Today found me back in the Outpatients West department of Bradford Royal Infirmary, a place I am becoming rather overly familiar with. Plenty of space to sit, but today nobody was offering me a cup of tea. I feel aggrieved by this as the old dear sitting behind me was not only offered tea, but a choice of beverages and seemed to spend a good five minutes describing in painful detail how she wanted it. Perhaps my lack of tea is the fault of the elderly lady, as the tea nurse didn’t wish to risk the trauma of another complex tea order. Personally I think the way I drink tea is perfectly reasonable, however I am always reminded of a particular client I used to visit. Their company administrator was that lady of a certain age who has a amazing memory such that even if months should happen to pass, she would always remember how one liked one’s tea. “Orange tea” she used to call it, in reference to my desire for tea which is well brewed to a strong liquor and then served with lots of milk. Anyway, I didn’t get any tea, orange or otherwise, and would like to use this forum to publicly complain.

As on this visit the television sported both volume and subtitles, I would like also to publicly complain about the inconsistency in televisual entertainment offered on my various visits. Today there was some program in which three people with their historic family recipes go to some posh London restaurant and fail to cook them quickly enough or prettily enough during a lunch service, whilst some italian TV chef buzzes around telling them how rubbish they are. The idea was that they were bringing their beloved recipes out of the family and exposing them to the general public, with the winning recipe ending up on the restaurant menu for a month. In the case of Grandma’s fishcakes, or Grandma’s lasagne, I can see that and sympathise with the sentiment. The third contestant, however, was a butcher. This butcher was cooking his sausages, they being a ‘family recipe’ as he comes from a line of butchers. I can’t help but feel that firstly his sausages are already available to the public, as you could buy them at his butchers shop and also that if he won, that would be a good way to make a lot of money supplying a month’s worth of sausages to the restaurant. I’m afraid I have no idea who won, as I was summoned just before the results were announced, but I hope it was the lasagne.

Today I saw Doctor Adrian. I actually quite like Doctor Adrian. Whilst he is a bit scatty and rather mad, he’s quite fun to have a conversation with, as he slips in his vocabulary between completely unpronounceable works and then into dumbdown words. He’ll give the name of some random procedure you’ve never heard of and then rather than say “under a general anaesthetic” he will say “you’ll be asleep”. Also the poor bastard is clearly embarrassed that he has not the first clue about what on earth is wrong with me and for my own amusement I labour that point to make him squirm a bit more. I suppose it’s not very nice, but I want my money’s worth out of Mr. Bevan’s “National Health Service”.

I was hoping to receive some useful results following on from the torture of the endoscopic ultrasound procedure last week and Doctor Adrian was indeed able to bring me up to speed. Unfortunately it seems that despite having an ultrasound to allow them to see exactly where they were placing the needle, the sample contained some lining, some muscle and basically anything but some bits of lymph node. Or to put it in simple terms: the whole sorry affair was a complete waste of time and effort. The position is therefore unchanged. We just don’t know. Could be lymphoma, might not be. Whatever trhe result, no idea what we are going to do until we have more information and we really must get a diagnosis.

 *sigh*

 We are therefore going to move to plan B. Plan B involves not doing another endoscopic ultrasound because it’s already failed once. Instead we are going to do something utterly unpronounceable, but I recall does begin with ‘M’. This will involve sticking a tube in through the front of my chest and down behind the breastbone until we hit lymph node. At this point, with the surgeon able to see the bloody thing, he will then get a good sized sample (he better, or the lab will likely say ‘we refuse to give a firm answer without more lymph node to test’) which can be used to diagnose what exactly is making my lymph nodes get all big.

 Sarcoidosis is still on the cards, apparently, despite my recent blood test coming back normal.

 We also discussed briefly my shoulder issue, but not much to talk about there really, as I will be visiting the ultrasound people to look at my blood vessels this coming Wednesday.

 So, now I will look forward to hearing from the thorassic surgeon. This will be a procedure performed under a general anaesthetic and will take place in Leeds, as they don’t do chest cutting in Bradford. I return to the outpatients clinic in a month’s time by which this should all be done and the samples processed by the lab. When I come back I shall expect the team to supply tea (preferably orange), hopefully a nice biscuit and, if you please, the remote control for the TV.

 [0] Due to a footnote writer’s strike, there are no footnotes in this episode.

Edit: The thing beginning with ‘M’ is mediastinoscopy.

I’m sorry this note has been a while coming, however I felt I needed to spend a few days getting over the awfulness of it all before I could write anything that might be worth reading. So anyway, here follows a story of the spine chilling horror that was my hospital trip to the Endoscopic Ultrasound unit, last Tuesday (being 27th September).

