Club Med for cancer patients

After a 'yummy' breakfast of toast and egg (again) and lumpy oatmeal, it was time to start my day. First up - the cancer patient navigator.  It is her job to tell me all about my options, funding that might be available, and what i can expect over the coming weeks and months.  She was awesome.  Knew exactly what to say, allowed me to ask any burning questions (my hair!  will i lose my hair!) and helped me put quite a few things in perspective.

Things in Canada are weird. Of course, I've never experienced something like this before, so who knows - it might not be different anywhere else.  Basically, because I live in a remote location, it is up to me to arrange my own transport and my own accommodation to stay in the city to receive treatment.  This alone is stressing me out.  We are coming into winter, and this will be our first 'northern' winter, so I have no idea how bad the roads are going to be, and the thought of a 5 hour drive in a snow storm to get treatment that will safe my life really freaks me out.  And because I don't know my treatment plan yet, it's hard to even arrange anything. I don't know if I will be there for a week at a time, longer, shorter, months, ARGH!

I looked through the accommodation list - that was depressing too.  Most of the 'affordable' places were around $20 - $50/night and was a private room with a shared bathroom, or a guesthouse with shared bathroom, or a bed and breakfast (with shared bathroom).  The thought of going through this in a strangers home is enough to freak me out.  And the thought of sharing a bathroom with other cancer patients - really?  I've heard about the side effects - diarrhea and vomiting - can you imagine 2 (or more) all trying to get to the bathroom at the same time for the same reason!!

Basically - cancer is a pretty inconvenient thing to have when you don't live in a major city with treatment available.

The cancer navigator finished up by giving me my goodie bag.  I just looked at her - I could see why she kept it until the end.  I'm not sure if there IS a tactful way to give a 'gift' like this, all I can say is it made me feel MUCH worse than I already did.  It was like someone was saying "Congratulations!!!  You have cancer!!"  But hey - i now have a handy dandy notebook for all my questions, a drink bottle to keep me hydrated while i'm puking my guts out and a handy tote to carry it all around.

Now that I had my goodie bag - time to read the stuff.  First up - I thought it would be good to read the patient guide for the Cross Cancer Institute. Might as well learn about the place they're sending me to!  I TRIED to stay upbeat and positive, I really did! But this 'handy guide' reads like it's trying to sell a vacation to Club Med!!  There is a convenient wig shop on site - you're encouraged to visit before starting treatment so they can help match your wig to your hair before it all falls out.  Fun.  There is Art Therapy classes - something to help you deal with your emotions through art.  Yeah - with my lack of artistic ability, I will most likely get referred to a psychiatrist when they get concerned about what sort of emotion i'm trying to get out!  There is even a friggen choir!  I kid you not!  A CANCER CHOIR!!!!  I can just see it - a bunch of bloated baldies sing, puke, sing, puke - i wonder if they supply the buckets.  By the time I got to the page about the NEWCOMERS GROUP!!!!!  I had had enough.  I am still too pissed off to finish reading the book.  I know there are people out there that probably need all that support group stuff, and need all those extra things.  And hey, I might actually be one of those people.  But this is all still too fresh and new and i'm not sure i'm ready to be part of the 'cancer club' yet.

After lunch - a very dry piece of chicken, good thing i still have no appetite. thank you antibiotics! - I had a visit from my ob/gyn with the results from my biopsy.  I keep calling it an autopsy, not sure why.  I should know better!  Anyway, he said it shows NO lymph node involvement (thank bloody god!) and it is a medium differentiated tumour, sitting more towards the high differentiated rather than the poor.  It is a squamous cell carcinoma - just an ordinary, everyday, average run of the mill good ol' cancer.  So all in all, it should respond well to treatment.  I said to him - i have no idea what language you're talking, but this is the first time you've smiled since thursday, so i'm going to assume its all good news.  And yes, he said it was very good news (although i still reckon good news would be 'oops! we made a mistake!) So now it is a matter of waiting to transfer to the city to meet the team that is going to cure me.

So after that great news, the navigator came back to see if i had any more questions.  I told her i hated the bag, i hated the book, and i was generally in a pissed off mood and i wasn't ready to join the cancer club. she laughed, and told me to let it out, i was entitled to be pissed off, angry, annoyed.  Then, the light bulb moment - she explained that I have had 4 days to come to terms with all of this. Most people have an appointment with their doctor, then they get called back with the results, then booked into hospital for the biopsy, which generally takes a week to get a result back and THEN they get an appointment in the city a few weeks later. These people have at least 4 WEEKS to get their head around what's going on.  So just hearing that helped make a bit of sense of the rollercoaster emotions i'm having at the moment.

I still don't want to join cancer club though....