Remembering the set up of the room, which is so irrelevant, the chair was to the right of me and Averly’s cot was to the left along with her pram full to the brim of all sorts of mine and her belongings. The door was in front on a slight angle and there was a door to the right at the foot of my bed which was a toilet.
Anyway, my consultant came in at lunch time. You could see distress in him. Luke stood over to my left to allow him to sit down. From that point on all I heard was ‘tumorous cancer’. My world shattered around me, I actually heard crashing noises. I looked at Luke in disbelief and his words, with his eyes welling up, were “It’s ok, we’ll fight this..”. I was so shocked and thought how will we fight this? This is cancer. The big ‘C’. People die from this. Lots of people. How can I leave my two children behind? How can I bring Averly into the world so quickly and so quickly leave her? How do I leave Luke to raise two children alone? How can he say it will be ok? It’s not ok. I’ve got cancer.
As the consultant continued you could see in his eyes that this isn’t a diagnosis he ever wants to give, let alone on the maternity ward, especially when he works mainly with consultancy led pregnancies. We asked how bad, was it just the spine? It wasn’t - yes in the spine, but in the bone of the spine, also possibly in the womb, spots on the liver, lungs and brain too. It was everywhere. I couldn’t see life past my own nose. The guilt I felt at the thought of leaving my 2 children was painful. Where do we even go from here. How do we tell our families this? I wasn’t ready, I didn’t feel this was fair. But when is it ever fair? Luke’s faith was instant. Mine took a bit longer.
We had a minute, but the phones were going crazy because everyone was awaiting on results to check I wasn’t going to Walton! We prayed. In the midst of the crumbling world around us, we stood there either side of the bed, both in tears trying to pray, the doctor walked in (I mentioned her in an earlier post). Might I just add, every nurse and midwife and whoever else had been in after the diagnosis to tell us that they were there for us and if there was anything they could do to please ask...they were all being super lovely - but it doesn’t make any of it go away. But this doctor walked in and said the same, just as me and Luke were looking at each other across the bed, trying to pray, tears rolling down our faces and she said; “Is there anything I can do?” and up until now I’ve never worn my faith on my sleeve, spontaneously prayed for people I don’t know, or just randomly spoken about my faith unless it’s been initiated, terrible I know, but the words that came out my mouth were “If you pray, just pray.” and she said she would. She asked our faith, we said Christian and off she went. Now at that moment I thought she’s either humouring me, because who wouldn’t tell someone who’s just been given that news the words they wanted to hear? Or she was actually going to pray. Then we were back to our little world again, the world that had been wiped from under our feet. I just kept thinking, “Lord you wouldn’t get my marriage to such a great place and allow us to have 2 beautiful children for it all to be shattered like this. I can’t leave Luke here with these two kids.” How selfish is that?
Then the time came to make the calls. My first thought was how on earth do we tell my Dad this. I can’t do this to him. We lost my Mum when I was 5, how could I potentially leave him after that. Then I thought..oh my gosh I’m leaving Luke and the kids like my Mum left - now I know how she must have felt. I’ll add, I don’t feel any resentment or anger towards my Mum. I think so highly of her and I’m so grateful for what my Dad did for me whilst grieving his wife, because the thought of loosing Luke is so painful to think about (she says as tears fill her eyes and quickly thinks of Disney to distract herself!). I honestly don’t know how my Dad did it, he worked so hard to provide for us when I was unaware how hard that must have been.
At this point I’ll be honest, I was going to see if some close family and friends would write an entry into this post, but I decided against it. Firstly because I’ve already rambled on a lot and I still haven’t finished...but secondly after time and speaking to those significant people, I don’t think it would be fair to make you read such a lot of emotions in one go! Maybe later on in this blog I’ll add some in. Only because Luke made all the calls - thankfully, I never heard the responses. I never knew how people reacted or felt. But as time as passed and I’ve spoken to people, I’ve heard how much it impacted and upset them, which upset me. I hate that I made people feel like that.
Now it all blacked out a little and I’m not 100% sure on time scales but I know that the consultant came in around lunch time. Then around 4ish I want to say, they made a decision to send me to radiotherapy to try and hit that area that was quite prominent on the spine. This was an attempt to try to ease the ‘sciatic’ pain so they could figure out a way they could treat the rest of the cancer.
Just as we were heading out of the door of the room to head to the cancer centre, our doctor came in (the one who we asked to pray) and she seemed overwhelmed, she was excited, she said she’d done some research and found that there is a cancer related to pregnancy that is completely curable...then we got wheeled off...mind racing, had she Googled it? Has she actually done research, has she done proper checks with my bloods or is it a hunch? We were so confused. We didn’t know if she was just bringing something to our attention or if I actually had this particular cancer. Off we went without really knowing.
I decided it was best Luke came with me to have a second pair of ears if they gave any information. Not that either of us would be concentrating. We left Averly with a midwife and at this point Wesley was with us but Luke’s brother and sister in law, Levi and Amy (who I use the words ‘sister in law’ lightly when really, she’s my best friend) were on their way into the ward. So at the door of the ward we pit stopped Wesley to a very pale Amy, just a side note about Amy - she is one of the strongest women I know. She knows exactly to hold it together when no one else can, today was one of these days, she held it all in for everyone and I thank her for that - and Levi with her of course, who I hope he doesn’t mind me telling you, was in tears. This broke my heart. Off we went to radiotherapy, me, Luke and my main midwife - who was there through it all and was amazing.
As we arrive in the cancer centre, my consultant came running over, ecstatic. “We think this is a cancer related to pregnancy - Choriocarcinoma and it is completely curable, radiotherapy is the wrong thing to do for you. We are blue lighting you to Sheffield where there are the UK lead specialists and they are going to help get you sorted” We cried again. Sobbed like children. There was Luke’s almighty faith - right there. Oh and our doctor’s. She actually prayed..
Back up to the room we go, again it’s all a bit of a blur. But my doctor came in followed by the consultant who had followed us back up and he said “ you have this doctor here to thank. If it wasn’t for her persisting I look at this you wouldn’t be getting the treatment you needed. I dismissed her but she knew” and patted her on the back. So to Dr Claudia Hardy, I thank you with my entire heart. Thank you for praying when I was struggling to. You were an angel in the darkness.
With what felt like a blink of an eye, we were packing up all my things to go to Sheffield. My Dad arrived. More tears rolled down faces. And before I knew it I was being wheeled off by two strangers and a stranger midwife, leaving my babies and heading off to the ambulance to go to Sheffield. I literally left my two week old daughter who had just stopped breastfeeding that day, with my husband who had as much of an idea on how to bottle feed as I did (no idea at all, that was!) I just got wheeled off as my dad stood there next to Luke and Averly. It was the strangest feeling. I hated it. But I couldn’t cry any more. It was as if I’d been ‘spiritually sedated’ because no way in a million years could I have left my children, let alone a 2 week old. God must have poured something over me to stop me from going insane, as no amount of drugs would have contained me normally.
So off I went to Sheffield, Weston Park Hospital to be exact. The first time I’d been away from my children. The furthest I’d been too. This was all new. It was overwhelming. But I remained spiritually sedated. I’ve probably missed so much and yet I’ve rambled forever. But I’ll leave it there. I have so many people to thank at our local hospital for acting so fast to get the correct diagnosis and to get me to the right place to be treated.