First of all I had my letter, detailing for me all the things I was expected to pack and bring to the hospital. These included basic toiletries, towel, dressing gown and a change of nightwear. All this I presume just in case they had to keep me in overnight. This was a slight issue for me, as it is my custom to sleep in the buff[1]. I find nightclothes get caught up in places clothes shouldn’t get caught and are generally uncomfortable so to be avoided under all normal circumstances. No way was I going out to the shops to buy a pair of dodgy pyjamas for this event, so I figured they’d have to put up with the vague possibility of seeing me in a pair of boxers first thing in the morning. The letter assured me that although it was a mixed sex ward, there were cubicles separating men and women to avoid embarrassment.

The letter also told me that I would need supervision for 24 hours following the procedure as I would be a danger to myself. I was not to operate machinery (or even a kettle) so would need someone to look after me. I gave Andy a ring on this subject and would like to very much thank both him and Helen for looking after me and letting me stay over with them on the night in question. I feel that without their support, there may well have been some kind of terrible and bizarre tea-making accident which I am happy to have avoided.

So the night before I prepared. I did this in two ways:

1. I  packed a bag with all the relevant stuff. Also a couple of books.
2. Stayed up stupidly late playing games, by which I mean about 4am. This was part of my plan to be so tired at hospital the next day that I would do little more than doze the day away and it would all pass so much more quickly.

 In the morning, having dragged myself out of bed without anywhere near enough sleep I prepared for the day ahead. My letter had been very specific and stated that I should take only a light breakfast of tea and toast. Heeding this advice I commenced to prepare breakfast and after grilling of few slices of bread, muffins, some crumpets, bagels and a couple of scones, washed down with a gallon of tea[2] I felt suitably fortified to face the day. I’d ordered a taxi the previous night and it arrived on time (Smack Taxis FTW![3]) and took me to the hospital.

 I had been instructed to arrive for a 10am appointment and was in the ward 5 (which has no cubicles and is completely open) around 0945. This seemed to confuse the receptionist, who instead of being at the reception desk, was sitting in an armchair having breakfast. I waved my appointment letter at her and over a mouthful of cornflakes she mumbled something about going to the nurses station. I tried very hard indeed not to roll my eyes and proceeded onwards. When I reached the nurses station, as I’m sure you’ll have guessed, there were no nurses. There were two doctors, talking important doctor stuff, with notes in front of them and stethoscopes about their doctory necks. I think having a patient arrive caught them off guard and out of their comfort zone, as they looked shifty and sort of embarrassed, before one of them muttered something about finding a nurse and fled. The nurse soon arrived and pointed me at bed number 1. I would like to believe this is because I am important and a number one kind of guy, but the fact is that aside from the tumbleweed rolling down the aisle and some barely awake staff, the ward was basically empty. Nevertheless, I texted Andy that I had arrived and the ward I was in. I spent a little time rating the nurses in order of hottest to nottest[4], then settled back in the provided armchair for my snooze.

 There were a number of issues with my snooze. Firstly, the chair wasn’t really very comfortable. Secondly, was that the bed, which I had hoped I might lay upon whilst snoozing was little more than a trolley and I very much feared to lay upon it for fear of rolling over and crashing onto the floor. Thirdly, bed number one sits next to a sink, where nurses come to wash up and squirt alcohol based disinfectant stuff on their hands, so trying to get 40 undisturbed winks was really quite the challenge. Nevertheless, I can assure you all that I made a herculean effort and finally managed to slip away into the land of…

 “Are you tired Mr Morrell?” Said hot nurse #1.

 “Fuck off bitch and let me sleep!” Is what I wanted to say, but instead I grunted something vaguely affirmative as she started getting pointy things out of a little cart.

 A lot of fannying around now commenced with the desired result being a cannula into a vein in the back of my hand, so they could inject stuff into me later. This turned into quite a performance as she managed to get me spurting blood all over. On the plus side, that then gave her the bright idea of using the end (where a drip might be attached, I think) to draw all the blood she wanted for testing, instead of yet another needle. By the time she had finished, however, I was dripping blood and she had to remove all the sticky dressings which hold the cannula in place. A few tense seconds followed where we both prayed the damn thing didn’t come out, as the area was cleansed and a new set of stickies put in to hold it into position. Job done, they could now drug me up with relative ease. I sat back and resumed my master plan of dozing the day away.

 My reverie was again interrupted, this time by hot nurse #3 (I never got to spend any time with #2), who had all my paperwork to deal with. She wanted to know if I had any of the following conditions, heart problems, diabetes, blah blah…

 “Hypertension?”

