Early Days

This is me, this is my family, and my world. My pride and joy Alfie, and my wonderful fiancé Emma, without whom I don't know where I would be right now. Little boy number 2 will be joining us in April 2016 and I really can't wait, parenthood has been a blessing in our lives. This will be my way of documenting a journey down a long and hard road, for both my boys to one day read and understand, and a platform to share my experiences with anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation. 

It all began early November. Sure, I had noticed my thigh getting slightly bigger over the previous months, but being a man, thought nothing of it, assuming one day it would go away. Maybe my left leg was just getting stronger than the right? Maybe I was just fatter one leg and had never noticed? 

A night out for my brother Phil's birthday in Manchester, and I was staying in a hotel with my other brother Tony. Unusually we were running a bit late, so it was a bit of a power walk across the city centre from the hotel to meet everyone at the restaurant. That was the start of my concerns. As far as I was aware, the swelling on my thigh has been there for a few months, no pain, no problem. In hindsight, maybe I should have had it looked at earlier.

For the next 3 or 4 days, the area of swelling was quite painful, but not enough to stop me getting on with my daily routine. I put this down to the hard walking that night, time to get to the GP to have it checked out. A subsequent ultrasound scan on the affected area suggested I had ruptured a muscle, and should really be in a lot more pain than I was. The man who carried out the scan was surprised I was able to walk, but nevertheless arranged for me to have a MRI scan the following week to get a better understanding of what was going on. I knew there and then that this was not a torn muscle, surely I would as he said, be in much more pain. 

The following week, early December 2015, I was called in to see the GP to discuss the MRI results. It hit me hard when he said it was a tumour and it took a while to sink in. I must admit, my knowledge of anything to do with such things was very minimal. All I could ask was "that's pretty serious right?". I know if Emma was there with me she would have asked all the right questions and not just sit there like a potato like I did. An appointment was then made to see a specialist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital at the Sarcoma Clinic.......what is a Sarcoma? Google when I get home.

Reading about Sarcomas was pretty upsetting, even when I tried to put the phone down and forget about things, I would find myself picking it back up within minutes to look again. Finding things to occupy my mind until we saw the specialist was hard, but I did, and wont bore you with the details of the mundane tasks I did to get through the week. 

Mid December, and it was time to see the specialist. I wont go into much detail as the diagnosis is still unconfirmed, but he was pretty sure from the scans that this thing in my leg is malignant....90-95% in fact. Not what we wanted to hear. He was very reassuring and arranged for a needle biopsy the following week at the same hospital to confirm things. Things started to sink in from this point. He knows what he is talking about, he sees these things every day. I have Cancer.

Just before Christmas, the biopsy at Royal Liverpool was painless, a lot of clicking could be heard, and lying in an uncomfortable position for 40 mins was not great, but I'm sure that's nothing compared to what the future holds. Thursday morning will raise a lot of questions and hopefully provide many answers when we go back to see the specialist. Until then, chin up, and try to get on with things.