I was supposed to get my pathology results on Thursday, but instead they arrived on Friday. I understand that while the Drs probably saw the result, and thought that since it came back clear, there was no urgent need to tell me to book in for more surgery etc, as the "patient" and since it's my body, I would like to be informed in a timely manner that I no longer have detectable cancer cells where my adenocarcinoma used to be!
Anyhow, with that news now [eventually] received I cannot express the relief.
I've been at work full time throughout the process, minus a few days post surgery each time, partly because it's a good distraction from what's happening. At work on Friday afternoon, after receiving the good news, I was half laughing at myself because every time it struck my mind I got this uncontrollable urge to start crying. At least my desk faces a window/ corner, and not other staff.
I can imagine how that conversation would go (if seen crying by colleagues):
" Oh are you ok?!"
"Yes, actually... yes I am!"
*other staff dismiss as completely insane*
I think it's just that the "what if"s have been spinning through my head and weighing heavily for so many months now, and I've been trying to hard to hold it all together: continue as normal, work, talk to people like a normal human being, not show what's going on -because I really didn't know, and the pressure of having to explain it to others might just tip me off the brink of "coping" down the other side (great sentence there I know, but I can't be bothered fixing it). And now all that is over, so the flood gates open.
There have been so many times where I've wanted to say something, scream at people, cry or go catatonic for a while. One situation was that a colleague was talking about her personal challenges trying to have another baby by IVF (her first two children were conceived by IVF as well). Comments like "last time they implanted two embryos and one didn't take, so to us, as Christians, that's a soul- it's the same as losing a baby, even though our one beautiful healthy daughter was born... and now other other embryos we had from that cycle have been deemed not viable, so we've lost 5 more children.".
Oh how much I would have loved to tell her to go jump- that I was possibly about to lose my uterus and any possibility of having children, and/or possibly even my own life when she already has two kids, a happy family and... and... just STFU with your self-centred whinging will you! I won't even get into the irrationality of the religious aspect of her "suffering" (today)!
It's funny how you can even feel like your cancer isn't bad enough/ good enough to warrant sympathy. The other day a friend announced she's now successfully in remission a year after having a brain tumour removed.... two days before I got my diagnosis. While I have been very fortunate to not have gone through radio or chemotherapy- just two surgeries to remove the cancer- I wouldn't say it's been easy or insignificant, yet I felt that compared to her, what I've been through is nothing and perhaps I shouldn't be celebrating my recovery as much as hers, or I'm less entitled to feel such elation perhaps.
All I know is it's probably a different experience for everyone, and I'm glad it's over for now.
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