“Yes.”

“Are you on medication?”

“Yes.”

 And continued. Was I on any drugs (other than for the hypertension). I told her yes and pulled out the half dozen boxes so she could write it all into a box not big enough for them. She then took my blood pressure and was surprised to find it remarkably normal.

 “I thought you had high blood pressure?”

 Now. The observant of you will have noted that I had already told her I was on medication. The thing about having high blood pressure, but taking medicine, is that the medicine works to make it be not high. This, to me, is immediately obvious and logical, so I was surprised by her surprise. Nevertheless, with paperwork completed a more senior nurse (hottie #3 was only a trainee, in fairness) checked it and had me sign the consent form. A little while later, I am asked to change into the inevitable operation gown. I really don’t know why, being as I’m swallowing a camera, but whatever makes them happy I spose.

 My snoozing was next interrupted for more blood. Apparently they needed more samples as the earlier ones had shown up some rare antibodies and they needed to take more for cross matching purposes, just in case something went badly wrong and they had to do some kind of emergency surgery. This was properly irritating, as the nurse (well not even a nurse, a health care assistant) was apparently unable to get blood out of the veins in my elbow. I have bloody good veins, I know. I know this because I’ve had so many blood tests just recently, and the trained phlebotomists are in with the needle and out with the blood before you can say ‘vaccule'[5]. She simply couldn’t get blood out and when she did, it was all clotted up and horrible. She twisted the needle this way and that, causing me much pain and failing, failing to get what she needed. Finally, she called a real qualified nurse to assist. Of course, the vein in that arm was now ruined (I still sported the bruising up until yesterday) and the vein in my hand had the cannula in, so it meant starting on the other arm. That of course is the one with the stupid circulation problems. In the end, the nurse slipped a needle into a vein in my hand and got the blood out, in a quicksmart manner, but I was feeling pretty abused by this point.

 To add to my discomfort, whilst all this mess with needles is going on, the porter arrives to whisk me away to my inevitable fate, but the bloods aren’t done, so I can’t go. I am now quite worried that they will cancel my procedure and I’ve wasted a day when I could have been elsewhere not being repeatedly stabbed. I voice these concerns but am told not to worry, it’ll happen. This is confirmed when ten minutes or so later, the porter returns having been instructed by a Dr Jowett[6] to “bring him down anyway”. Apparently she doesn’t wish to wait for 2 hours for the blood tests. I get onto the trolley and he wheels me off.

 It turns out that this procedure happens in a special room in the depths of the imaging dungeons. I’ve discussed the ultrasound suite in a previous posting and the endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is in there, in an even darker room. It’s also (despite the protests of the nurses who are “don’t you think it’s hot in here?”) bloody cold. Perhaps if I was wearing a nurses uniform I would be warmer, but I’m in a gown and freezing. The nurses are quite jolly and try to engage me in conversation. One of them asks what I do for a living and I tell her I work with computers. She happily explains to me that she has no idea at all about computers, then goes on to ask me what it is I do with computers. I pause for a moment, preparing to explain the intricacies of outsourced IT, DNS management and SMTP email delivery, before remembering  that she has no idea about computers, so I am wondering what the point of any explanation might be. The conversation sort of goes downhill from there. This creates an awkward silence, as the doctor who had been so keen to get me into the EUS suite, now keeps us waiting for a good 20 minutes before putting in an appearance.

 The conversation goes even further downhill when they start messing with the inside of my mouth. First comes the throat spray. This is some kind of alcohol based thing they spray right into the back of your mouth. It’s utterly disgusting and tastes of low grade vodka with chemical banana flavouring. Apparently some people report that it tastes like whisky. I can only view that sentiment with pity and hope that those people get to taste real whisky at some point in their lives. In any event, the back of my throat is now completely numb.

 Now comes the terror and the horror. I’m on my side with oxygen up my nose to help me breathe and they are strapping some kind of gimp mask onto my face, to hold my teeth open so I can’t (I presume) bite through the camera/doctor’s fingers. Apparently they are sedating me, but I really don’t notice as the tube is inserted down my throat and the chocking and retching and gagging begins, with the panic mounting and mounting inside me. I struggle to maintain a sense of calm, wishing that the fucking sedation was in some way effective and hating each and every second jointly and severally. I know I try to write these notes in a light hearted manner, but seriously, I cannot find anything funny at all in my description of this procedure, which is one of the most grim experiences of my life. According to the literature, the ‘sedation’ may make you forget ever even having it. I assure you all I will never ever forget those terrible, nightmarish few minutes with a foot of tubing down inside me. The only saving grace is that they were, thankfully, able to get hold of a sample, using the fine needle aspiration.

