4. Sid has left the building!

27th March: I learned I had cancer

27th April I learned all the cancer had been removed. Sid has gone.

(Oliver was my doctor at home!)

66 lymph nodes were harvested, none were cancerous. It’s a great day, only 1 month on.
I need chemo, blood vessels tested positive. We need to make sure Sid doesn’t have any cousins ready to make an appearance. However this is a good news day. I was expecting to need chemo, my results are still better than expected, and I am feeling lucky, elated, happy.

(Smiles it’s good news!!)

My surgeon said about 7 times at our meeting, u look amazing / u look so good / can’t believe how good u look, 3.5 weeks after major major surgery… and then he turned to my husband and said, u don’t look great though are u all right? It must have been tough for you? I didn’t mention I had applied bronzer that morning, and the glow wasn’t 100% natural!

(The reality was I was still needing to rest a lot. It was ok though I had company 😍)

I may have got a little over confident though. As the meeting came to a close I said, thank you so much to my surgeon, and said will we see each other again? He replied, Anna you are going to see me every 6 months for 5 years. Oh right, I said, well see u soon…

Maybe too positive then!

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger though right? I feel stronger than I did last month. I feel I have a body that is going to be able to fight what is thrown at it. I have learned a lot about cancer, and about myself. This has strengthened me.
There is no definitive ‘cancer is gone’ moment. Not for 5 years anyway. I am going to need to learn to live with this uncertainty, and I will.

Why do I feel this way? Because I spent the last month hoping my meeting would go like this, and I learned that hope beats all other emotions. Fear, anger, panic, devastation, grief, they can’t beat hope. On the darkest of days its hope that pulls you back up to breath (along with your loved ones). Knowing I have this in my arsenal makes me feel if a cousin of Sid rears its ugly head in the next 5 years, I will have hope with me, driving me forward and keeping me going.
I love hope. I feel I have undervalued this emotion for far to long!!