T is for Tumour

So we weren’t going back to Blackburn and were admitted to Alder Hey K2, Cardiac ward.  A state of shock didn’t cut it.  Hubbie and I were in a fuzzy wuzzy alternate universe.  Was our happy little boy really seriously ill with a tumour in his heart?  What the…surely this only happens on soap operas…move over Eastenders, you ain’t got nothing on us.  Thank goodness Chaos was safe with Grandma as we had a lot to take in and needed some thinking time.  In a weird way though, we were relieved.  I had organised a barium swallow for Mayhem, scheduled back in Kent for the beginning of September.  I had to keep hounding for this appointment as I knew that something was wrong…finally, finally we’re beginning to have a clue what exactly is wrong…a sh*t scary tumour!

Dr Peart was great, he explained that the tumour was ‘most’ probably a benign Myxoma but they would need to investigate further to determine if this was the case. Benign, did he just say benign…OMFG that means it’s not cancerous, but what if it’s not a Myxoma, my little angel could have cancer, the C word, the big C.  BOOM!  CRASH!

Why has he got this tumour?  A thousand and one thoughts rushed through our heads…what happened…did I do something wrong, is it my fault he has a tumour? Did I fail to take the correct pre-natal vitamins, do enough exercise, eat too much chocolate whilst pregnant?  Real answer, no idea, don’t know, just unlucky!!

Dr Google is a lot to answer for…you search for the positive, sometimes in vain and try to ignore the negative, push it deep into the recesses of your brain, shut the door and hope it doesn’t prise itself open…

In the world of tumours a benign Myxoma didn’t actually seem that bad.  They would just open him up and remove it.  Yeah, scary as hell but then that would be it.  Gone.  He would be fixed…finally.

Low oxygen sats
Fun before theatre

Day Two in Alder Hey Mayhem had a CT Scan, it was the first time that he’d had General Anaesthetic.  The longest we’d ever been apart.  As a velcro baby I had no choice in the matter he was always attached to me.  The hardest thing about the CT scan for me, was not seeing him overcome by the aesthetic, or leaving him with the doctors and nurses for the CT scan it was not feeding him.  He loved to breastfeed, pretty much off and on all night, he never went longer than two hours and from 4am onwards it was pretty constant.  In that respect it was lucky I was breastfeeding him as I was able to do so 3 hours before the CT scan at 9am.  If he was formula fed, his last feed would have been 6 hours before.  He had never gone this long without food before and was clearly unhappy that he hadn’t had any breakfast.

We left Mayhem and cried, leaving our boy was heart wrenching and made the whole thing seem too real.  There was no avoiding it now, we had to admit to ourselves that he was seriously ill and we could lose him.  Our gorgeous bundle, our beautiful soul, our amazing smiley, happy little pudding.

Chaos stayed with his wonderful Grandma who had to endure his endless requests for another bedtime story and very, very early morning alarm clock, he was safe, thank goodness, at least one of our boys was.

After the CT Scan, we saw Dr Peart that evening before Mayhem’s bedtime with Dr James Hayden, Consultant Oncologist who was now going to be our main consultant.  The CT scan showed that it wasn’t a Myxoma.  The tumour wasn’t inside his heart, it was on top of it.  Around 5 x 6 cm large.  It was another type of tumour, what…they didn’t know and would need to do a biopsy to find out.  BOOM!  The C-Bomb was back in the room again.

Category : Blog, Tumour
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