 After it was over and done with and much shaken up, I was wheeled back upstairs to the ward, where I remained in the bed for an hour or so, again trying to get a bit of kip. Despite this alleged sedation, I felt it hard to nod off and watched the clock until they came to feed me a sandwich and a cup of tea. Shortly afterward I got up, called Andy to pick me up and got dressed before meeting him at the front door, to be whisked away from all this awfulness.

 I will be seeing Dr Adrian (not Alan, sorry) and/or Dr Lisa on Monday afternoon to (I presume) get some results.

 Meantime, this whole business has been shown to have nothing whatever to do with the pain in my shoulder which started this roller coaster. I am therefore scheduled to appear in the ultrasound suite (“Hi, it’s me again!”) Wednesday week for a doppler scan of the blood vessels in my arm. A venogram has also been requested, but I have no appointment for that as yet.

 [1] This may be too much information for some, but really I don’t care.

[2] The amount of tea and toasted bread products may have been exaggerated for comedic/dramatic effect.[7]

[3] Well, Royal & Great Horton actually, but there was that rumour some years ago about the heroin dealing …

[4] There were only really 3 entrants. The remainder were too fat, too ugly or too male.

[5] I realise many of you are less familiar with blood tests than me, so a vaccule is the little tube they use to keep the samples in.

[6] That’s another sticker for my Doctors of Bradford Hospitals, a new collection from Panini.

[7] And is dedicated to the talkie toaster. Yes, I would like some toast.

Today I once again attended the outpatients clinic for the haemotology and oncology department to discuss recent test results and what to do about any of them. It was pleasant enough to sit in one of their comfy armchairs playing games on my phone and reading facebook. Just as last time, the TV was on. Unlike last time, it appeared to be showing some kind of adult TV rather than CBBC. Presumably this is why they had chosen to turn the volume to zero and discontinue displaying the subtitles. Daytime grown up telly is clearly a bit too radical and dangerous for exposure to hospital patients, so all we had was some people wandering about. There was a graveside scene, so presumably it was some kind of crime or other drama. I didn’t recognise it, in any case.

 Last time I attended I had noticed a ‘beverage preparation area’, with a kettle and mugs and so on. I had presumed this was where the staff went to make tea, so I was shocked when a happy chappy sporting a badge labelling him as a hospital volunteer suddenly turned into the tea boy, not for the staff, but for the patients. Truly, the service levels in haemotology are rising with each and every visit. Kettle on, teabag in mug, tea in my hand. Fantastic effort. I am hopeful that when I go back for my next visit, there might be a biscuit, or perhaps a slice of cake as well.

 In due course, I was called into see (on this occasion) Doctor Alan Williams. For those of you who have been to university and done some kind of science or engineering style of degree, you will be familiar with the sort of lecturer who has been in academia for too long. The hair has a mind of its own, the clothes are a little too shabby and he (usually a he) speaks in a strange language which is full of immense amounts of knowledge trying (and failing) to escape in an intelligible manner. This largely describes Doctor Williams. I understand he does know really a lot about medicine, being the senior haemotologist in the hospital, but sometimes his communication skills fail. I don’t think it helps that he fails to pick up on my own scientific background and ability to understand long words and in his efforts to dumb down what he’s trying to talk about to ‘general not-scientific patientspeak’ his brain implodes and garbage comes out.

So, the result of all my tests to date are as follows:

• Bone marrow – Normal.
• Bloods – Normal. (in particular glad to know I don’t have Hep B, Hep C, or HIV)
• Lymph Nodes in Neck – Basically normal (except the speckledy bits which might be calcifications). Not big enough to remove surgically.

 Conclusion – Probably not lymphoma, but still might be, so we still need to get a lymph node to be sure. In any case, your lymph nodes are enlarged and there’s some cause for that.

 At this point I said… ok, but if it’s not lymphoma, which is good, what about this pain in my shoulder and all the circulation issues and my veins standing out of my arm?

 So the good Doctor and I went through the whole history of “why I am here in the hospital today” from the very beginning. He had my t-shirt off and poked about and gave the whole arm a thorough inspection. He looked at all the test results, even back to 2008 when I first started seeing him[1] and the general conclusion was. “Well … fuck only knows what’s wrong with you to be honest! Could still be lymphoma… maybe it’s sarcoidosis, or a thrombosis or… well… um…”

 So it’s time for a bank of tests. At this point, especially when they start talking stuff like sarcoidosis, I am expecting a grizzled Hugh Laurie to wander in with a cane and start popping pills. Blood tests for the sarcoidosis. Ultrasounds and venograms to look at the circulation and finally, still, we need a lymph node!

