a bit of a shock?

Yesterday I went for a CT scan to double check that this cancer had gone from my body. For the past 6 months I have been receiving ABVD chemotherapy as an outpatient at Cookridge Hospital in Leeds. Last November I had a CT scan and I was told that the cancer was already gone, that we would just finish the course of chemo to make sure it was. Yesterday's CT scan was going to be a marker to show my healthy body, with some scar tissue.

At the meeting with the doctor it turns out there is some swelling in my chest and some activity in my hip area. Not huge, but enough to suggest that it hasn't completely gone. It is now proposed I have ESHAP chemo and stem cell transplant.

Imelda, my girlfriend of seven years, was there with me and we were both shocked by the news. We really weren't expecting this. Everything was going so well. In the past year I have got my web design business up and running, we have almost completed on buying our flat, Imelda just got a promotion. Things were going great, and now this.

Actually, I felt very calm about it all. Really, nothing has changed. Although it's a new type of chemo, a little more intense, we have over the past year got very used to this uncertain lifestyle. If I look at it this way then I'm sure I can make it through. I don't feel upset for myself but I do get upset when I think of telling others. How will they react to this? My family and friends were overjoyed 4 months ago when I told them it was gone.

I am going to my grandma's today to tell her the news. I told my dad but he is in Columbus, Ohio, at the moment on a business trip and won't be back until Monday evening, which is why I will wait to tell my mum as she is alone in France.

One thing is for sure, I am going to take control of this situation now. In the past, although I pretended to be in control, I have been very much a 'patient'. Not of the hospital, but of my mother's and the people around me. Always trying to satisfy their desires when it comes to treatment and lifestyle choices. As I wrote in my diary last night, I am not scared, I am not angry, I am pissed off.