Blog

#5 – Finding Out

7th Feb 2019 – We slept on the couch last night which was actually quite comfy for me, not so much for Anthony though! I managed to sleep on my side a bit which was a nice change and woke up feeling better than the last few days. Had a quiet day at home and then headed out to our friend’s house. I stayed with Emma and her gorgeous daughter Isla for the night while Anthony & Mika went out to watch their horse race. It was a really good night for both of us to be out and about feeling ‘normal’. Well, as normal as it can be for 32 year olds to have sleepovers 😂 Isla kept me very entertained and there was one moment where she decided she wanted to face plant the couch multiple times – which was absolutely hilarious! Unfortunately me laughing hysterically caused sooo much pain in my shoulder 😣 Had some panadol just before bed mostly for a headache and to help me sleep but otherwise felt pretty good today.

8th Feb 2019 – I posted a link to this blog on my Facebook page today and had so many lovely messages of support and positive vibes being sent my way! I did have a few people asking the same question of how I actually found out about having cancer so thought I would answer the question on here. It’s going to be a long post…

As I previously mentioned, I showed no symptoms of having bowel cancer. Late last year I had been overseas and when I got back I wasn’t feeling very well (flu like symptoms). So I went to the doctor and he said I just had a virus. He suggested I have a blood test in a few weeks time once the virus had completely cleared, to double check everything. So about a month later I had a blood test and it came back with a few concerns. I then had another blood test and an abdomen ultrasound and it was from those that the doctors could confirm I had cancer. I had a PET scan to show where the tumors were located and that highlighted my colon & liver. The next day I had a colonoscopy and the doctor found 1 polyp & 1 small cancerous tumor – both of which were removed during the procedure. I had been fasting all morning before the colonoscopy so was very hungry when I got out of surgery. I barely took a couple of bites of my sandwich before the nurse came running in telling me to stop eating because they want me to continue to fast! UGH!!! They figured they may as well get me straight in for a liver biopsy since I was already in hospital. I can’t fault the hospitals and doctors for being so prompt with everything because within a couple of hours I was being chauffeured from Peter Mac across to the Royal Melbourne Hospital for my liver biopsy. Because I had managed to sneak in a couple of bites of my sandwich, it unfortunately meant they couldn’t knock me out for the procedure, just gave me some pain killers instead. So I was completely awake for the biopsy 😮 I was given a local anaesthetic to numb the area and they took samples from 3 different sites on my liver. The first one just felt like a needle. The second one scared me with the sound of it as it reminded me of a nail gun going off – not nice. The third one hurt though and my heart rate dropped to 60bpm which worried the surgeon. They gave me some medication to increase it and waited until my blood pressure got back up to 100/65 before moving me to a bed for the night. I finally got to eat at 5.30pm but wasn’t allowed to get up and out of bed until 8.30pm that night. When I got up I did a few laps of the ward – very slowly – before settling back in bed for a night of tennis!