 So realistically, the best big node is in my chest, so we now have two alternatives. Number one is a radical new clever treatment which involves ramming a endoscope down my aesophagus, with an ultrasound to see what’s going on and do keyhole surgery from inside my gullet to get samples that way. Alternatively, get a chest cutter to go in from the outside and whip the little bastard out that way. Dr. W is going to talk to the different surgeons and see which are willing to do the job. Either way, this time is probably a stay in St James in Leeds as the first option is radical and new, and BRI has no chest cutters.

 And I must have spent an hour in the consulting room, what with all the tests and of course Dr Lisa wanted to know what was going on as well, so Dr Alan popped in to see her and tell her all about it. It was, in fact, whilst he was going through all my test results that the power went out. It came straight back on as the hospital’s emergency gensets kicked in, ensuring that those poor sods on life support were kept breathing, but it did delay things as his PC had to be booted back up. I note that they are using Windows XP and Netware 4, if anyone cares.

 So it was a good job I was (deliberately so I wasn’t waiting about) one of the last patients in the queue. By this time of course, the vampires had gone home for the day, so I’ll have to pop over to BRI tomorrow for the blood tests.

 So I went home. My house doesn’t have an emergency genset, so it was another half hour or so before I the electricity came back on. I guess I’ll hear about some appointments for ultrasounds and stuff soon and back to see one of my consultants in 4 weeks time.

 [1] I had a lump in the skin on my arm, which turned out to be a plasma cytoma which could have been bad, turned out not to be, but regular annual blood tests “just in case” ever since. Actually, it was bad, as insurance companies hate it and wouldn’t give me income protection insurance.  Getting life insurance was hard enough, I can only imagine how hard it might be after this lymphoma[2] scary business.

[2] Or whatever it turns out to be.[3]

[3] Yes. I do like footnotes, actually.

Last Friday then, I went to hospital to get my ultrasound scan. What Dr Lisa wants is a nice fat lymph node that the lab can chop up and do tests on in order to pin down the exact nature of my complaint. This is important as knowing what the problem is, will (for some reason) be key to deciding upon the correct treatment regime. My previous CT scan came up only to the base of my neck and it did look like there might just be a good one in there, but they needed to scan the rest of my neck for a proper look, or indeed to find any others which might be easy to get at.

 As I’ve mentioned in some status update long since scrolled off your screens, I had to ring the hospital to find out when I was supposed to be attending, as they hadn’t bothered to send me a letter, or it had got lost, or the postman ate it – I’ll let you decide which is most likely. Fortunately, the lovely Natalie, gawd bless ‘er, had said something suitably scathing about BRI’s X-Ray department. This put the doubt into my mind, as to where I was actually supposed to attend, being as all my previous scans had been at St. Lukes. Having rung the hospital a second time, I duly attended at Bradford Royal on this occasion![1]

 As usual the car park at the hospital was completely full to bursting, but I always check as I’m generally bone idle and really can’t be arsed with walking any more than the mandatory minimum. In an ideal world, it would work like a drive-thru. I could wind my seat back and this would serve as a hospital guerney allowing the various professionals the required access to perform procedure du jour, before collecting any followup appointments from the next window along. Yes, I would like fries with that. In the absence of such service however, seasoned veterans of BRI, like myself, will have discovered that there is what they call the “overflow” car park  (in fact a section within the large staff car park) on Smith Lane behind the hospital. This is almost always completely empty and even if not, I’ve never been unable to park there, so as usual I ended up in there, deposited my £2 for 3 hours at the pay and display and headed into the building.

 BRI’s main X-Ray (not emergency X-ray, which is where you go if you shatter your elbow) is situated at the end of a long corridor and whilst the main reception and waiting room is fairly bright and cheery, they sent  me to the ‘Blue Waiting Room’ which appears to be inside some kind of dark and dingy dungeon area, painted lovingingly in institution green (and isn’t blue at all). I really do think that working as a radiographer must have a high depression rate as they seem to be working so often in a subdued light environment. Hospitals are often not the cheeriest of places to begin with, hospitals with mood lighting are either miserable, or downright creepy.

 As normal, the hospital wi-fi barely reached into my assigned waiting room and any it’s “give us your credit card” wi-fi, so I had to put up with slightly dodgy 3G, as I browsed through facebook and waited. Two very attractive young ladies were in the room chattering away in something eastern european, which added to their allure and mystique. This being a hospital waiting room, I felt it would be inappropriate to invite them back for a threesome later. Additionally, I have nowhere near the required chutzpah to make such a suggestion and in any event such behaviour would probably have got me nothing more than a slap in the face for my trouble. Oddly enough I didn’t have to wait very long before getting called in. The girls were still there, with someone apologizing for making them wait. For all I know, they are there still.

