Some brief extracts from Lisa's diary
Reality Check
I had a thought one day. What if the world really did revolve around me? What if everything that happens around me happens because I dream it into existence? Every event and every person I know. That would be why nothing bad ever happens to me. I can get into bad scrapes and have lots of close calls, but I always manage to come out on top. It was just a thought.
Bad things always happen to other people. I have never lost anyone close to me. No one I know has ever been tragically ill. My children are well. Of course I take all this for granted. I can't help it. It's just the way it is. You take things for granted that are always there. There's no reason not to.
And then my world turned upside down. Christmas 2005, I was 36 years old. A few days before Christmas I was sitting in my comfy chair watching TV. Relaxed. Kids in bed. I rubbed my neck and noticed a large lump under my skin. I didn't think much of it, but got my husband to feel it who just shrugged it off.
I decided to go to the doctor to check it out but it was Christmas so it could wait. It was a great Christmas, and it wasn't till a few days after Christmas I managed to find some time to go to the doctor who suggested an ultrasound. Probably a cyst or something like that. Don't worry. I didn't. Booking in for an ultrasound over the Christmas/New Year break proved impossible so it was over a week before I actually got it done.
I took three kids with me that day as Andrew my husband was at the cricket. I lined the three of them up with their Nintendo DS's in the waiting room and in I went.
I was told to go to my GP straight away and not to wait till tomorrow. I guess the first stages of panic started then. Also the kids had completely had enough by now, so I wasn't getting much sympathy from the gallery. After an hour waiting for the doctor I finally found out I had at least 6 enlarged lymph glands and that I possibly had something called "Lymphoma". Not to worry. Some chemo and maybe all will be well. I didn't really get too many details as my three kids sounded like they were trying to kill each other waiting out the door and I couldn't concentrate at all on what was being said. However we did manage to plan a biopsy and some blood tests.
At least after that point I managed to have some help with the kids, but that day was certainly a long one. Yet you think things couldn't possibly ever get any worse, and then as you go they do. I started having problems breathing as the lymph nodes were putting pressure on my airways. After the biopsy things seemed to start growing even faster.
Next thing I know I am in the hospital, can't breath, and know after a CT scan that I seem to have a barrel load of cancer in my lungs chest and neck. How is this possible? I didn't smoke. There is NO cancer in my family. There is no reason this would happen to me.
So I now have an oncologist. I didn't even know what an oncologist was. I was sat down after what felt like a million tests and told that I have a primary of lung cancer that has left the lungs so is in its final stages. It is incurable. If I am 'lucky' I have 12 months to live. I admit I demanded to know this. I did not want anyone pretending. Am I going to die? Yes.
When someone tells you this, it is not something you can comprehend. It is so unbelievable that you just can't seem to find a place in your brain to put it. So I wanted to cry. I wanted to really wail. But I couldn't breathe well by this stage so couldn't. I couldn't even let the pain out. It was trapped inside me.
Andrew was apart of me at this time. I clung to him like I never had before. I needed him to save me. I begged him to save me and he promised me he would. I know he can't but I just couldn't accept this fate. We researched continuously. We had to know everything. We needed to know the odds of survival, every treatment we could use, and every new treatment coming out. Andrew abandoned work and ploughed into the unknown. Fighting for my life.