For most of the first quarter of 2017 I had been feeling rather below par. There was nausea, vomiting, dizzy spells and quite a lot of falling over. My GP sent me off for a blood test, which proved unremarkable and there things remained, until the fateful day at the beginning of April.
I'd been feeling really unwell for most of the day and then, around 3pm, I went to the ladies' loo - and fainted. Let me tell you - finding yourself slumped on the floor of a loo in a hospital (even if it's the staff loo) is quite disturbing. I managed to pull myself to a sitting position and then bleat out "help" to the first person I heard come into the bathroom. Long story short-ish, one of my friends (a consultant in general medicine) made a phone call to the consultant in A&E, a wheelchair was procured and I was escorted to the main hospital by one of my friends and a bevy of nurses. My friend, M, had rescued my belongings and phoned S to come and meet me in Minors.
Seven hours, several blood tests, iv fluids and a CT scan later S & I were allowed home, only to have to return the next afternoon at 3pm for an MRI of my head and neck. At 10pm that evening I was being gently told that they had found a tumour on my parotid artery which was so large that it was pressing on the carotid artery, and I was being referred to the head and neck cancer team. In one way it was a bit of a relief to have a reason for the random falling down I'd been doing (remind me to tell you about how I accidentally sat on a stranger). But mainly it was terrifying. The sort of tumour I had was slow-growing, but by the time it reached the size of mine, they were more often than not malignant and offering a prognosis of about five years.
I had a biopsy three days after the MRI and a week after that we found out just how freaking lucky I am - despite its size, it was still benign and the surgeon was confident that it could wait another nine weeks and be whipped out after my wedding. I continued with the dizzy spells, vomiting and falling down with a lighter heart. There's nothing like spending some time in a cancer unit with a benign tumour to make you realise that you can't really feel anything but gratitude.
Anyway, after a lot of back and forth and five cancellations I finally had my operation in October. It took over five hours, they had to transfuse me, and then my blood pressure plummeted to "worrying" depths. But I was tumour-free and, four days later, was being gently driven back home. Recovery took, and is still taking, ages. I was off work for ten weeks, and for the first week I was basically bed-bound. I was on a fluid diet for a fortnight and it took until February for me to regain full movement in my left arm (there was nerve damage). The left side of my chin and neck are still swollen and numb seven months on, and it looks like that won't ever go away. But I don't care about any of that because the tumour was benign and I will only ever feel very lucky indeed.