 The jolly chappy who showed me into the ultrasound suite kept calling me ‘Sir’. I find this generally disconcerting in medical staff. I realise there has to be a fine line between personal and impersonal between staff and patients, however if someone is going to be involved in prodding me about, I’d rather they dropped enough formality to simply call me ‘Stef’ like anyone else. Even at the age of 41, if someone addresses Mr. Morrell I start looking around for my Dad.

 “You can call me Stef.”

“Thanks sir, it’s force of habit sir.”

*sigh*

 Anyway, he gets me set up on something which approximates a bed, in that it is a flat platform upon which I can lay horizontally, but otherwise shares few features with a comfortable sleeping place. He dims the lights (more!) and so I am waiting, stripped to the waist, with a paper tissue draped over my chest (why the paper, is my chest in some way unsightly?) and awaiting the doctor.

 When the doctor comes (“Call me stef…”) she is clearly confused and another of the care in the community staff that BRI seems to be employing these days. She has a green card upon which is the referral details of why I am here and what we hope to achieve by ultrasounding my neck. At least I presume it has such details, but for all I know it has her weekly shopping list written upon it, for the doctor proceeds to interview me as to what the fuck I am doing in her ultrasound room. So I explain to her all that has transpired up until this point, frankly quite disconcerted that she doesn’t actually know. After some amount of such conversation she gets out the lube and starts probing me[2].

 I’ve seen pictures of my unborn nephews whilst still happily chilling inside my delightful sister. From such pictures it’s pretty easy to see the shapes of heads and feet and bits obviously part of a tiny person. From looking at the monitor whilst I was being scanned, I can see that, in contrast, my insides are one amorphous grey nothingness. The doctor did seem to be finding and marking some of the grey blobs that started to appear within the grey background, so I asked and she confirmed that they were my lymph nodes. This went on for some ten minutes or so, before she asked the following bombshell question…

 “So it’s definately lymphoma, you’ve had the biopsy?”

 In my mind, the words are being screamed like an enraged gorilla on PCP: “Woman I’ve just explained, AT LENGTH, that the reason I am here is so you can find a suitable gland to take out and biopsy. Why don’t you know what you are doing? Why have I got the worlds worst ultrasound doctor?!?”

 What comes out though, with just a carefully measured hint of darkly growing impatience is the explanation about the CT scan… again. She now asks if I had the CT scan there and I inform her it was at St Lukes. She trots off and calls up the results on the nearby computer terminal before informing me that she wants to speak to her consultant and leaving the room.

 And so I am left, on the ‘not a comfy bed’ to contemplate, for a time. Quite a long time as it happens. Long enough to see a box on a shelf labelled ‘trans rectal probe’ and consider that there are some poor bastards less fortunate than I. Long enough, very nearly, to fall asleep for a short nap, despite the lack of basic comforts.

 Just as I am nodding off, the doctor returns, consultant in tow. They are chatting away about (presumably) me and my case. The green card with the shopping list is passed back and forth, and then they peer at my CT scan results again and I hear the original doctor saying “And this is why I’m confused.”

 Yes dear, I think you are.

 So then the consultant comes to talk to me. (“Please call me Stef…”) I am vastly relieved that she seems switched on and with enough of an education in the science of medicine to understand why I am here and what the aims are for my visit. Not confused at all, in fact and discussing with me what she’s finding and that hopefully the ENT[3] people will be able to find something there suitable for easy removal. She also informs me that many of my lymph glands appear speckledy, as though they contain calcifications. Quite what that means in practice I didn’t bother to ask, firstly because she might be completely wrong and secondly because if they are whipping one out anyway, I’ll get better information after they’ve cut it up and checked it out. Anyway, the consultant checks the pictures the first doctor took, does an examination of her own and takes a couple more, then buggers off in an efficient manner.

 I really cannot sufficiently express my relief that the consultant got involved. I was getting to the stage of zero confidence in the first doctor and was becoming extremely worried that the right and required information would not get relayed to the correct departments and personnel. Ultrasound appointments are slow, even fast-track patients like me have to wait over a week to be seen and I did not want the delay of having to come back again for a rematch.

 And so I am left alone with a large tissue (good for wiping up ultrasound lube from necks) and the first doctor. There are two bins, a grey one and a yellow one. The yellow one is for contaminated clinical waste only, the grey one for general waste only. Now, I am unsure if a tissue used to wipe lube from one’s neck counts as contaminated waste or not, so I ask her. She tells me either bin will do. To my mind that does not compute, but I’d about had enough of her anyway. I got dressed and the jolly chappy arrived to show me out.

