24th March 2022 - Diagnosis
Pat is currently receiving his second dose of chemotherapy. They call this Day 15 of Cycle 1. Two weeks ago, he received his Day 1 dose. Due to the danger of COVID, I can’t sit with him in the Oncology room, so I’m waiting in the hospital cafeteria.
This is not where we thought we’d be when we welcomed in 2022. As most people do, we reflected on the turbulent year 2021 was, and made guesses of what 2022 would bring. We expected that COVID would continue to dominate our lives. We also feared that climate change would demonstrate itself in some way. At home, we were enthusiastic to start our renovation project and excited about our sheep breeding plans.
However, Pat’s health was not where we thought it would be. Last year’s thyroid problem was, according to the blood results, resolved. He was supposed to be feeling stronger. And yet… he was still often tired. He had the energy to start something but not to complete it. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, the cancer was probably already growing fast within him.
Pat has pancreas cancer. This was discovered almost two months ago. He was off his food already for a few days, had stomach pains and was very tired. Then he woke me in the middle of the night, vomiting blood. At Emergency, they rushed him in for tests and scans. It was a blockage of the large intestine, caused by a very large tumour. The blockage had priority, requiring major surgery, and has left Pat with an Ileostomy stoma (taking the end of his small intestine to the outside, a shortcut). A few days later, a biopsy confirmed the doctor’s suspicion, the tumour was an adenocarcinoma cancer attached to the tail of the pancreas.
The journey since then has been a very difficult one. We've been forced to start a new chapter in our life story. This blog is an attempt to share this new story with you: our family and friends. We are blessed to have so many wonderful people that we hold dear in our hearts and we want to be open and honest with you. Sometimes we don't have the strength to contact each of you individually, so we hope this blog gives you the information you need, so that when we are in contact, that we can talk about you and your lives, and remember the good times, have a laugh and hug each other.