Here’s Hoping

I realise that I haven’t been keeping up posts, and this is a wish for the New Year and an explanation.

My wish for 2025 is that I’ll live. My wish for 2025 is that we ALL live, have better lives, more climate-change-reversing actions slowing down the catastrophic course the planet’s on, and my wish for 2025 is that it’s the year we wake up to the fact that money is a made-up fantasy that’s slowly been embedding itself into our lives and cultures and taking the place of empathy, love for one another, and the worth we attach to others.

My wish for 2025 is that the node in my lung is totally curable and I join my wife in the remission club, and that we both stay in that club for a long loving life together. I’m crying as I write this, last year around Christmas I was going on 3-4 hour commutes every day to visit my beautiful partner in hospital while they diagnosed her lymphoma and started her on a several months long course of very unpleasant chemotherapy and she still really needs support as her body undergoes the several-years-long process of undoing the damage that chemotherapy has made to her body and immune system, and may be quite unable to provide that support as I may be undergoing my own stressful time soon.

My story is that a CT scan found a node on my right pleura (lining between the lung and ribcage) which may be sinister, and caused some fluid between the lung and pleura that made me more short of breath than usual. On the 5th I went to a nearby hospital to see if they could take a sample of the fluid that might have given some clue as to what was happening, but it was unsuccessful.

Then on the 12th I went to a major surgical hospital to have some preparatory tests and a surgery to drain the fluid, re-attach the pleura, and take a biopsy of the node. Five days turned into seven days – just to get an x-ray and PET scan, and lung function test followed by the actual surgery. But at the 11th hour almost, the surgery scheduled for the 20th was bumped on the Thursday, and I was able to come home for three days before booking back in for the surgery on Monday 23rd, 09:30.

As per instructions I booked back in on Sunday, got myself ready for the surgery in the morning – and got bumped once more to 13:00 . . .

But – finally – I was in Theatre and then out and then Kerry and her sister came to see me in recovery – and I still didn’t (and don’t) know what is going on.

One day to remove the drain catheters and observe me, and on the 25th I was (sort of) discharged but without much paperwork to show for it, but hey at least I was home with Kerry and the SiL and the cats who are still checking every few hours to make sure I haven’t disappeared again.

At this moment I can only say what I said above for certain, I still don’t know a damn thing about what’s actually lurking in my chest. But I’m convinced that if it had been a more life / death issue I wouldn’t have had a five day stay dragged out into more than three weeks as it has been. There’s hope. And I feel well, so that also gives hope.

I’ll see you on the other side of this annumutatio!

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