 “Everything all right, Sir?”

*sigh… again*

 [1] Thanks Nat *hug*

[2] I’m sorry, but the opportunity for lewd and out of place double entendres is just too tempting to pass up.

[3] Ear, Nose & Throat

I wasn’t going to bother writing a note about every single visit I might make to a medical practitioner, but seeing as I’ve logged on and found a number of messages, I can only presume that enquiring minds want to know, so here follows the tale of my trip to the arse drill.

Now, as I’ve noted before, this isn’t my first time with the good old bone marrow gear, so I was looking forward to this about as much as a person with no anticipation of having a good time, who is about to have a very bad time. Nevertheless I arrived in Ward 7 promptly. There’s a nice waiting room for day clinic people (like me) and a ward full of in-patients. Additionally all the rooms which form part of the ward seem to be dedicated to various individuals. I can’t remember the actual names, but it wasn’t the waiting room, it was the Fred Bloggs waiting room and there was the John Smith counselling room and so on. I couldn’t work out if it the names were those of charitable donors, or the deceased. I chose not to enquire.

 After a short while I saw a guy, who looked nurse-ish wearing a smart blue uniform and a white pvc apron. Being as I was wandering about looking lost (and I was, pretty much) he asked if he could help me. I informed him why I was here and who I was. He said he would “let them know” and said I should take a seat in the waiting room.

 And so I did. I could observe across the corridor into the main ward opposite where there was what looked like a reception desk (with nobody there). Various other staff did start to appear, however wandering back and forth. I saw Dr Williams (my other haematologist, I’m collecting a set) walk by and even caught a glimpse of Dr Lisa. Eventually as I continued to sit, waiting, one of the nurses sort of looked at me with a smile, which managed to communicate the sentiment “who the fuck are you and why are you here?”. I therefore got up and asked if anyone had told her I was here.

 “Are you Stefan?”

“Yes”

“No, nobody has told us, but I know now, take a seat and it shouldn’t be long.”

 Well, thanks a bunch PVC apron guy. I guess your reason for existence must be to wander about randomly and pretend to do some work. All you need is a cup of coffee and we can call you Wally.

 So I go and sit back down and in between levels of ‘refraction’ on my phone I watch the world go by. I am disturbed by the presence of chip factory woman wandering about with some files, but I am beginning to think she is admin staff and nothing for me to worry about. A kindly nurse offers me a sandwich, which I politely refuse and another offers a cup of tea, which I gratefully accept.

 Just as my tea arrives, so does a doctor who shows me into a treatment room – I bring the cuppa, I think I’m going to need it. He explains that he is Doctor Sundul. Now, I can see quite blatantly from his name tag, that he is, in fact, Doctor Sundulyianama. I guess he is pretty fed up of people being uanble to pronounce it properly. I choose to remain silent upon the issue, not wishing to upset a gentleman who is shortly to be attacking my arse with spikey pieces of metal. He starts to explain the procedure and I inform him it’s not my first time. He nods in acceptance of this and gives me the consent form to sign.

 I won’t bore you with the details. Some amount of unpleasantness and pain followed. When the job was done, they brought me a second cup of tea. I needed it.

 At this point Dr Newton (Lisa J) appeared wanting to talk to me about my surgery. Well, one of my friends had made the excellent suggestion that I tell them if they want a lymph gland, they should whip out the one which is causing me all the shoulder pain. So I was pleased to hear that they wanted to ultrasound my neck as there’s a good looking candidate up there which didn’t quite get fully mapped on my recent CT scan. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out that they are looking on the OTHER SIDE FROM THE PAIN. They gave a variety of answers as to why they didn’t want to go into my already painful shoulder – but let me assure you all, dear readers, that this discussion is far from over and I will be having further words upon the subject.

So I just got back from the hospital. I should start by noting the excellent decor in the “Outpatients West” department of Bradford Royal Infirmary. I’ve been there for all kinds of stuff over the past years and it used to be utterly loathly and wholly depressing in there, but they’ve redesigned, rebuilt and redecorated and it’s now actually quite a pleasant environment. Of course, I wasn’t there to introduce “Changing Rooms” or to flounce about like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen so, realistically I didn’t much care. It would have been nice, mind you, if the TV hadn’t been tuned to CBBC, being as the average age in the room was probably somewhere north of 40 – but at least they had put the subtitles on, so even from the back, we could all see and understand the horrors that Rachel (age 9) was putting her poor suffering father through.

