Read Online The Cancer Survivors Club by Chris Geiger - Free Book Online Page B

finally diagnosed with bowel cancer. At last I was going to get the treatment needed to free me from my weak, painful and exhausted body.
    My consultant said how pleased she was that she’d persuaded me to have another colonoscopy, but more worryingly went on to say she’d found a cancerous tumour. She looked up from her notes for a response to see someone who felt like they’d just been punched. Yet, by the end of our meeting, I left the consulting room feeling strangely relieved. I think, looking back now, I was obviously in shock. I remember the feeling subsiding to leave a sense of bewilderment and confusion. While going through my treatment, I once asked a Macmillan nurse if I was going to die, the words spilling out while crying. I now recognize it was just a release of built-up emotion. I never really believed I would die; not from cancer anyway. I credit my strong mental attitude as one of the biggest reasons I survived, enabling me to tell my story.
    Anyway, to start, I need to go back to before I was even diagnosed. I was first aware I was ill because I ached so much. My limbs continually hurt and I felt breathless from any kind of exertion. I’d been experiencing these various problems for around eighteen months. My family had a history of ‘funny guts’, as my grandfather called it. He is in his seventies and had bowel cancer, not that there was anything to suggest I did too. I wondered if I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The aches and breathlessness were eventually attributed to severe anaemia.
    After a blood test, I was admitted to hospital and received four pints of blood. For a while, my life was almost on hold but the transfusion made me feel fantastic; within just a few hours, I felt recharged and able to enjoy my life again.
    A few months later, I met a lovely man who is now my husband and, after a whirlwind romance, fell pregnant. There was then a sudden and distressing death in my family when I was just twelve weeks pregnant, which shocked all of us. During this stage of my pregnancy, I started feeling unwell again. I simply put my pain and tiredness down to the stress of the bereavement and being pregnant.
    As time passed, I focused on just how happy my life was going to be, dismissing all the physical problems; I was pregnant after all. My brother and his girlfriend soon learnt they were also going to have a baby, which added to my excitement. I assumed all the unhappy sad times were behind me and hoped my pregnancy was the start of a new and exciting chapter in my life.
    After a routine blood test, it was discovered I was anaemic, so I was given iron injections, which is nothing unusual during pregnancy. Yet what was peculiar was I wasn’t gaining much weight. However, despite all my worrying and various problems, my beautiful baby boy was born, and we named him Freddie. He had been born prematurely and was therefore very small. He arrived like he always does – quickly and the wrong way round. Even though he was tiny, at 4lb 6oz, he was perfect and required no special care. His mummy did need extra attention though. While I was learning to breast feed, I was also receiving yet more units of blood.
    Eventually, we all left hospital and I guess we looked like all new parents in those first mad but amazing sleep-deprived weeks. I couldn’t believe that I’d created such a beautiful perfect baby. Freddie was here, he was ours and he was terrific. However, I continued feeling really quite poorly.
    Every two weeks or so, I’d have a blood test and would then be admitted to hospital for another blood transfusion. Mum would keep me company and occupy Freddie. This also allowed Wayne to work and earn a much-needed income to allow us to lead a relatively normal life. I’d lie in a hospital bed while a slow trickle of life-renewing blood went into my poorly and rapidly disappearing veins. I was breast feeding Freddie and changing his wet nappies; I was