In February I was due a smear test. I ignored it for a month or two, life is busy and it's the kind of thing you need to arrange childcare for and it's just not that fun. At the same time I also received a letter telling me to take my car into the garage to get the airbag replaced because it was not safe. I ignored that letter too. Then I spent a bit of time pondering which would be more likely to kill me, not getting a potential faulty airbag replaced, or not going for a smear test. Both were very unlikely and logistically difficult to arrange with kids.
A month or two later I went to the Drs for something, I can't remember what, and the Dr asked if I was up to date on my smear. She told me they do evening appointments or that they could hold a baby while they did it, so I was like "oh go on then" and booked an appointment.
I had an evening appointment while Dan took both kids to Percy's football class. It felt like a mini holiday cycling in via the loopline and sitting in a waiting room on my own. I cycled back wondering whether I was more likely to die as a result of a bike accident or a cervix related problem. I don't know why I was so cocky about the health of my cervix, but it seems to be a common misconception that people that are only having sex with one person will be fine health wise in every way.
So I was a bit surprised when the results came back as "abnormal cells". This meant I had to have a procedure called a loop excision which is a bit like a smear test but more choppy. This was scheduled for when I was on holiday in Llandudno with my extended family which meant I had to tell them all. I felt that telling them in a jokey way over family whatsapp would be the most appropriate way to do this:
So half way through our holiday in Llandudno me and Dan drove back to Liverpool to deliver a new fridge to our tenant, take an old fridge to the tip, and have the "abnormal cells" removed from my cervix. Fun.
A few weeks later I got two letters from the hospital saying I had two appointments on two consecutive days to have a chat with a nurse followed by a consultant. I phoned up to ask about it because it's sort of annoying to try and arrange childcare two days in a row and it's also sort of annoying to talk about your cervix in the presence of a very questioning 3 year old. So they ended up telling me the first info from the nurse on the phone: they had found cancer in my cervix. It was probably already removed but they wanted to do another procedure which I'd have to chat to the consultant about.
So the next week, the day before our holiday, I went for the consultant chat. I wasn't too concerned, it was annoying that it wasn't all sorted yet, but hopefully one more loop excision would fix it. Then the Dr told me they'd have to do the loop excision and removed the lymph nodes which is key hole surgery under a general anaesthetic. I asked if I could still work the day after and she pretty much laughed at me and said it was a 4-6 week recovery time. Then I went into full on self employed defensive mode of "I can't do this I'm self employed don't you know, self employed people work even if they are nearly dead and nursery is £46 per day". I got a bit annoyed. Then she got a bit patronising and explained how it was very serious and then told me a list of horrible side effects, one of which was death. She said the operation would be in about 4 weeks. I counted forward, this would put the operation on roughly the 27th September the date of my comedy show. Then I went into full on drama queen mode (don't judge me, everyone deals with bad news differently). I said "I cannot do it until after the 27th I AM A COMEDIAN, I HAVE BOOKED A THEATRE DON'T YOU KNOW?!" Granted it's only the basement of a theatre but still.
She put on my notes "would prefer after the 27th". She then quickly introduced me to a person with people skills as consultants do not have time to be nice. I had to quickly rush off because it was time for Eric's nursery settling in session, but the nice people skills nurse phoned me in the evening to chat through the practical arrangements and ask me how I was doing emotionally.
Then I went camping for 5 nights and mainly forgot about it. I've started experimenting with telling people and it's a bit weird, it you phrase the lead up wrongly people think you're about to announce a pregnancy.
So I'd rather tell you like this so people know and then I'm happy to chat to people if you want. But the main news practically is that I will be probably in bed for most of October. I need to arrange a load of childcare and Dan will need a bit of help because, although he is totally capable of cooking no one is capable of cooking while looking after a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Also if you wanna come over and keep me company that might be nice. I'm hoping to get through a lot of Netflix and podcasts and maybe even books in this time, so any recommendations send them my way.
Hopefully after this op the thing most likely to kill me will go back to being those faulty airbags.
Thanks for reading. x
