Being told you have cancer is a massive blow but what I found most challenging about that initial diagnosis is not what they are able to tell you but what they can’t yet confirm. For a control freak like myself who had prepared for bad news, all I needed was confirmation of the extent of what I had and a plan of action so that I could take that away and act on it. I have a long standing joke with my best friend about 5 point plans, we have made them for every life challenge either of us has faced, getting a boyfriend, getting rid of a boyfriend, what ever your challenge a 5 point plan will always help. What I needed now was the mother of all 5 point plans. I needed desperately to regain the control that I had lost the minute I heard the word “suspicious”.

I realised at the diagnosis appointment that, whilst the diagnosis itself was a devastating blow, it was also just the beginning of another phase of waiting and anxiety. My consultant couldn’t give me any certainty, he couldn’t tell me it would all be ok, he could only tell me that they had found cancer in my breast and one lymph node and they needed now to understand whether the cancer was anywhere else in my breasts and whether it was anywhere else in my body.

Whilst my consultant was very clear that he ‘wasn’t expecting’ to find it anywhere else. I now needed to have a CT scan of my whole body and an MRI scan of both of my breasts. I was reassured that these scans would be be done as quickly as possible but warned that getting them scheduled and obtaining the results may take some time. I would just need to wait for the appointments and results to come through. In the meantime, as my pathology results had shown I was oestrogen receptor positive, I was given Tamoxifen, a drug used in cancer treatment to block oestrogen activity which could be “carrying” the cancer. This would act as a safeguard whilst we waited for the scans and before the cancer could be removed.

The appointments came through quickly, CT scan on 16 September at my local General Hospital and an MRI back at the outpatients hospital where the breast clinic is located on 22 September (the day after my 49th birthday).

I arrived at the General Hospital early for my 9am scan. First challenge was to get my car parked somewhere it wasn’t going to get towed away. One of the few benefits of the pandemic is that hospital car parks (well at least those I visited) are not charging. Hurrah! one less thing to stress about. Judging by the significant volumes of traffic already parked on grass verges on the road approaching the hospital entrance, I thought my best bet was to head to the multi story car park.

I found myself physically ducking as I drove into the entrance. Slightly tight on headroom to say the least as I entered the darkness. I really wasn’t ready for the run the gauntlet challenge that awaited me. 8 levels of the narrowest tightest turns I’ve ever experienced in a car park. Every sensor on the car screaming at me each time I had to climb another floor, I just had to turn the steering wheel, close my eyes to the crazy amount of scrapes and paint I could see on the walls and barriers and hope for the best. Dan is going to kill me if I hit anything! cancer or no cancer. It started to dawn on me as I climbed higher and higher that the chances of me ever finding a space in this tower of terror were minimal and even if I did, the parking bays appeared to have been measured out to accommodate only the very smallest of vehicles, definitely not the gas guzzling hulk of an SUV I was driving. Even if I did manage to shoehorn myself into a space, I wasn’t sure I would ever get out of it. I started to sweat.

For a second I thought about just getting out of the car and abandoning it. I heard myself shouting out “I’ve got bloody cancer, I don’t need this stress” as I threw the keys to the ground and walked away. Thankfully I managed to keep my composure for one more floor, almost on the roof and I thought I could just see some spaces through the gaps in the concrete. Yes, spaces, I could see them…….. just beyond the sign that said “Staff parking only”.

Are you kidding me? Is this someone’s idea of a joke? I could see a couple walking towards me from the staff parking only area, they didn’t look like staff so I wound my window down. “Is it ok to park here?” I asked. Just as the man was about to respond the lady with him leant forwards and said. “We park here every week and haven’t got into trouble yet, it’s the only floor that ever has spaces”. She had no hair. Just a completely bald head with no eyelashes or brows. She was a cancer patient……..just like me.

Finally inside the hospital I found my way to imaging. I checked in with the receptionist taking care to stand behind the COVID lines on the floor, heating up nicely behind my mask. I was given a shopping basket and two gowns and was told to take them to a dressing cubicle and change down to my pants putting the first robe on front ways and the second backwards like a dressing gown, presumably to ensure that I didn’t give anyone a cheeky flash as I wandered back into the waiting room. With my modesty preserved by the layers of gown, I took a seat back in the waiting room and almost immediately my name was called by a cheerful male nurse who took me into a small room and fitted me up with a cannula through which they were going to inject a contrast during the scan. I hate needles and I really hate having needles in me for any period of time. I just want them to be out.

I was deposited back in the waiting room where I started to think about how many injections and blood tests I might have to have over the next year. Before I’d had time to think about it too much I got distracted by the other people socially distanced from me in the waiting room. A sweet looking elderly couple and a very poorly looking man in a wheelchair. He didn’t look good at all. That’s the worst thing about hospitals, they are full of sick people. I overheard the couple talking in hushed tones about how long they had been waiting, it was only 9.15am. How can people have already been waiting ages? What time did these two get here? (They probably arrived at 5am to get a space in the car park) The pandemic has meant that patients must attend hospital appointments on their own unless there are exceptional circumstances. I was glad that this lady was with her husband, he was extremely frail and struggling to hear, it broke my heart.

