Put those hedge trimmers away...

(First Published August 16th 2022)

I appreciate that my blogs are a bit self-indulgent. For me, I guess, that’s the point. I find putting my thoughts into words takes away some of the stress and worry… so I’ll come straight to the point. To cut a fairly short story shorter…

My cystoscopy today showed no evidence of Cancer.

Those of you who’ve bothered to read this far are now politely excused. For my own benefit I’m going to prattle on a little longer to try and get the previous week into some sort of perspective.

Today is a good day! It is my 24th Wedding Anniversary. I was only at work for three and a half hours plus I’ve had the Hospital Appointment that has caused me more distress than any other and come away with the best possible result.

I arrived at the Princess Royal Hospital early for my appointment as parking mid afternoon can be almost impossible due to visiting hours, and found a space immediately. This is almost unheard of at any time of day and I’m used to going around the whole Hospital complex at least two or three times before finding somewhere to park. I went to the Urology Department reception and apologised for being early and was ushered straight through to don my gown. Ten minutes later I was all done and I was home five minutes before the time of my actual appointment.

I am quite au fait with the inside of my urethra as this is the eighth time I’ve had this procedure done but I was paying closer attention than normal today. All good, all healthy apart from one of the ducts which was more open than normal. The Urologist said he thought that this was probably the source of the bleeding and may have been a mild infection. Apparently the chance of infections in this area is raised slightly as there is no longer a flushing effect provided by a regular urine stream.

So my gut feeling was wrong. I have never been happier to be wrong (and I am wrong on a regular basis.) Unexpected blood can be a great leveller. It was unexpected blood that, thankfully, had me seeking medical advice back in early 2019. There have been a couple of occasions where I have had unexpected blood in my stoma bag and the urine was the colour of Rosé wine. Again, my initial reaction was one of horror and worst case scenarios. The explanation on these occasions was far less sinister. The blood wasn't coming from my kidneys or my new internal plumbing, it was coming from the stoma itself which is full of tiny blood vessels so the lightest knock can cause bleeding. So have I been overreacting? I don't think so. If I had ignored the symptoms back in 2019 it is possible that I wouldn't be here now, and if I was it is highly likely that I would be in a far worse state both physically and mentally than I am now.

There has been a cost. I have had my nearest and dearest thinking the worst for the past week, all based on my wrong assumptions. Perhaps I should have kept quiet and waited for today's checks before announcing my symptoms and false diagnosis. For that, I can only apologise. From my initial diagnosis I have wanted to be as open and honest as possible about my experience with Cancer and this latest chapter has taught me that my calm, rational mind has, perhaps, taken more of a beating over the past three years than I have been prepared to admit. 

The fact that my recent rantings may have been a false alarm doesn't change my feelings over the past nine days though and I have found this episode of 'non cancer' almost harder to deal with than my episodes 'with cancer.' However, a cloud has been lifted and I miraculously feel better than I did yesterday and, as always, am immensely grateful to our wonderful bruised and battered NHS.

Here's hoping that there are no more blogs for a while…