Well, this is exciting! I’ve just taken a call from the hospital and I am booked in for surgery on Friday 16th October, and I’m very pleased this has come around so quickly.
After everything that’s happened over the last few weeks, having an actual date feels like a great leap forwards. There have been rather a lot of unexpected twists and turns, and at times it has felt as though my body and I have been having a particularly difficult relationship with chemotherapy. But that’s now behind me, and the focus is firmly on getting me through surgery.
One little hiccup is that I have to have yet another blood test tomorrow, as my magnesium levels have probably gone awry again. If they have, and if it’s required, there is time to get another six-hour magnesium infusion into me, which should hopefully tide me over until after the surgery.
The plan, as you may remember, changed quite suddenly when my chemotherapy had to be stopped because my body had simply had enough. The good news was that the treatment had already done its job of shrinking the hateful tumour, so the decision was made to go straight to surgery rather than risk making me any weaker.
And now I have a date.
It suddenly feels very real!
I’m not going to pretend I’m not nervous, because I am. Surgery is a pretty big deal. I am imagining a surgeon in scrubs bearing down on me with a scalpel and an ice-cream scoop, ready to remove a part of me I’ve had for well over fifty years. Fortunately, they’ll also be removing something quite alien that has no business being there in the first place.
There are still plenty of things I don’t know about what the next few weeks will bring. But alongside the nerves is a huge amount of relief. At last I can see the next step rather than wondering when it is going to happen.
The aim now is simple: get the tumour out, get through the operation, recover and get stronger.
The targeted treatment will of course continue afterwards, to deal with any HER2-positive cancer cells that might still be lurking elsewhere, but for now I’m concentrating on the bit immediately in front of me.
And that feels good.
For the first time in a while, I can say:
Bring it on!
Surgery is happening.
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