Stomach Churning Check Ups!

Even as I write this my nerves are kicking in!

Today I went for one of my check ups, I have have them every 8 weeks so you would think that I would be used them by now.  However this time it really got to me, I've been really busy lately so hadn't given it much thought until the night before.  No matter how many times I tell myself it will be ok doubt still creeps in and takes over.

When I was walking up to the entrance of the hospital my mind flashed back to the night when I had first been admitted.  It all happened so suddenly, the phone call from my GP telling me something was wrong with my blood and the first night in hospital totally unaware of what was happening inside my body.  I wasn't told I had Leukaemia until the next day after a bone marrow biopsy confirmed it.

At that moment while approaching the entrance I felt like an onlooker watching a scene unfolding in front of me; there I was getting out of the car and into a wheelchair at the entrance then being pushed inside by my mum.  A mash up of thoughts run through my mind like butterflies caught in a hurricane!

I arrive at the Haematology Clinic and check in with that familiar sick, shaky feeling but, I put on my best 'I'm fine' face.  I have perfected it over the past few months, that 'I am totally in control and not scared at all' face.  

After having some bloods taken I wait nervously for them to be looked at and my consultant to give me the results.  When he calls me through and we go to his room I sit trying to read his mind, my adrenaline pumping in case I need to run from the bad news he could give me.   Finally he looks at me and smiles telling me my bloods are fine and looking really good.  Relief floods through me like the blood pumping around my body...ironic as it was the very thing that failed me.  Walking from the hospital I could cry with happiness I feel light headed like a massive weight has been lifted, however I know I will go through all these emotions again in 8 weeks time!  Life is a rollercoaster!

On this occasion I spot another patient who was diagnosed with the same as me so I had met in hospital.  It is like seeing old friends and is always very emotional as we have something in common which not many people I know can understand.  How it feels to have your life suddenly turned upside down with a diagnosis you neither understand nor expect to hear in a million years.  AML is so aggressive that one minute you are fine, the next you are facing your own mortality.  It's hard to put into words how it feels...perhaps like suddenly being in a really bad car accident and spending months on life support?  We compare how we feel and talk opening about how we are coping and it makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing they feel the same.  

I've have now become part of a lovely 'Blood Cancer Family' and have met some wonderful, brave, kind people.  I know it has come from something so terrible, but I am truly happy to have met every single one.  Everyday I think about how remarkable this is and wonder if I am the only one who thinks this way, some people probably think I am weird but it makes my heart happy.  And I guess it's the fighter in me telling me I have a lot to live for!

I took this pic after my appointment