This time last year I was in Orlando with 11 Canadian friends for our annual golf trip. It was also when the process of being diagnosed with Waldenstrom’s began. I mention this just because I think I was lucky how things unfolded. Before this golf trip, I had been feeling OK as normal and had a routine Doctors annual checkup booked. I also had a project going on in the cart garage, my golf den. To allow me to practice hitting balls inside the garage with a launch monitor simulator, I was trying to come up with a way to have a screen in there. Anyway after some creative thinking I had an idea how I could hang the screen and began putting it up. Now if you know me well, you will know if I get something into my head, I tend to go at it full on until its done. However for some reason this day I just couldn’t keep lifting the screen each time I needed to hook a fastener to the roof. Finally I gave up for the day tired, thinking it probably was just the heat or humidity.
When I arrived at the doctors the next day and finally got to sit in a consulting room, I was not thinking anything more than the usual routine.
(Dr.) – How are you?
(Me) – Fine.
(Dr.) – Any problems?
(Me) – No.
(Dr.) – Do you still smoke cigars?
(Me) – A few (endure the disapproving look).
(Dr.) – Ok well maybe try to eat well and lose a little to help your cholesterol and maybe think about the cigars.
(Me) – Thanks.
Well for once in my life I decided to answer the questions honestly. Having been a nurse, I know how different people can be when faced with the simple question “How are you?”. For some the answer is a one word fine, good or something similar. To others the question opens up a whole series of feelings, thoughts, pains and questions. I am the former, unless I need to visit the emergency room I am fine thanks. So I surprised myself this day by telling the doctor I was feeling a bit more tired than I thought I should be. I had not got the energy that I knew I should have knowing myself well, and oh yes I seem to get a sort of burning sensation in my feet and lower legs occasionally. The doctor checked me out and said maybe we should get a blood test just to make sure nothing was going on.
So off to Orlando I went to play golf, smoke cigars and drink late into the nights with eleven Canadian friends. One day that week, I noticed a missed voicemail which turned out to be from the Doctors office. The Doctor wants to see you. So I rang and got to the Gatekeeper, yes you have all met her sometime, I informed her I needed to see the doctor again. After some persuasion and the fact that it was them who wanted to see me, not the other way around, I managed to find out that my cholesterol was up, I should eat a low fat diet and the doctor wanted me to have some more bloods done. When asked by the Canadian boys if everything was OK I said ”yes, they rang just to say I was fat”.
When I got back home I rang for an appointment, but was told I needed my second set of blood results first. Not having a script for this meant another week to get the test done and then a wait until I had the results, before I could finally make an appointment to be told to “give up cigars and lose weight”. Deirdre was away on business when I downloaded my blood results and prepared to ring the surgery. That’s when my life changed, my world turned upside down for a moment and I had one of those real moments you get just a few times in your life that you are never prepared for. As I looked through the results a second time, I realized this wasn’t good. Having some medical knowledge but not enough to be able to diagnose properly, I thought it could possibly be cancer.
I didn’t tell anyone, not even Deirdre, made an appointment and turned up with Deirdre a week later. When the Doctor came in with that, I have some bad news look I had seen many times before nursing, I was fine. The Doctor explained I needed to see an oncologist hematologist and I smiled and said ok. Having already spent a few days and nights thinking of all the possibilities of cancer, life and other random stuff that fills my head I was fine. “You do realize what I am saying?” she said. I smiled again replied yes and went out to the waiting room to face the harder thing of telling Deirdre.
Once the air cleared in the car, outside the medical center Deirdre suggested we not mess about with local services or independent medical centers but just go to best in the US. That meant going to the Mayo Clinic. Somehow Deirdre got a cancellation and I was sat having 30 plus x-rays, two bone scans, blood tests and finally a bone marrow biopsy, all across two days and in one place. Everything was coordinated, professional and efficient, and I felt safe here.
So that’s how I went from feeling tired lifting a screen in my garage to knowing I had a rare Lymphoma. I am sure my GP is also pleased as I have lost weight and don’t smoke cigars anymore. I am planning to see the Canadian boys in Orlando on Tuesday evening before I leave for LA. I will miss this years trip because of my “Big Ride’, but plan to be back next year.
If asked now how I am, my answer is back to “great thanks”, which has to be good I guess.