More results...

28th February, 2008
So, getting used to the waiting game now. Just got to try and keep myself occupied and not dwell on the possible results to come. The results that could change my life. My husband has some time off work to look after me after my operation, it's quite a revelation that I need help. My mom and sister also come and stay after the op and I'm trying hard not to shout at anyone. I'm dying to say, "I don't usually do it like that..." but manage to bite my tongue and keep schtum. I really appreciate their help and don't want to fall out with them over something so trivial.

So, about a week after my last operation and I'm relishing the fact that I've got the house to myself. Bliss. Beginning to get used to my own company, I'm not so scared of being on my own now with my thoughts. Just waking up after a lie-in..... the phone's ringing downstairs. Damn. I rush downstairs and answer 'Private' number.... this is the hospital - it's got to be bad news.

It's Mrs Carmichael. "Are you sitting down?" she asks. I do as I'm told. I stumble into my lovely gorgeous pink living room and look around at my perfect home and wonder why on earth she's ringing me at home. My world is going to be shattered, my life turned upside down even more than it already is. A million thoughts run through my mind in a split second.

"It's good news honey!!" she exclaims, "Your lymph nodes are all clear, the operation also showed clear margins. It's such good news I really wanted to tell you as soon as I knew so you could relax and have a lovely weekend."

I can't believe it, my results were the best I could have ever hoped and prayed for. No more operations, no more worrying whether the cancer has spread or not - it's gone from my breast and has been gone, cut out of me since the first operation. I can hardly believe it! I sit in a stunned silence for what seems like an age. I've got to tell my husband, I ring him on his work phone. No answer, I try again, no answer. I hope he doesn't think there's anything really wrong with me. Finally get through - "Everything's all clear!!!!" I shout down the phone to him. How much joy can one set of results bring! It's made the wait all worth it now.

I'm so thankful for the simple kind act of that phone call my consultant made that day. It felt like from then on there might be a chance I can get through this trauma, this assault on my body. She tells me there's still some other stuff to discuss in my outpatients appointment next week, but it can't all be that bad now.

I'm ready now. Ready for anything this cancer can throw at me. My body has saved me so far. It's produced a lump in a place I would notice it so I knew there was something wrong. It's also got through these two operations and healed my scarred breast. It has kept going, kept fighting this when others might have given up. I have to maintain the faith that it will not let me down, no matter what gets thrown at us from now on.