, which up to now has been a mere inconvenience of unexplained chronic diarrhoea? I can’t say at this moment.
I’m not telling you all this in a vote for sympathy or empathy. I just wondered if I can take you on this journey with me as it plays itself out. One thing I do know is that whatever happens, not the doctors, nor the hospitals, nor I have any control. This is all part of the master plan for my life. God is in control not me. And if you aren’t a believer, well maybe, this can give you food for thought.
I don’t know. Are you with me on this walk?
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