Friday 9th February

No news here folks.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.

I'm going home today for the weekend... looking forward to seeing Roy. I'm just going to take my mum grocery shopping and then I'll head off. My sis/brother will look after her until Monday (that makes it sound like she's an invalid, which she isn't, but she is disabled with arthritis, and doesn't drive, so mainly needs a lift if she's going out).

Email to Prevention friends:
Just to let you know that my sister and I saw the doctor today and got some very bad news concerning my dad. I'm not going into detail, because my dad hasn't heard the news yet. That will happen next Tuesday. I have asked to be with him when he sees the doctor. I'm still at my mum's (and she's in and out of the room where I'm typing hence a quick note) but I'm popping home tomorrow to see Roy and sort some clothes out. I'll be back over here on Monday. We've told mum most of what the doc said but kept some of the info back until final tests confirm what the doctor told us. Thank you for all your prayers, thoughts, etc. so far and I will catch up again when I can. As you may gather just at this moment I have clicked into "practical" mode and am hoping to stay as strong next Tuesday. Wish me luck for that.

Comment added in May:
What happened on Friday 9th was that just before visiting Lorraine and I asked to see one of Dad's medical team. The nurse had to get Dad's permission - he was fine with it - and then she took us in to see Dr Samid. What a shock. Samid told us that in his opinion, they thought dad had cancer in his pancreas which had spread into the fatty lining around his stomach - however, they couldn't clinically prove it yet as they had no biopsy or positive test results - just scan results to go on.

We asked what the prognosis was. Samid said that it wasn't good - because the cancer had already spread, it was unlikely that Dad would be offered treatment (surgery was definitely not an option) and that in his experience, patients with this type of cancer tended to deteriorate quite rapidly. We asked how long. He said "months". He implied that it would happen quite quickly.

The nurse who'd come in with us asked if we wanted her to stay (after the doctor had gone) and we said yes please. She was lovely - we called her Nice Nicky after this day (not that the other Nicky wasn't nice, but this one was really good with us). She said that in her opinion the best thing to do in situations like this was to be open and honest (I think we'd been talking about how to handle things with mum and dad). She then commented that we were taking it all very well. At that point, Lorraine said "I'm not I'm going to start crying now" and promptly did. I said I had to control myself because I was about to go and visit Dad.
Tell you what - that was the longest and most horrible hospital visit I've ever done in my life.

After a few minutes we composed ourselves and went to Dad's bed. Mum was already there. (Lorraine, by the way, is lucky in that after crying her eyes clear up really quickly - mine stay red for hours!!). We just treated it like a normal visit and said to Dad that the doc had said the same as to him - i.e. more tests needed before deciding what was wrong. It was only a half lie. And in retrospect, I wouldn't change how we handled that - it wouldn't have helped Dad at all to know information that wasn't confirmed.

Half way through visiting my mind was wandering and I was struggling to concentrate on Dad's conversation - in fact I was looking at him and nodding but not hearing a thing. My mind was racing about what the doctor had told us.He then had to go somewhere (I forget where, maybe the loo) and while he was away mum said "It isn't good, is it?". We said no, but that we'd tell her after visiting. Dad came back and normal chit chat was resumed.

As we left the ward, it broke my heart to say goodbye to Dad and walk out of there knowing what I knew, and he didn't yet. I just about held it together for my mum, but I struggled. We got to the car and parked in a quiet corner of the car park, and there, we broke my mum's heart. The three of us cried and then drove home.