I know what you're going to say ...It's only November!It was Halloween five minutes ago!You need locking up woman!And maybe I do, but where's the fun in that. So here it is, Chloe's first "It's only the middle of November and you're mad you are Christmas Tree".
You never forget your first Christmas tree or at least I didn't forget mine. It was tiny, about two foot tall and all the decorations and lights were permanently attached to it so 'putting up the Christmas tree' for me meant taking it out of the box, demangling the branches a little and plugging it in. Not much I know, but it was mine and I was the boss of that tree. It stayed in the box in the bottom of my wardrobe and it was up to me when I put it up in my room, usually the middle of November.I can't in all honestly take any credit for Chloe's tree though. My mum first mentioned it a week or so ago that she was going to keep an eye out for a little fibre optic tree she could keep in her bedroom and Robert remembered the spare one we had in the roofspace.The spare one was my first Christmas tree, I was 17 and working in a job that paid a pittance. I walked to work for two weeks instead of taking the bus so that I could buy that tree. When we moved from Belfast to this house and I bought The Biggest Tree Ever™ I just didn't have the heart to get rid of the old one.So now it's Chloe's tree, even if it is seven years older than her already.
Robert even took her out last week to pick the decorations for it, pink and purple tinsel and a stack of resin decorations, plus a few of my own. The little wooden nutcracker decorations are the set I bought 12 years ago:) You'll notice though that Robert being Robert, he couldn't resist wrapping up one of her stocking fillers and putting it under the tree to torture her.Do you think she'll still remember her first tree when she's my age? I hope so.
Sorry, I'm just crashing through quickly because I've a stack to do and it'll be tomorrow before I have any real details, but my dad was at hospital this morning to get the results of his biopsy. He had the operation last Tuesday to remove the tumour, it didn't go exactly according to plan in that it should have taken 90 minutes, but ended up taking closer to 4 hours to complete the surgery and he's been in an awful amount of pain since then, but anyway ..... he went to the hospital this morning and his doctor told him that they had tested 24 nodes and he's in the clear, the tumour wasn't aggressive and he won't have to go through chemotherapy.It's the best news we could possibly have hoped for and his doctor even said that it will be ok for him to travel too. My mum and dad had booked a holiday earlier this year and planned to fly out on 22 September and now they'll still be able to go, of course he'll need to take it easy but if anything his doctor thinks it will do him good.He'll still need to have the usual checkup every two years, but for now everything is on the up:)
Well we've at least had some good news today.My dad had originally been told earlier in the week that he would have a CT scan taken of his chest on Thursday, now obviously that didn't happen yesterday and he was told that he would be discharged today and that there wouldn't be any urgency in having the scan done immediately and that it could be done at a later date at the outpatients dept. My mum wasn't particularly happy about this and lets just say she made the poor doctor aware of her feelings. Anyway, when my mum arrived at the hospital this morning to go through everything with the oncology nurse and bring my dad home, he wasn't in bed and it took her a while to find a nurse who knew where he was. Yep, off having the CT scan.The good news is that the scan showed his chest to be completely clear and so far the only signs of cancer in his lower torso is that one large tumour. My mum and dad were sat down with the oncology nurse (who I'm told is absolutely brilliant) and she talked them through everything, they were admittedly a bit concerned about waiting five weeks now for the surgery, but the nurse called the surgeon who will be operating on my dad in and he assured them that the surgery would take place sooner than this.My mum said they felt 100x better after speaking to the nurse, she explained that this type of cancer starts as a polyp which becomes cancerous and continues to grow at a very slow rate and it can often remain undetected for as long as ten years. The reason most people are referred to hospital because of this cancer is because they need blood tests for some other reason and their blood count is low. The only other symptom which it seems to cause is the odd bout of deli belly, and sod's law hasn't my dad tried a couple of new fast food places in the last few years and been on that Liverpool ferry more than once! You just wouldn't connect the two, would you?The surgery will still be major, in the majority of cases it can be removed by keyhole surgery and all being well my dad's will be no different although he will have half his upper bowel, appendix, nodes and some tissue removed. Then the nodes will be tested, if they're clear then so is he, but if they contain any cancerous cells he will have to have a course of chemotherapy.It doesn't feel quite so up in the air now and we feel like we've at least half an idea of what to expect over the next few months. It's going to be difficult but the cancer is very treatable, and we can prepare ourselves now and just get through it one day of it at a time.
I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone for all your thoughts and prayers over the past few days.We've just received the results of my dad's biopsy and unfortunately it has confirmed our worst fears.My dad has cancer and it would seem judging by the results that he has has this tumour hiding like a coward inside him now for the past 3 to 5 years.I just can't believe this, he's only 43 and although I've done nothing but break my heart since the doctor told us a huge part of me just can't comprehend it at the minute. I'm still in some way convinced that they're wrong ...He is being discharged from hospital tomorrow morning following some discussions with his consultant and some nurses who will help provide support and advice. He will have to have an operation in three weeks time to remove the tumour and then the chemo will start. His doctor has basically said that the cancer is at such a stage and the operation itself will be very stressful and he feels that waiting a few more weeks won't make any difference and he would prefer that my dad take it easy and try and build his strength and that the best place to do this is at home.I know it's going to be alright though. My dad is young and strong and he'll fight this. He's been putting up a decent enough fight against it for the past 3 years at least without even realising it and now he knows it's there, the cancer doesn't stand a chance!
I only get one option seeing as I'm at home all day with Chloe. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at the whole stiff upper lip thing. It's difficult though, I keep thinking that the next time I see my mum break down openly or stare out a window crying silently, hoping that nobody can see, it will get the better of me and I'll crumble.My dad was admitted to hospital yesterday morning. He had hurt himself in work on Saturday evening and everything about it played out like your typical pulled muscle.He'd been pulling one of those large bread trollies (you've seen them in supermarkets only these are too big to see around so they have to be pulled rather than pushed) and he got a sudden pain in his groin. He figured he'd pulled a muscle as it continued to throb and he was in pain, but not so much pain that it kept him off his feet. His boss sent him home from work at about 10pm and later that night a fever started to set in during the night. My mum found him curled up on the sofa early on Sunday morning under blankets, wearing jumpers and a woolly hat and still he shivered. He still refused to see a doctor, saying that he wasn't going to be laughed out of a doctor's surgery for going in with a pulled muscle. After another awful night on Sunday he finally gave in and went to his gp on Monday morning.His gp immediately referred him to the hospital with suspected internal bleeding. He was admitted to a ward shortly after arriving at hospital and given a ct scan which showed a growth or thickening in his bowel. We now have to wait until Thursday when a biopsy can be carried out and the rest of his bowel can be checked for any more growths to determine whether the growth is benign or malignant and what exactly has caused it. After that he'll need to have an operation to have it removed.And now it's just a matter of waiting and trying to carry on ...
