Results Day

I think I knew that results day wasn’t going to be great. I woke up feeling anxious and my mind racing, what if it’s cancer? How will we manage?  What’s going to happen to Lily? What will Janne do? Your mind races with all the what if questions and in my case, I start planning before I even know the outcome.  I decided to listen to the advice my Sister gave me and that was to not worry until I knew exactly what I was dealing with.  One of my best friends Caroline had also said to take each thing one step at a time, focus on the journey to the appointment (step 1); checking in (step2) and so on.  The same advice she had given me when I went to surgery.  It really works because you have to focus on each individual step rather than jumping ahead to step 10 and worrying about it before I’ve worked my way through all the other steps.

Instead that Monday morning we got up and went out to a garden centre, Janne’s nightmare! It was exactly what I wanted to do.  I had found that being out in the garden had helped a lot whenever I felt anxious.  I am not green fingered at all and have spent many hours nurturing plants and lovingly watering them only to discover I’ve been nurturing a weed, but this morning I felt the urge to go and pick out some new plants and then bring them home and potter around the garden to take my mind off things.  Wow I really am 40! Monday’s used to be student night at our local nightclub…1p entry with the coupon from the newspaper, I used to spend a Monday afternoon getting glittered up and lining my stomach…things had really moved on.

The garden had been a perfect distraction, so much so that I actually forgot to go to the appointment.  I saw Janne relaxing in the living room and asked him what time it was “coming up to 3pm!” he said calmly.  I won’t tell you what I said to this, but I shouted a word very loudly before brushing the soil off my jeans, grabbing my bag, and shouting at Janne to get in the goddamn car.  We had 15 minutes…it was doable but what I haven’t told you about my husband is that he is a sloth and it pretty much takes him 15 minutes to put on one shoe and then he has to check everything around the house. I ran across the driveway shouting “JANNE!!” and he hopped after me, his laces flying out behind him.  We would have made it on time but as is usually typical in these situations we ended up stuck behind a very cautious learner driver.  I ended up in a mess, the air-con blowing in my face to cool me down and Janne dialling ENT repeatedly trying to get through. 

I’m not sure what I looked like when I arrived, wind-swept, red in the face…to be honest mask wearing has actually become quite handy! I noticed my reflection in the lift and pulled out several leaves from my hair and a bit of grass. Thankfully everybody was really nice about it, they had to be really because my results were back, and I had Cancer.