Friday 13th - of course

Yes it was Friday 13th – and that just about summed up this day. Funnily enough, I was more dreading the MRI than anything else, as I am hopeless at lying still and I get a bit claustrophobic in the ‘tunnel of doom.’ But it seems MRI machines are more modern these days and it wasn’t actually as bad as I had remembered. I mean, it wasn’t a barrel of laughs, and I had to dig very deep to be able to lie still for that length of time, but equally I got through it without having a nervous breakdown. I tried making up my own version of Wordle – pick a 5-letter word and then whatever it ends in, think of a new 5-letter word beginning with that letter, and so on. I got through about 15 minutes doing this, after which I completely ran out of 5-letter words, had a numb bottom and just wanted to get out of the tunnel.

The fun didn’t stop there though – straight after the MRI it was biopsy time, which was even less of a riot. I had a dental numbing injection, and then my lovely neighbour proceeded to clip and slice bits of my right tonsil. I was fully aware of all of this, even though I couldn’t actually feel a thing, but my mind went into overdrive, imagining the scene in the room with blood spurting everywhere and that was enough to tip me over the edge – I went a funny shade of green/grey/white, couldn’t feel my hands at all and had to have the window open and water brought as I desperately tried to regain my composure. 

I kept apologising profusely – after all, this was my lovely neighbour who I had only just met, and here I was wasting his precious time passing out on a chair in his clinic – but to be honest I couldn’t do anything about it except let nature take its course. When I started to regain my colour a little, he said that would do and we would finish there. I stupidly replied to ask if he was sure he had everything he needed, as I absolutely did not want to go through this again, to which he replied ‘oh go on then, a bit more would be good’. So he took a little more of the offending tumour out, and I immediately regretted offering at all. 

When we were finished, I asked my neighbour if he knew it was cancer he said pretty much yes. I went home that evening, with the girls home from school, and felt completely numb - even though I had known since the dentist visit really. We didn't want to tell the girls anything at this stage, as we didn't have anything certain to tell them and you really only want to give your children facts to deal with when you are telling them Mum has a potentially life-threatening illness. As we didn’t even know it was definitely cancer, we decided not to tell them anything except that I had been to have the pesky tonsil looked at. But that meant that despite being told it’s almost certainly cancer, I couldn’t break down and cry. So I just went home and went into autopilot, because I had no choice.