Week One - LFG

So, where on earth do you start?

On Thursday 9th September I was diagnosed with Lymphoma; a cancer of the lymph nodes. 

I am 32 years old and, despite a penchant for M&S Extremely Chocolatey Mini Bites, have ran four marathons and am generally fit and healthy. 

So yeh, not good. 

In the past, I have written about the challenge of running my first marathon, which I found not only to be useful motivation but something to break down such a daunting task in to relatively manageable parts. So it made sense to do something similar here.

It's probably also worth noting I am something of a Pandora's Box when it comes to speaking about how I am feeling, so in this case, that sort of outlet is probably very worthwhile. 

Do you want to know the most maddening thing at the moment? I feel completely normal. I feel fine. I went for a run this morning! But it has become clear that a storm is coming and that is what I need to get ready for.

So, how did we get here?

Early this year I developed a spotty-sort-of-rash on my legs that was often very itchy and soon quite visible. After going through the normal creams and remedies without much luck, I had a phone conversation with the GP who thought it might be folliculitis based on a few photos. So he prescribed me some steroid cream and some antibiotics. A few weeks of that brought minimal change and I just sort of shrugged it off for a bit.

A little while later I contacted the GP again and was seen by a different doctor who actually saw me in person (which felt like entering a military lab in the midst of the Cold War at the time), and she went through a series of possible causes over a few appointments - including scabies(!) which sounded unlikely. I started having blood tests which showed small signs that I was fighting infection but it was unclear what was causing it.

The GP actually went through the symptoms of lymphoma at this point and asked which I had. Fatigue? No. Weight loss? No. Loss of colour in skin? No. Itchy? Yeh, sure. Night sweats? I wouldn't say so no - but hell, it was during that streak of summer in July when it felt like we were living on Mars, of course I was a bit sweaty at night.

After several rounds of blood tests and different potions and lotions, my GP recommended a chest and abdomen x-ray which sounded completely bizarre at the time, but ok. This came back to say my abdomen, heart and lungs were fine - but there was something they wanted to have a look at in further detail. 

*ALARM BELLS*

So, shortly after that I was having a CT scan in a what wasn't a million miles away from a shipping container in the car park at Derby Hospital. Now, for those of you who haven't had a CT scan before, they strap you up and inject warm dye in to your veins so they can see it flow throughout the body. All well and good, but it makes you feel like you've wet yourself. So that was fun.

A week or so later I received a dreaded call from the GP surgery and was told something had shown up on the scan and I was to be referred to the haemotology specialist.

Shit.

Up until this point, I had convinced myself that my admittedly flared up glands in my neck were a result of my second Covid vaccine, having initially blown up after my first jab. It felt like a rational explanation whilst I showed no signs of the other symptoms for something more serious.

The haemotology specialist is quite wonderfully named Dr Lala. Evie and I went to see her and left the appointment feeling encouraged and in good hands. For the doctor to know exactly what was happening, she needed a biopsy to be taken from the swollen lymph node in my neck, just above my collarbone on my right side. 

I wasn't wildly enamoured by the prospect of the biopsy but needs must. Thankfully, it was explained, this was the lesser invasive route and could be performed by keyhole. What they didn't say was the implement used was essentially a hammer with a massive needle on the end. Despite local anaesthetic I felt elements of the process (it took three great wallopings to get the sample), and combined with the room about 300'c in the depths of the hospital with no windows or air con, my blood pressure fell off a cliff and I very much flirted with fainting. I was rolled out on a bed to a recovery area and spent twenty minutes or so getting back to normal amongst people far sicker than me.

Gingerly, I went home, complaining of how painful it was. Yet alas, there was no bruising so I felt like a bit of a fraud. A bruise developed over the next few days to prove that I wasn't being a hypochondriac on this occasion and for a week or two, I went about my business trying not to think about it too much.

Back to Lala we went last week, and by then I had sort of convinced myself that there had been too much smoke for there not to be a fire of some sort. Whether I was looking for hints of the impending bad news or not, the sky being about to burst with rain and even the way she closed the door once we were in her office felt ominous.

And so it was; whilst further investigations would be required to confirm the exact type and therefore the treatment plan, she was certain it was lymphoma. 

I always thought that when news like this landed it would be followed by the corners closing in, the world imploding around you. Bar a ten second stretch or so when the doctor left the room for a moment and my eyes began to fill up, I was ok. This isn't me putting on faux bravado, more a sign of where I had got to mentally with it. 

Too much smoke. 

So, what next? Well, the doctor was 95% certain of which type it was which has a 90% cure rate and is very treatable. I need to have a further, more invasive biopsy to literally go in and chop off one of the nodes so it can be analysed in greater detail, and then on 5th October I will return to see Dr Lala and she will lay out the treatment plan for me which will be chemotherapy. Oh, and I have also been referred to a fertility clinic too, as a back up just in case the little fellas get fritzed by the treatment. 

So, yeh. Pretty bloody awful news. But what can you do other than stand up, puff your chest out, stare it right back in the eye and be positive. So let's fucking go.

From this moment on I won't be saying the C word, I'm not giving it the pleasure. I know it will get ropey in a few weeks and my positivity might waiver when the treatment truly kicks in - but Evie, my friends and family have been incredible since the diagnosis (six days ago as I write this) so bring it on. Let's fucking go.

I'm sharing my story mainly as I said as a vehicle for me to get it all out, but I have found that it helps people to understand too a little bit more. I am as naïve as they come when it comes to things like this, and in the past I haven't known what to say or ask. Like literally, what do you say?! But hopefully this helps people understand the process that I am going through and that I will beat this, I will be ok. The last thing I want is for people to treat me like I am contagious or half the person I used to be? I'll beat this, we're just approaching the tricky bit of the marathon when it hurts like hell but you know it will be worth it if you can just keep going.

So come with me, lets not take this bollocks. Stare it in the eye and not back down.

Let's fucking go.