Waiting.....
Nobody really likes it do they? Waiting for a bus, waiting in a queue, waiting for exam results, waiting for your husband to empty the dishwasher; they all suck right? Well waiting for the biopsy results of your 8 month old baby's tumour is a whole different ball game. After 5 days of waiting, where one minute felt like an hour, an hour felt like a day, and a day felt like forever, my head was in overdrive heading to Belfast to hear what the consultant had to say. All that waiting had made every possible scenario and outcome to become blurred and overthought. I couldn't see past this. I couldn't see any light. I couldn't see a future. The word cancer does that to you. All that my eyes, my head and my heart could see and feel was pain, fear and uncertainty.
On the drive up I kept saying to myself please let it be benign. If its not, and it is cancer, please let it be a Wilms. Isn't that mad. When would you ever expect yourself to be praying for your child to have a certain type of cancer. But, I was. I was because I knew that of all the different types of kidney cancers there are, Wilms has the best prognosis with a success rate of 85% and it is treatable right here in Belfast. It is mad but in times like this you find yourself praying for the strangest of things.
When we arrived at the Royal Victoria Children's Hospital we had to make our way to the Hematology and Oncology department. As we followed the signs to find our way, every time I saw the word 'oncology' my stomach felt a little bit sicker. With every step I took I knew deep down that the tumour would not be benign. I knew we were getting closer and closer to having cancer invade our lives.
Once we arrived at the clinic we were introduced to our consultant and I realised that we had actually met him before on the ward. At that time though we had never really taken in who he was or what part he would actually play in Maisie's care, but we were about to learn just how vital his input was going to be. Once the introductions and pleasantries were over he revealed that he had the results of the biopsy. It was what they had expected. The tumour was not benign and they found 3 different cells which are representative of a Wilms tumour. It was confirmed, definite, my baby had cancer. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. The word was circling around my head and I hate it. I hate this word. I hate what this word stands for, what it represents, the fear that it provokes. But it was there in front of us, knocking on our door. Our consultant followed this up by saying that the results of the MRI were also in and it shows that the tumour was isolated meaning that it had not spread to any other organs and that her right kidney was also untouched and appeared healthy. At the time this didn't make much difference to how I felt but over time these have become the silver linings that we cling to when we are feeling the full pain of this situation.
Our consultant asked us if we wanted to see the MRI images and when we looked I honestly couldn't believe what we were seeing. My eyes were automatically drawn to this large black shadow which looked so alien and so harrowing. It was covering the left side of my baby's body, pushing up her kidney and squashing it around the shape of the tumour, it was spilling over her mid line and shadowing the image of her spine and squashing her stomach and bowel. It was so difficult to see and so bewildering to imagine how this happened. We were told that it is likely the tumour grew from immature cells which were involved in the development of the kidneys while Maisie was in the womb. So it is likely to have been there this whole time, growing as she grew. Invading and taking over her little body as it found the space to spread. All the tears that Maisie has cried since she has been born sprang to mind. All those times where she spent endless hours crying where there was no definitive reason or explanation for it made my heart ache. Has this been the cause of those tears all this time? All those grunts, groans, squeals and sleepless nights? Has she been suffering all along? My heart was sore. Heavy. Broke.
It was explained to us that the treatment plan would consist of 4 weeks of chemotherapy and followed by surgery to remove both the tumour and kidney. There would then be follow up treatment of between 4 and 32 weeks of chemo and possible radiotherapy depending on the final pathology report and staging of the tumour. I couldn't take it in.
Leaving the hospital that day I just thought, how is this now our life? In one short week, just 7 days, our lives had been completely turned upside down. I had gone from worrying about leaving my baby to return to work to worrying about how I was going to find the strength to help my baby girl fight CANCER.
Wendy.
Nobody really likes it do they? Waiting for a bus, waiting in a queue, waiting for exam results, waiting for your husband to empty the dishwasher; they all suck right? Well waiting for the biopsy results of your 8 month old baby's tumour is a whole different ball game. After 5 days of waiting, where one minute felt like an hour, an hour felt like a day, and a day felt like forever, my head was in overdrive heading to Belfast to hear what the consultant had to say. All that waiting had made every possible scenario and outcome to become blurred and overthought. I couldn't see past this. I couldn't see any light. I couldn't see a future. The word cancer does that to you. All that my eyes, my head and my heart could see and feel was pain, fear and uncertainty.
 |
| The smile of being blissfully unaware of what was ahead. |
On the drive up I kept saying to myself please let it be benign. If its not, and it is cancer, please let it be a Wilms. Isn't that mad. When would you ever expect yourself to be praying for your child to have a certain type of cancer. But, I was. I was because I knew that of all the different types of kidney cancers there are, Wilms has the best prognosis with a success rate of 85% and it is treatable right here in Belfast. It is mad but in times like this you find yourself praying for the strangest of things.
When we arrived at the Royal Victoria Children's Hospital we had to make our way to the Hematology and Oncology department. As we followed the signs to find our way, every time I saw the word 'oncology' my stomach felt a little bit sicker. With every step I took I knew deep down that the tumour would not be benign. I knew we were getting closer and closer to having cancer invade our lives.
Once we arrived at the clinic we were introduced to our consultant and I realised that we had actually met him before on the ward. At that time though we had never really taken in who he was or what part he would actually play in Maisie's care, but we were about to learn just how vital his input was going to be. Once the introductions and pleasantries were over he revealed that he had the results of the biopsy. It was what they had expected. The tumour was not benign and they found 3 different cells which are representative of a Wilms tumour. It was confirmed, definite, my baby had cancer. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. The word was circling around my head and I hate it. I hate this word. I hate what this word stands for, what it represents, the fear that it provokes. But it was there in front of us, knocking on our door. Our consultant followed this up by saying that the results of the MRI were also in and it shows that the tumour was isolated meaning that it had not spread to any other organs and that her right kidney was also untouched and appeared healthy. At the time this didn't make much difference to how I felt but over time these have become the silver linings that we cling to when we are feeling the full pain of this situation.
Our consultant asked us if we wanted to see the MRI images and when we looked I honestly couldn't believe what we were seeing. My eyes were automatically drawn to this large black shadow which looked so alien and so harrowing. It was covering the left side of my baby's body, pushing up her kidney and squashing it around the shape of the tumour, it was spilling over her mid line and shadowing the image of her spine and squashing her stomach and bowel. It was so difficult to see and so bewildering to imagine how this happened. We were told that it is likely the tumour grew from immature cells which were involved in the development of the kidneys while Maisie was in the womb. So it is likely to have been there this whole time, growing as she grew. Invading and taking over her little body as it found the space to spread. All the tears that Maisie has cried since she has been born sprang to mind. All those times where she spent endless hours crying where there was no definitive reason or explanation for it made my heart ache. Has this been the cause of those tears all this time? All those grunts, groans, squeals and sleepless nights? Has she been suffering all along? My heart was sore. Heavy. Broke.
It was explained to us that the treatment plan would consist of 4 weeks of chemotherapy and followed by surgery to remove both the tumour and kidney. There would then be follow up treatment of between 4 and 32 weeks of chemo and possible radiotherapy depending on the final pathology report and staging of the tumour. I couldn't take it in.
Leaving the hospital that day I just thought, how is this now our life? In one short week, just 7 days, our lives had been completely turned upside down. I had gone from worrying about leaving my baby to return to work to worrying about how I was going to find the strength to help my baby girl fight CANCER.
Wendy.
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