My lovely male nurse finally came back and whisked me off to A&E telling me I would be waiting hours for the CT scanner in imaging due to some complications with a patient they were currently looking at so we were going to use the scanner in A&E. I was extremely grateful for my double gown combination but rather less grateful for my lack of bra as we flew along corridor after corridor, past lots and lots of people. The quick way to A&E apparently. Once there he left me on a chair outside the scanning room.

On the other side of the corridor was a very poorly looking old lady in a bed, she was starring at me. I distracted myself by reading a poster on the wall reminding patients going in for scans that they needed to remove all jewellery. She was still staring at me. I panicked, I had taken off my watch and knew I could get my wedding band and engagement rings off but my eternity ring had been fitting very snuggly in lockdown. I gave it a tug but it wasn’t budging. I tried licking the finger (no easy task with a mask on) but still no joy. Why is she still starring at me? I spotted a water fountain so wandered over and held my finger under the water jet. It made no difference it was stuck fast and now with all the pulling my knuckle was red and throbbing. No chance whatsoever of getting it off now. Would they have to cut it off? Whist I was contemplating the likely outcome of my stuck ring, two porters arrived and wheeled away the lady in the bed. Where to who knows but it deprived her of her ring side view of my erratic finger antics.

I was called in by a nurse who looked about 15 and was taken into the scanning room. She told me straight away the ring was no problem as my arm wasn’t being scanned. Annoying! The scanning room looked like a space lab, clean and white and there in the centre was an ominous looking donut shaped scanner with a high narrow bed pointed into its centre. I was asked to climb up onto the bed and lie down on my back, easy enough I hear you say but surprisingly challenging climbing up high when your top layer of gown had been taken from you so very aware of my flashing potential and also trying to ensure the cannula in your arm didn’t get caught any where. I finally got into the right position. They moved my arm so that it was above my head and attached some tubes to the cannula. “Have you been warned about the effect of the contrast?” Asked the nurse. No, I said, “ Nothing to worry about, it can just make you feel as though you have wet yourself when it goes in”. Great! I clarified that it would just be a feeling rather than a reality. Thankfully that was the case.

The scanning didn’t take long. Reassuringly the staff all cleared the scanning room to take their seats in the control room safe from the killer rays I was going to be zapped with. They left me on my own with my mechanical donut friend who spoke to me as it whirred around my body. It told me when to hold my breath and when to release. It was strange thinking it was taking images of every bit of me. What could it see? Could the staff in the control room see my insides on screens in their secret room? Were they all talking about me, saying “oh look, poor woman, there is cancer everywhere”. Just as my imagination was starting to run really wild, the nurses voice told me over the tannoy that they were going to inject the contrast. Bit of a disappointment really, I did feel a slight warm sensation in my groin but nothing as dramatic as feeling as though I had wet myself.

The scanning was soon done and I was released and reunited with my shopping basket of belongings. I was told that results could take up to a week but my consultant would be in touch. I made my way back out of the rabbit warren of corridors, past wards and socially distanced queues of people waiting for blood tests, sanitised my hands for the 20th time that day and headed back to the car. One scan done, one more to go, but first, getting out of this god forsaken car park in one piece!

My MRI scan the following week was a similar experience without the car park horror. Another donut scanner and high bed to climb onto. The main difference was the amount of time the scanning took, over half an hour! And for that whole time I was laid on my front with my breasts rather unceremoniously dangling into two ready and waiting holes in the bed. As if that wasn’t enough, I had to enter the donut head first and keep my mask on throughout and on top of that I was given earplugs and a noise cancelling ear can headset which I was told would protect my ears from the scanning noise. Really? is it that loud? The nurse setting me up asked if there was a particular type of music I would like to be played into the headphones whilst being scanned. I felt massively under pressure, what sort of music does one choose in this situation? I went for broke, “surprise me” I said. Turned out it wouldn’t really have mattered what I said as the music was completely inaudible over the crazy grinding of the MRI scanner as it sliced and diced images of my breasts. I think I caught a bit of Titanium by David Guetta at one point, but I could have been mistaken.

Reunited with my clothes once more I made my way out of the hospital. So that’s it, scans all done. Nothing more I could do but wait for the results and keep everything crossed that my consultants expectations became a reality. I had been very good and not googled much since my diagnosis (I learned my lesson years ago when I self diagnosed systemic lupus when I actually had dermatitis) but one thing I had gleaned from the small amount of information I had read was that if the breast cancer was secondary, it was treatable but not curable.