Operation time!

Tuesday 10th September will be a day that will stick with me for a while. A week beforehand I'd been going to work and continuing my life as normal to this day where I was rung at 10am by the doctor saying they'd found 'lesions' on my brain and that I needed to get to A&E with an overnight bag as soon as I could.

Parents were overseas in Cyprus for a month so that was an interesting call to have with that they probably should consider looking at flights back to London and little quicker that anticipated. Got myself packed to St Georges and after sitting about for a couple of hours I was in A&E on medication and having a meeting with the doctors. Life felt a little surreal - I mean here I was a relatively healthy 28 yo (besides a nictotine addiction that I am sure kept Marlboro in business) being told that my MRI scan from the previous week had shown 2 tumours on my brain - I guess that explained the headaches and that it was largely a sure fire conclusion that my skin cancer from a few years previously had good walkies in my body and set up home in my brain. F*CK was my first though.

Still they get me on some meds immediately to mean that I could finally see straight - Dexamethasone were these delightful steroids. More on them later but bugger me they make you eat like a horse (or at least do in my case!). Admitted to hospital and had a chat with the doctors and then had another scan - CT scan this time where another tumour showed up on my Pancreas. Never really a strong one at science I had no idea what the hell this organ did but hey at least they'd found it I guess.

Parents back from holiday and straight to hospital so operation time to be discussed and future plan of action.

What they intended to do was to weekend release me and then operate on the larger of my two tumours in my brain at the back on 17th October and allow me weekend release beforehand. Woohoo! From speaking to the doctors whilst the gravitas seemed serious they were very confident in getting it all out. They wouldn't touch the other one in my brain nor the one in my Pancreas initially and would just focus on this walnut size beast which was causing the balance and double vision apparently. We were off to removing the gremlins!

So the beneath is the remnants of the scar about 10 days after the beast was removed (just after stitches out). Really good actually - just going to have to come up with my credible shark attack story now!

Returned to the parents after my operation and have pretty much been sleeping, watching trash TV and eating them out of house and home. I've put on 3 kg in 3 weeks which is not good! More in the next update!

Where to begin

So where to start I guess.

It's now mid-October but if I backtrack a bit to the mid/ end of August that's probably the best to start and take it from there.

Giving a quick a overview I was diagnosed with Stage II melanoma in Summer 2011 and had my lymph nodes under my right arm removed as well as a good few Frankenstein scars on my back. Besides the regular 3 month check ups I attended at St Georges in Tooting I guess I stuck my head in the sand and thought I'd beaten the dreaded 'C' and wouldn't have it affect me again.

How wrong was I to be!

I'd been having headaches on and offer throughout this summer. I didn't really think anything of them besides probably that I was burning the candle a little bit too much at both ends. 4 am finishes most Fridays and Saturdays usually accompanied with a skinful and little to no food would probably catch up with me at some stage!?  Anyway I mentioned it to NHS Direct and got told nothing to worry and spoke to my doctor and got told the same so pretty much put them to the back of my mind. I had an appointment for my skin clinic and thought I'd just mention it to the Doctor that I regularly saw and what I good thing I did!

She mentioned to keep a check on the and she'd contact me 2 weeks later when I returned from a break to Poland with some friends and follow up with me. Long story short I did still have these headaches but just took Nurofen to get rid of them. She got an MRI scan booked in for when I returned (Start of September) and within a week I was in on the operating table. By this stage my vision and balance had gone a skew-whiff. We're talking not being able to see straight and not being able to walk in a straight line. Pretty much like I normally felt on a Friday night yet when I first woke up in the morning. Not encouraging and made me suspect something was a little wrong with me! Google diagnosis became my new best friend which in reflection is never a good idea.