A Really Difficult Post

This is going to be a very difficult blog post to write. In fact I've avoided writing it as you willl discover why you will probably see why. As I've mentioned in the past few weeks on this blog, Carol has been unwell. We haven't had a particularly good summer. She was off work from the Academy for the final two weeks of the summer term and then, over August and well into September we've had quite a few visits to Accident and Emergency as well as appointments at Ashfield Medical Centre with doctors as well as the practice nurse. This is due to a great deal of pain she has been experiencing. The first doctors appointment she had she was thought to have a urinary infection and was put on antibiotics. But that did not appear to make any difference. She had real problems sleeping at night with the intense pain. On at least two occasions we went to the Urgent Care Centre at Milton Keynes Hospital and a further couple of times to Accident and Emergency. The last time we went there she was admitted to hospital and spent four days there, eventually moving to Ward 19. Still no cause found for the continuing pain, however she was given a wide variety of different pain relief medication, including tramadol. Eventually she had a further appointment with the practice nurse who did a further examination and then got her referred to the hospital to have an endoscopy appointment. This was on a Sunday (mentioned in an earlier post.) We were to get the results of this investigation the next Tuesday. It was more than a shock when the doctor who gave us the results that the cause of the pain was caused by a lesion. Which meant it was likely to be cancerous. You can imagine our shock. I have to say I almost fell on the floor when we were told. Not something you want to hear at any time, ever, as you can appreciate. There needed to be further investigations, including another endoscopy which uses a camera and is able to take possibly biopsy so that further tests could me done. This happened last Monday, and, unfortunately, they have now confirmed that it is cancerous. We now have to wait for the results from the biopsy and today, Thursday, Carol had a C.T. scan to check that there is no further cancer in any other organ of her body. A huge and very difficult thing to take in from both of us as well as our families. Unfortunately Carol is still continuing to experience great pain, particularly at night, making it very difficult to sleep. Meanwhile she has been signed off work from Milton Keynes Academy. I am going to leave off writing this and will make mention of things as they develop in future posts.

The C.T. scan went incredibly well. The appointment was at 9.30 and we got to the hospital far too early, as we have a habit of doing with most things. Not such a bad thing in itself, I suppose, particularly if you have to contend with traffic as well as parking. We walked to the unit, which we'd been to a couple of weeks previously. As we got there too early the receptionist rang through to find out if Carol could be seen early and apparently there was a gap in the schedule, so there was none of the waiting as we experienced at the endoscopy department a few days earlier. It was all over very quickly and we were soon walking back to the car and coming home, although we did go into the shop at the entrance as Carol said she had a really nasty taste in her mouth, no doubt caused by the dye she had injected into her blood stream to aid the scan and needed a drink of something to get rid of the taste. Taking a great deal of medications, that is one of the side effects that such meds can cause. We also bought a couple of pastries and went home.