So… I’ve got a tumour.
(Not clickbait. Unfortunately. There is, however, a TL;DR at the end!)
Last year, I started a new medication for a Proper Medical Thing™.
Nothing scandalous, but serious enough to need treatment. The meds come with side effects, so they check your liver and kidneys monthly to make sure you don’t suddenly... explode or something.
One week in, I had my first routine blood test.
Far too soon for the medication to have caused any damage, but my liver results came back flagged. Hard.
So they ordered an ultrasound.
I had it on New Year’s Eve, because of course I did. Nothing says festive like “lie down and lift your top.”
“There’s a lesion in your liver.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking about how fast I could get back to the office.
“There’s a lesion in your liver…”
“Okay…”
I didn’t ask what it meant. I was just trying to work out if I was going to have enough time in the office before we went home for New Year’s Eve to finish my tasks. (Spoiler: I did.)
Then the GP called, as soon as the surgery reopened.
He was ordering a CT scan.
“There’s a lesion in your liver,” he said again.
This time, I heard it.
The pause.
The weight.
The something.
So I Googled it.
Pro tip: never Google it.
Apparently, “lesion” is the medical word for “we’ve found a thing and we don’t know what it is, but we’re all going to be very calm and order more scans.”
So I waited.
I joked with some of the Fitness Tribe gang that if they had to take out part of my liver, I’d at long last lose some weight.
Eventually, I had the CT scan.
If you haven’t had one with contrast, let me inform you: when they say “You’ll feel like you’ve peed yourself,” it really does feel like you’ve peed yourself.
Weirdly, I rather enjoyed it.
At some point, the radiologist took a look and apparently decided my liver was far too interesting to ignore.
“Needs further investigation,” they said.
So my GP, who is calm, steady, and not one to escalate unnecessarily, booked me in for an MRI.
And referred me to Milton Keynes Hospital. I was now on the two-week urgent referral pathway.
Oh yes. This was serious now.
The team saw me within two weeks.
Not in a “let’s get cracking” sort of way. More of a:
“Hi, we just wanted to confirm you are indeed still a person. Yes? Fab. Okay, have your MRI and then go wait again.”
So I had the MRI with contrast.
(Which, by the way, is not as delightful as the CT. 2/10. Do not recommend. It wasn’t the noise, or the fact I was in the machine for about two hours, holding my breath, then not holding my breath, then holding my breath again, and repeat ad nauseam. It was that I didn’t get the nice warm feeling I’d been looking forward to, and there was no pretty picture on the ceiling this time either.)
And then?
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
I gave myself a mental deadline. Surely I’ll know by then.
I didn’t.
You think this post is dragging? Yeah.
Welcome to my world.
We waited.
We waited.
We waited.
I got bored. I messaged a few friends. Help me name this cyst or tumour.
Suggestions included:
Tumourthy
Tumour Thurman
Lumpelstiltskin
Blob Marley
Liverace
Onion (as in liver and...)
Cystopher Walkin
Cysten Chapel
I went with Tumourthy.
We waited.
We waited.
We waited.
Then I got a call.
I was driving back from yet another blood test.
“Are you driving?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, but legally and hands-free, and I’m just about to pull up at my destination.”
“Do you have children in the car?”
“No. It’s just me.”
A pause.
Then:
“I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you with the MRI results.
It’s just… well, after our team met and discussed everything, we felt it was best to refer you to Churchill in Oxford.”
Another pause.
“Your tumour…
Basically, we need a specialist’s opinion on it.”
Yeah.
It’s no longer a lesion.
He said the word: tumour.
It’s a tumour now.
When Churchill Hospital in Oxford, the actual specialist centre, agrees to take your case, it becomes real.
It becomes serious.
It becomes something that even your best jokes can’t quite protect you from.
But here we are.
The biopsy is booked.
And after that, it’s in the hands of the pathologists.
The specialists.
The people with microscopes and white coats and bits of my liver.
While I wait, again, I want to say thank you:
* To the one who’s teased me exactly the way I’ve needed. Helping me laugh when I couldn’t quite do it on my own and has reminded me every time "Right Place, Right People, Right Time."
*To the one who reminded me, “We can’t both be ill. That is not the agreement.”
*To the one who’s checked in quietly, kindly, and without expecting anything back.
*To the one who’s pushed me at the gym while I’ve said, “Don’t make me do Russian twists, I might die” and then they made me do them anyway.
*To the one who shared their story, their honesty, their recovery, and gave me real hope.
And to you, reading this. Thank you.
You didn’t know what was going on, but your chaos, kindness, memes, and unsolicited pictures of cats, dogs, Dr Pepper, gym challenges, and your children have helped more than you know.
And a very special shout-out to my husband.
Who has sat beside me through silences and spirals.
Who has never once rolled his eyes when I’ve said:
“But I could die, so I should get to choose what we eat / what we watch on telly / what we listen to on the radio…”
TL;DR:
There’s a tumour in my liver. It’s probably not cancer. But it might be.
It’s serious enough that Churchill Hospital in Oxford, the proper experts, have taken over.
The biopsy is booked.
I’m okay. I’m still here. Still joking.
Still refusing to go quietly... or without at least a bit of drama first.
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