Some of you know, and some of you don't, but I have a younger sister. She's 10 years younger than me, and like all sisters we argue and disagree, irate and annoy each other, but she is my sister and I love her dearly.
Anyway, for a long time my younger sister was in pain, she went to her GP, who sent her for tests, she made many trips to the emergency room (A&E for those of us in the mother country). The surgeon she went to see decided it was gall stones - we have a family history. But then in her case it wasn't gall stones. So, if a person is in so much pain, but it's not what you think it is, what would any normal person (let alone a qualified medical professional) do........yeap, you'd like to think they would think, well something else must be causing the pain.Unfortunately for my sister, the surgeon didn't bother and by the time she saw someone who actually gave a shit, she had a tumour in her colon that was too large to remove without killing her. This tumour is stage four colon cancer and had spread to her lungs and the abdominal cavity.
Pretty devastating news for someone not yet 30. But here my sister showed what a fantastically strong and courageous person she is. She decided to fight this bastard. She's had surgery to bypass the tumour, many rounds of chemo that leaves her feeling sick and weak, radiotherapy, and not to mention the almost constant pain she is in from the tumour pressing things it shouldn't. She has undergone indignities that no one her age should, all the time having to face up to the fact the her life has been cut short because a so called medical professional failed in the basic principles of his profession.
My sister got on with her life as best she could, all the time knowing that she will probably never have children, maybe never get married, never having the things that we all hope and dream for. She is stoic in the face of this tragedy, preferring to look on the positive side, to stay alive long enough for medical advances to come up with a cure. And seemingly this is working. The chemo, while not actually shrinking her main tumour, has got rid if the secondaries in her lungs and the abdominal cavity.
Then at the end of July, she arrived back in the UK, the land of her birth, for a two week holiday to attend a family wedding. She looked better that I had seen her in a long time, full of life. It was therefore not in the script that I end up having to call an ambulance in the early hours of the morning, five days before she was due to return home to Cape Town.
Although our local A&E is Stoke Mandeville, I persuaded the paramedics to take her to the JR in Oxford. At first they thought she had a perforated bowel, then it was an infection following surgery she had back in SA and now it's probably an abscess. She's attached to drips, intravenous food, drains.......getting out of bed is a serious logistical nightmare of making sure she doesn't step on a tube and pull it out. And then today she got the news that the cancer has spread again, this time to her liver.
The hospital are still hoping to get her well enough to return to SA, and they are really doing their best for her. They are talking about getting her started on chemo over here if she can't travel for a while, though until they get the infection sorted, no chemo - can't go killing the white blood cells, when you need it to fight an infection!!
So here is my little sister, came over her on a two week holiday and now has been in the JR for nearly three weeks, in pain, frightened and on her own a lot of the time. In the face of all of this, she hardly complains and she's doing her best to remain positive, despite it being bloody difficult.
This post is for my little sister, who I admire more than words can say. I am not sure I would have the strength that she has shown, to face up to what she is going through. Hang in there kiddo, keep fighting it and we are all there with you, as much as you need us to be xxxxxx
