One of those horrible ones

Firstly, apologies for the huge delay in any sort of update - as you've probably guessed, it's not for a good reason.

We felt euphoric after Steve's last chemo and we were told he wouldn't need a CT scan until September/October time. For some reason though, the oncologist wrote to us about a week later and said he'd like to do one just to be sure. Good job he did.

The scan was about a week before a wedding we were attending in Italy, which we'd been looking forward to as a celebration of two of our closest friends get married, as well as a celebration of the end of a horrible time. We called the hospital several times as we were desperate for the results before we went away. We were told "your results are in, I have them here on my desk but you'll have to wait for your appointment" - this appointment was for June. We were at the beginning of May. After several more phone calls and some stern words, it was agreed that our results would be given over the phone the day before we went away.

Steve had a tumour on his lung.

Thankfully, this time wasn't like the first time where they told us he had cancer and made us wait 3 weeks to find out if he was going to be okay. They told us immediately that it was very small and very treatable which is amazing, but at the time even that didn't help the feeling of being kicked in the face.

Fast-forward from then to now, and I'm sitting in the living room waiting to take Steve to the hospital, ready for surgery tomorrow. The plan is keyhole and the surgeon is confident he will be able to get the whole tumour, plus a wide margin around the edge, using this procedure.

Steve is showering in antibacterial shower gel, which he has to do twice before surgery and three times afterwards, and he seems calm enough. I'm not quite so calm. I've been teary and shaky and sick, not that he knows because I've always hidden it well. I don't remember feeling this terrible last time, maybe because I didn't know what to expect then, or maybe just because my memories of last time are slightly distorted. Either way, I'm looking forward to getting the next few days out the way and moving forward. I want us to start enjoying the remaining wedding plans instead of them being tainted by this cloud hanging over us.

As usual, I've had the most amazing support from the lovely online community and will feel forever indebted to them because of it. I don't know what I would do without that constant love and friendship.

I will write again soon to update you on surgery but if you're reading this, please keep me in your happy thoughts, positive vibes and prayers.

Lots of love Xx

More results

So we got a phone call on Tuesday from Di. She said the tissue removed during Steve's surgery had been analysed and she had some results for us.

Out of the 29 lymph nodes removed, 3 are cancerous. This means there's a chance of some evil little cancer cells still floating about in Steve's body - this means chemo.

We were told the chances of chemo were slim because Steve's operation was the most drastic that could have been done, so it was likely all the cancer would be taken out. We were told back in July that the scans showed the cancer hadn't spread to any lymph nodes - I've since been told that there would be no way of knowing this until the histology was back from the operation.

She said it was unlikely that any cancer had been left behind as the whole tumour was removed, but chemo would assure that any stray cells would be destroyed.

We have an appointment in about 2 weeks when we'll find out the plan for chemo. Until then all we know is that it will be happening.

We both understand this and in the long run I'm sure we'll be thankful for it. But we'd been so convinced that this would all be over after the operation that we can't help feeling a bit let down and wounded by this news.

Steve's aim had been to reach the end of the 6-8 week recovery period from the surgery and get on with his life. Back to work, back to socialising, back to normality. Now we'd been given at least an extra 6 months on top of that. This seems so far away that we can't even see it. It feels like it's never ending and it's only been 3 months since we first went into hospital after the Isle of Wight Festival.

Just a bit of a rant really! This has been such a tough journey and I've felt so helpless all the way. All I want to do is take it all away from him and make this all go away and there's nothing I can do to make that happen.

I do understand it's for the best - the way I see it, doing chemo now means he hopefully won't have to go through any of this again in the future. Just can't help feeling a bit deflated by it all.

If anyone has any advice or words of wisdom they can offer, please do! Thank you.

Lots of love Xx