I had, as I’ve said, had two calls from the hospital yesterday. One of them turned out to be from “this is Dr Newton’s secretary” to tell me not to bother turning up for my 2pm appointment because they were going to be busy and I’d be sitting about for ages, so should turn up around 4pm instead. Complying with this excellent advice I arrived at around 3:45pm and presented myself to the receptionist. She looked at her computer screen and her list and the screen and her list and finally asked me if I had changed my appointment. I explained that I had spoken to the secretary yesterday and after some nodding, was told to take a seat. As I turned away, I saw her cross out “DNA” (did not attend) from next to my name and tick me off instead. Nobody had bothered to actually change anything on the computers.

A nurse appeared and took my height and weight. As it turns out I am both tall and fat, which will come as no surprise to anyone. What I don’t get is why they always seem to task the shortest nurse with measuring my height. One day I will be allocated a tall nurse to measure me. On that day it will be an easy task for the short nurse, as I will have fainted with the shock and she will be able to use a tape measure before reviving me.

As I then waited, watching Rachel (age 9) pick out a holiday full of things her Dad hated, I noticed a very large woman appearing and disappearing from the rooms at the back of Outpatients West, carrying files. Now I know I’m a big lad, but clearly this woman had been involved in some kind of terrible accident in a chip factory and had to eat her way out. I checked my appointment letter “blah bla … Dr Lisa J Newton …” I now had the unnatural fear that chip factory woman was going to be the doctor. I’m sorry, I know it’s not cool and I know it’s not nice, but I didn’t want her anywhere near me.

 Shortly after I was relieved to be shown into the office to find that Lisa J was in fact, not the chip factory woman and in fact a perfectly average peroxide blonde with no special intimidating features of any kind. We talked for a while about all the events leading up to my attendance at “Haemotology and Oncology Clinic” this afternoon and then discussed what we would be doing next. She gave me a good poking about in my neck and groin looking for the enlarged lymph nodes (and not finding them) then said that she would need some other tests.

 Firstly she wants a bone marrow test. I’ve had one of those before and if you can just try to imagine someone using a core drill on your pelvis bone, well it feels exactly like that. This is because it is exactly like that.  As you can imagine I’m very much looking forward to Tuesday lunchtime when I get the repeat performance. I’m saving up the vouchers, 2 more and I will be able to get a set of fake crystal wine glasses.

 For today though she just wanted a load of blood tests, liver, kidneys, blood count, LDH (look it up) and oh… do you mind if we test for Hepatitis B, C and HIV as chemotherapy will tend to make them flare up.

 Right well… ok then. Let’s hope that I don’t have Hep B, Hep C or HIV, as I’ve got enough to worry about, thanks.

 Anyway, she tells me, by the time you come in for your bone marrow on Tuesday, we should know when we can get you booked in for your surgery.

 Ok… Wait! What?!!

 Yes, we need a biopsy of a lymph gland so we can do tests and see what’s precisely going on and decide what to do about it. Right, so you’ll what, stick some kind of needle in and get a little sample?

 Oh no… we’d like a whole gland if possible…

 The only plus side to all of this is that the time it will take them to mess me about will lead nicely into me not being ill with any kind of horrible chemo until *after* the St Leger Races works day out. I am making big plans for that day which involve best efforts to drink the free bar dry. Wish me luck!

Note: Some of these earliest postings were originally posted to facebook, at the time all this stuff was happening. Nice to have it copied to here.

It might seem a bit crappy posting this to facebook, but I really can’t face the thought of ringing all my mates individually and going over the same conversation umpty bazillion times. So here it is, so that everyone knows what is happening.

I’ve been having some pain in my shoulder recently and had a number of tests, x-rays, ultrasounds and so on trying to find out what on earth has been going on. When I had my ultrasound, the doctor wanted to get some standard chest x-rays just as a precaution. From there, I was called into have a CT scan, which has revealed a number of enlarged lymph nodes in my chest and this is almost certainly what has been causing my shoulder pain. The upshot of this is that I have now been fast-tracked to get treatment for cancer, with a diagnosis of lymphoma.

Quite how bad this is I don’t yet know. Lymphoma (so they tell me) is one of the least bad types of cancer and there are excellent treatments now available. Basically at this stage, I will be needing to see what the specialist says after further testing including a biopsy and similar.

Right now it’s not feeling very real. Cancer is something that happens to other people and not to me, so I sort of feel like I have this mate who is ill and it’s not really me. Also I’m completely focused on the possibility of chemotherapy leading to hair loss, and I’m sure I have better things to worry about.

So, that’s my news. Feel free to pass it along.