An Amazing Day

The waiting area at WGH is very quiet. It's lunchtime and it seems to be the time between the morning and afternoon clinics - we're early and the girls on reception are still on their lunch. So we wait. We're good at waiting. Well, practice makes perfect.
Eventually, I get weighed - 83.9kg - exactly the same as the last time that I was there. Okay - I know it's too heavy but it's better than the 68.9kg it was a few months ago!
Then it's the obligatory blood sample, then through to the final waiting area. And we wait.
Not for very long though - Dr Davies calls us in even before I'm half way through the crossword.
Will he have a "good news & bad news" technique?
Nope - there's no need.
He calmly says - "There's good news. Your PET scan was clear".

How are you supposed to react to that?
There are probably no rules but for what it's worth, I shook, tried hard and in vain to hold back tears, looked at the Doc in disbelief, looked at Liesl to check that I'd heard right and wondered how this could be?
My PET scan was clear.
Six months to the day after a doctor had stood at the end of my bed and told me that I had cancer, another doctor is sitting across a desk from me and is telling me that I no longer have cancer. Each piece of news is equally hard to believe. Each piece of news is equally frank. Today's piece of news is something else though. It's amazing. It's truly amazing.
It's hard to speak and find the words to say thanks and to ask Dr Davies to pass on my thanks to Dr Farquharson when he sees her.
Dr Farquharson, you're the best.

So we leave - thinking about clicking our heels but realising we're too tired and drained for that.
There's a call to make before we leave the hospital though. To Shelagh. She was first to be called with the bad news in January so it's only right that she's first to be called with the good news today. And she's as pleased as we are - it's great to see her running along the corridor from her office and that's when I realise what it's going to mean to everybody. It's amazing. Have I said that?

Most, or probably all, families get hit with cancer at sometime or another but I think ours has been hit harder than most over the years. When it's an older person then I suppose you've got to take it on the chin but we've lost too many that were around the same age as me or even much younger. So for Chrissie, Pauline, Nan, Charlie, Nessie, Moira and many others who were all part of Team Craig, I hope, for the moment at least, that I've got one back.

The calls and messages go out. To Mum Naismyth, Shona, Eleanor & Andrew, Moira & Jack, Greg, Karlynn & Iain - and the reactions are just the same. It's brilliant news.
No call or message to Mum though - we'll go in to tell her.
And she's overwhelmed when we get there. It's been a crap week for her so far but this has lifted the gloom just a bit. It's amazing.

Tonight, we went to the Golf Inn for a celebratory meal - Liesl had liver. How ironic is that?
I have to admit that I feel a bit flat. I don't know why because I know that I should be looping the loop and I'm sure I will tomorrow. Today's been a day to remember. In fact, it's been six months to remember.
The jokes will return tomorrow but for now my PET scan was clear.
The non-hodgkin's lymphoma has gone.

And it's amazing.

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