Four Miscarriages and a Cancer

“Four Miscarriages and a Cancer” is the statement that pretty much sums up our past week.

My husband, Sam,  said it to me in the middle of the night when we were both lying awake… neither of us could sleep and I just cracked up laughing.

It’s amazing the silly things that can make you laugh when you’re having such a bad time.
We were shattered when we found out last Monday that we had experienced our fourth miscarriage. We weren’t exactly NOT expecting it, but we had a little hope that the odds may just fall in our favour this time around.

But that wasn’t even the worst of our week.

We decided pretty quickly to book me in for surgery on the Wednesday. I don’t usually see any signs of miscarriage myself other than a missing heartbeat on an ultrasound screen so I find a D&C is the easiest option… much more pleasant than “waiting it out” for who-knows-how-many weeks for my body to work it out by itself.

That very same day I had dropped my cat Sebastian off to the vets to have a tooth pulled out. Except, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!) the little bugger had jumped up on to the sink that morning and licked a plate I had left there and so the vet decided just to do some blood work instead and put the surgery off for a day.

So, I found out about the miscarriage on Monday, and then on the Tuesday, took little Bas back in to the vets for (what I thought) would be his surgery. Except, when I got to the vets he told me the blood work had some concerning results and he thought Sebastian may have cancer in his liver.

I was pretty shocked to hear this, as Bas is only 11 (that’s about 60 in human years) and has never really had any health problems, PLUS other than eating funny due to his dodgy tooth there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with him!

The next day (Wednesday) I went in to the hospital for my surgery, and no sooner had I gotten home (hoping to spend the afternoon resting on the couch) when my Vet called to say Bas could be referred for a scan that afternoon.

Of course, if the little guy did in indeed have cancer, there was no way we wanted to delay any sort of treatment for him, so Sam and I trundled dutifully down to the Vet’s.

It was just our luck that there was a crazy mix up behind the scenes at the Vet’s… so we had to wait 3 hours in the Vet waiting room just to be told… Bas couldn’t have a scan and we’d have to come back the next day.

If there’s ever a time when you’ve felt like things “just can’t go right” in your life, you can understand pretty much how we were feeling that day.

To top it all off, I was lucky enough to come down with a cold that afternoon as well.

So fast forward to the next day and I decide I couldn’t possibly get out of bed (seriously, I’ve got a cold, my baby died and my cat has cancer – who would get out of bed given the circumstances!?) and Sam agrees to drop Bas off to his appointment.

A couple of hours in to the day (Thursday) and the Vet calls to confirm the worst. Bas does have cancer and needs a CT scan to see if it has spread. We have the option to book him in for surgery the same day as the scan… which can most likely be done the following Monday.

So of course, we do what any crazy cat lady would do and agree to the exorbitant fee’s associated with CT scans and surgery for cats and book him in.

We spend the next few day’s giving Bas as much attention as we can and wait to see what happens next.

I am SO relieved when the Vet calls Monday afternoon to tell me Bas is doing well (considering). The CT scan showed that the cancer hadn’t spread and they were able to remove the mass in his liver.

I was relieved for a whole 4 minutes, until the Vet called me back to say there was a problem with Sebastian’s red blood cell count and he would need to have a blood transfusion.

So, I wait, feeling pretty stressed again for another 4 hours… until I finally get a call saying he is doing well and I won’t hear anything until the next day unless there is some emergency in the night (so of course I had the worst sleep in history that night).

Anyway, a couple of days later and I FINALLY get a call saying Bas is doing better and can come home.

You might be wondering…. How does one stay sane with all this crap going on?

To be honest, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I have bad days. I can’t go anywhere nor talk to anyone (I think it’s totally fine to turn off your phone and not answer your door if you need to).

I did stay in bed all day just for one day.

Then I decided that things could be better. I forced myself to get up, have a shower, do my hair, put on a nice outfit, put on some make up and go out for dinner.

I gave myself a limit. I could sleep in, but I couldn’t stay there all day. I realised I’m still recovering and if I need sleep, well that’s fine, I can sleep, but as soon as I wake up in the morning, I make myself get up and eat breakfast (even though I don’t want to). I find things to look forward to and remind myself of the positives.

On the positives front, I reminded myself that if I hadn’t ordered blood work for Bas on the Monday and he had undergone anaesthesia there is a good chance he wouldn’t have woken up…

On the “things to look forward to” front, my sister-in-law and I had planned to go to see the movie “IT”. Our plan totally went out to the window and we had to re-arrange it.

Anyway, we ended up booking Gold Class seats at Innaloo for 3:45 on a Friday afternoon. I almost don’t want to let anyone in on our secret, but I seriously think this is the best session you could ever go to.

We got the whole theatre to ourselves (it was awesome to be able to chat to each other throughout the film and I was happy to be able to have my phone one since I was still waiting for the Vet’s to call) and of course, we were able to order champagne, wine and food to be delivered to us throughout the film!

When we got in the theatre, I sat back, champagne in hand, sighed and said, “I’m so happy” …and then stopped myself short.

Could I seriously be happy after everything that had happened that week?

Obviously, I could. Sometimes it’s the little things that can make the biggest difference.

That night, I booked Sam and I in to eat at our favourite restaurant… BWG steakhouse. I thought we just needed to have one evening where we could chill out together, eat our favourite food, drink our favourite wine and talk about… anything other than miscarriages or cats with cancer. So that’s what we did.

And we were OK.

I don’t want to say that what we’re going through is in any way harder than what anyone else is going through (even though sometimes that is how it feels). There are thousands of people who have it much worse than us, and no doubt I am sure there are others who have it better.

Everyone goes through difficult times, and at the very least, life’s problems are all relative anyway… what might be difficult for some isn’t always so difficult for others.

That’s not to say it’s easy for us. It is hard. Every day is hard.

But regardless, there is always a way to make it through, find the positives and create moments to look forward to.
 
PS Just before I go, quietly wanted to say that “IT” isn’t very scary… I actually found it kind of hilarious 😉