All Of My Heart

"I LIKE COMING HERE YOU ALWAYS GIVE ME GOOD NEWS"...

... Jesus christ squid bananas. How many times must I make the same bloody mistake? These were the words I uttered to the nice young man who did my routine heart scan on Monday. My heart has been top quality throughout my illness. It has never betrayed me. It has beated on and on and on efficiently and beautifully, completely unaffected by all the radiotherapy waves and biscuit crumbs floating around in my body. OH WHAT A FOOL I AM. I've jinxed myself before like this. Don't walk into appointments bragging about how good an organ is. Don't count your chickens until they've hatched. Don't count your hearts until they've beaten. Don't count your chips until you've eaten them because I'm FUCKING STARVING and I have to go and make chips now.

*oven related interlude*

But yeah. After a loooooong period of relative boringness my illness has done something WEIRD and I've spent the last couple of days in hospital (back home now). As usual I need to try to start at the beginning to tell a clear and cohesive story but I am totally knackered and my keyboard is getting progressively more and more ketchup-y and it's like typing on a Tough Mudder course. MUST CONCENTRATE. Come on brain, we can do this shit!!!

SO. It's Monday morning. I am on my way to a very boring routine heart scan and a very boring routine lung function test. I arrive at the clinic and sign in with a somewhat rude receptionist and then get whisked off to take my clothes off and have my heart scan (the one where the guy doing it has to sort of hug your naked lubricated body). This is when I uttered the foolish words above. About halfway through my scan he asked if I'd ever had any fluid around my heart before. I say no. He continues. I immediately know that isn't a question they ask everyone because I've been here a zillion times and they's just not how they roll. Normally they let you go straight away. He asked me to wait while he had a further look at my scans. Ergh. This is annoying because there are two hours until my next appointment and I'm desperate to go to the pub for a shandy and a pie. I wait.

About half an hour later he emerges and says I have some fluid around my heart and lungs and he isn't happy and wants to refer me upstairs to the haemotology team. HERE WE I AGAIN ON MY OWNNNNNNN GOING DOWN THE ONLY ROAD I'VE EVER KNOWNNNNNN. That's the road to the haemo day ward. This is a completely new one. I had no idea what fluid on the heart and lungs was (I mean, I obviously know what is is, it's fluid) and whether that meant I was about to drop dead and never have my pie or if it just meant I was just really good at staying hydrated.

One of my haemo doctors came to see me and said I had to go for a chest xray and that he was going to try to speak to the guy who did my scan to see exactly how much fluid is floating around. But of course, after hours of fannying around the doctor had gone home. More investigations were needed because fluidy fluid is bad and impedes your ability to breathe and have a beating heart, both of which are widely considered to be good for your health.

I nipped upstairs for my breathing tests (by now it was mid-afternoon and I still hadn't eaten anything and was starting to get a bit stroppy, I think I told the guy to make my results good or I'd hit him with my Yazoo milkshake) but my notes were elsewhere so they guy couldn't tell my if my shitty lung capacity has got any better or worse. By the time I returned downstairs it became apparent that I wasn't going to escape the hospital today. More prodding and poking was needed. So they found me a bed and I was admitted. Totally unprepared. Luckily I had my make up but the rest of the things in my handbag were of no use whatsoever for a hospital stay. My mum had gone wild on Chez market and bought a selection of hamster treats which were admittedly starting to look rather tempting as I still hadn't eaten a thing. Luckily I arrived on the ward just as the food trolley was leaving. I creeped the shit out of a poor innocent nurse when she asked me if I wanted cherry pie and I said "that's the best thing anyone's said to me all day can you stand by my bed and whisper it in my ear all night long". Oops.

Later that evening I had a couple more tests including the x ray. The nurse who took me down was relatively new to the hospital and I had to show her how to get there. Lolz. She said "Constanze Dennis" to the lady at the x ray reception who then looked at me and said "Where is he??? You need to take the patient around the corner and to the left". I didn't have the heart to tell her I was the patient and I am not an old man called Dennis :D

There was also a heart trace. I was super bored and spent most of my evening sending photos of myself decorated with those heart scan stickers to all my friends (note the hospital robe which had been stolen from Barnsley hospital, CLASSIC YORKSHIRE). I make a beautiful heart trace bearded man.

I do look a bit rough in those but they were taken sans make up and after about ten hours solid of being poked by strange men and women so FORGIVE ME BITCHES. The following morning I was wheeled away for my ct scan by a porter who greeted me with the classic line "What's a nice girl like you doing in a hospital like this". They gave me that drug that makes you feel like you've wet yourself (it really, really does) and as soon as they started up the machine my skirt nearly got tangled up in it. Again, when I put my ultra flouncy layered lace skirt on I wasn't expecting to be wearing it in a bloody ct scanner.

I then had a strenuous couple of hours watching Extreme Couponing (seriously, I can't believe people genuinely pay money for Sky, it must be a myth) before various doctors came to discuss various things with me. Basically, there is a moderate amount of fluid. It's not currently affecting me aside from me being a little bit wheezy. The problem is what's causing it. There are two probable causes

• It's the remnants of a previous chest infection (this would be the preferred one as this is much easier to deal with)
• My cancer drug is causing it (the more likely and much more annoying cause)

If it is my cancer drug then it'll be a bit of a giant ball ache as they'll probably have to try me on a different drug and some of them have weird side effects and they might not work as well and a whole host of other ball achey problems. Remember that cancer drug they put me on when I was first diagnosed? The one that made my legs hurt so much I cried all day and couldn't wark? Yeah. That's an old friend I DON'T WANT TO MEET AGAIN. Luckily though they have invented some more drugs so it would probs be ok. THANKS SCIENCE.

So the plan is now that I'll see some sort of heart specialist in London and if he thinks it's to do with my medications I'll have to see another leukaemia specialist in London. I think they're going to repeat some of the tests in a few weeks to see if the amount of fluid is increasing. There's also been talk of taking a sample of the fluid but I don't want to know how they do that because I imagine it IS NOT PLEASANT la la la la la. I am going to live in happy ignorance for a little longer.

But yeah. Essentially more thumb twiddling for a little while as always.The good news is though that I am fine. I feel fine. I am not going to drop dead. A bit of fluid really isn't anything to worry about. It's just getting rid of the motherfucker because a lot of fluid is something to worry about. Cross fingers and all that.

Must go and put my pants and other hospital contaminated clothing in the washing machine now. Had to do the classic turn them inside out and I'm pretty sure that makes them clean trick. I looked (and probably smelled) like a walking rubbish heap on the journey home. Although maybe not as a guy on the train wrote me a note saying I was a 'vision of beauty'. If only he'd seen me when I'd used deodorant and hairspray, he'd have been blinded for life. Bless him.

Night night,
Tiredstanze xXxXxXx