3. Results

Monday 28th November 2011, 03:15 PM


Bad News Day 'or'
Things are not looking good for our hero...

Jo and I arrived at the hospital for an 11:00 AM appointment to see Mr Terry, my consultant at the ENT. Dept, of Princess Royal Hospital, Farnborough and dead on 11:00 AM the nurse called my name. As the nurse & I walked to the consulting room she asked whether Jo was my wife or my girlfriend ? I reluctantly admitted she is the latter ( Ed. by Jo "Gee, thanks!" ), stepped into Mr Terry's office and his 1st words were...

"Are you here alone?"

     No, I'm here with my girlfriend.

"Well, let's get her in here too",

and the first thought that went through my head was Uh-Oh, this can't be good.

We all sat down. Jo and Mr Terry introduced themselves to each other. He leant forward, looked me straight in the eye and said...

"We've got your results. I'm afraid it's bad news."

     OK, how bad?

"Very bad".

     Very bad?

"Yes, very bad".

     OK. There are varying degrees of 'very bad': Very bad; very-very bad; really very bad indeed; or as really very bad as very bad could ever possibly get.

"At the moment just very bad".

     But it is possible that this could be as very bad as it could ever possibly get?

"Yes, but at the moment just very bad".

So then the three of us had a discussion, and by 'discussion' I mean that Jo & I sat there while Mr Terry spelled out what would be happening over the next few weeks. i.e. CT Scan, PET scan, diagnostic surgery etc.  He asked many times "Did we have any questions?", "Did we have any more questions?". He took great pains to make it clear that there would be a significant amount of support for me including home help, counseling, specialist Head & Neck Team ( one of the few local authorities in the Country to have a dedicated Head & Neck team ), Macmillan nursing, etc, and that all of my test results would be assessed by the 28 person review board based at Guys & St Thomas's prior to treatment.

In all this time he only used the word cancer once ( just slipping it into the middle of one sentence, almost unnoticed ), and the word tumor only twice. They just don't like using the 'c' word.

One thing that he also pointed out was, that "as the two tumors are bilateral ( i.e. either side of my body ) but are asymmetric ( i.e. in slightly different locations ) and different in size that there was almost certainly an unknown 'third' that would be the 'primary' and that would need to be tracked down and dealt with too. This would likely to be in the upper pallet, or sinuses, or under the tongue, or the tonsils etc.


He made a point of telling us not to look it up on the internet ( "It won't do you any good" ) and not to bother talking to my GP about it ( "He won't know anything about it, and we'll send him copies of all the paperwork in due time anyway" ).

And that was that.

The consultation was 'apparently' over. Mr Terry turned away and in hushed tones he started whispering into his dictaphone. No goodbye, no pat on the shoulder, no "Don't worry, We'll look after you", nothing. Jo and I stood up, looked at each other, shrugged and left. Back out in the car park I had to ask Jo...

I do actually have cancer don't I ?


"Yes, he said it was definitely 'not' benign."


So, I have cancer. ( Tonsillar Squamous Carcinoma )


Edited by Jo W, with thanks