Now where did leave you with the thrilling exploits of my entirely falling apart old body?
I'll skip to Thursday this week when Prof admitted that the earliest date that I could get a scan at St Georges, with sedative would be – next Monday. So a whole 8 days after the initial incident, exactly when i said 'i think we'll need to look for alternatives because if you don't do sedatives here, Im not at all confident that my back is going to play ball and be ready, whatever painkillers we throw at it'.
They clearly had done absolutely nothing to put this very sensible step in place, or even to make first enquiries, as the next thing was a call from Prof on Fri morning saying 'well, actually it's looking like we can't do it till Tuesday now'.
TUESDAY!!!!!!
WTF!!!!!
So – just the 9 DAYS after knowing that a scan with sedative would be required, this is the private sector's rapid response with all modern techniques available – a 9 bloody day wait! Compounded by whatever treatment would then be required, which would then make all it the less likely that our holiday could possible go ahead. And after all this, by god we could do with one.
So – in front of Prof, Hawksey gets on the phone and calls the guy who handled his last back meltdown (very well). Speaks to his PA who says she actually had a sitting down MRI herself, which are specially for people who either have bad backs (me) or terrible claustrophobia (not me, but I can understand it). Within HALF AN HOUR we had called BUPA, got it approved and I was booked for 6pm that evening. Ambulance sorted with nurse, tick tick tick. It's called Do It Your Bloody Self.
So – had it last night – all very easy, bit of a schlep on a Fri eve across to Tott Court Road area and first time I've been there on a weekend night in my slippers and jimjams, with two blankets over me granny-style. You sit in a padded chair, the sides squeeze in and the chair goes back (a touch of the Indiana Jones, I hope the roof doesn't close in at this point) – and they even stick a bit of Only Fools and Horses on the TV screen up on the wall to pass the 25 mins you're in there.
So today we got partial results – good news is that it doesn't seem to be either i) an operable thing or ii) a myeloma thing. Slightly wishy washy news is Prof thinks it might be a case of 'wait till it goes away' (well, guess what, I've had it a week and my chest pain is back as we've not completed the radiotherapy, my joints are very very sore and if you saw me trying to inch up the bed or reach hopelessly for the side lightswitch in tears of pain and frustration I suspect you'd also be asking 'Isn't there something else that can be done?'
I reckon we'll know more on Mon when it's been fully reported on and once we have sent it to Hawksey's back doc for a second opinion too. My guess hopefully is that it is a kind of inflamed disc which is also causing some of the arthritic pain. And that once treated it will enable me to have the rest of the radio sessions and get the sternum done too. But as ever, we will see.
Yours, bloody sore, gutted, angry, hurting and not quite her usual Scotty self – me x