My Story continued... Page 4.
My mum stayed with the nurse, as she was trying to calm her down, while my dad took me to the restaurant near the entrance. He bought me some water, and bought himself a cup of tea then he sat down, and I will always remember the face he made before telling me those words I had secretly dreaded all along. “Aimee, they think the lump in your neck could contain cancerous cells!” ‘Cancerous cells, cancerous cells!’ that was it, it felt as if the bottom had fallen out of my world, the difference those two tiny words had made to my life in a matter of seconds was unbelievable.
For the rest of the day I kept crying in the toilet and feeling as if I was going to throw up. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening to me. I could see that not only was this illness affecting me in a big way but it was affecting my family and friends tremendously too. My mum wasn’t eating, my dad was constantly stressed and my friends, although they were so supportive, I could tell they were trying to hold back tears, just so I didn’t get upset.
All I kept telling myself was, ‘ this can’t be happening to me…’ or, ‘I’m too young, I shouldn’t be able to have cancer.’ But whatever questions I asked myself about, if I could turn back the clocks, or I wish it had never happened, the truth still remained, that I was going to have to have my very first major operation, that will hopefully cure me of Thyroid Cancer! And believe me I wasn’t looking forward to it!
Over the coming months, I found it harder and harder to tell the truth, about the way I was feeling to everyone. I needed to answer my own questions, and didn’t want anybody else’s worries to be added on top of mine, so there was one solution, I lied! I lied to my mum and dad, to my friends and worst of all I lied to myself. I couldn’t seem to accept that I had cancer, when you hear that word ‘cancer’ all you can think about is death and fatality, and that’s what scared me most of all!
As soon as I was diagnosed my whole perspective on life changed. Everyone was doing all they could to try and make it seem as little a deal as possible. Although, I did seem to be becoming more and more famous everyday. The gifts, concerns and cards from everyone were amazing, such as cuddly toys, hand written poems, bubbly bath, manicure sets, and this was on top of Christmas presents. I felt as if it was my birthday everyday, but still it didn’t seem to sink in just how serious my illness was.
The nurses and doctors were great, everything was moving so fast, and it was all thanks to them, they were like lightning the way they were making this appointment, and that test happen so quickly. Even my school sent me a letter through the post, telling me that if there was anything, anything at all, that they could do to help out with the situation, then to let them know and they would try their best to meet my needs.
The next piece of the puzzle, was to give me a M.R.I scan, just to confirm that it was cancer, and to verify the type of operation that I required to cure me. This was going to have to be done in the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, but could only be done after Christmas. So they said!
