Everything’s going to be alright.

The phone is ringing and my heart is racing, after an hour of toing and froing I decided to rip the plaster off...’hi Dan, how are you doing’ ahh mum sounded so happy! Weird how I can remember it clearly, ‘urm not great to be honest with you’ and her tone changes ‘oh no what’s wrong mate?’ And she later told me when she came to stay and help look after me following surgery that she thought I was going to tell her one of my silly stories on that call..i wish.

So I went with all the cliches that came flooding to me ‘so there’s no easy way to say this mum, but you know I told you I went to the doctors before Christmas for a check up and they confirmed everything was okay’ yeah... ‘well I still didn’t feel right so I’ve been back and had tests and they’ve found a lump’ all I could hear was the ohs and mum starting to panic, it was killing me and I was just mumbling any random crap to make her feel better, I went autopilot and in a nutshell I’m pretty sure I told her everything’s fine. I had Ellen squeezing my hand and reassuring me because I feel the little breaks in my voice and she whispers ‘say the word cancer’ and I know I need to say it to make it clear for mum and I eventually usher those words ‘so mum they definitely confirmed it’s testicular cancer but they had said it’s the treatable, they will operate this Friday and then after that they will make decisions on what happens’ we talked for half hour more which I know would have helped mum but I could just tell in her voice she was panicking and worrying so much, and we knew as soon as we got off the call she would be straight on google and causing herself further anxiety. I asked her if John or Auntie Angie were able to pop round of she wanted me or Ellen to contact them, just so we knew she was okay and comforted but she said I’ll be fine I’ll call Auntie Angie. We suggested that following my surgery, she moves in so she can be close and just be mum, this appeared to be the only glimmer of light from that conversation. We said our I love yous and I did my best to reassure her. If I was tired before, I was exhausted now, but we had Ellen’s family to tell and I had to slowly drip feed this information to my family and close friends. We cracked open a few beers prior to calling Ellen’s family and the rest of the night for me personally was a blur, partly due to United smashing Southampton 9-0. Another hard conversation was had with the family and they thought Ellen was going to tell everyone we were pregnant but let’s hope that conversation can be had down the line. Again we did our best to reassure everyone and we stuck together, Ellen’s been an actual rock and I am very blessed, again lucky I was able to distract myself for the majority of the call with the united game.

Our final call of the night was to Ellen’s dad, and telling him and hearing his response, hit home as much as telling my mum did. I am very open about how much I love my dad and he was my best mate, so instinctively my mind drifts to an alternate dimension where my dad is here and telling me ‘it’ll be okay spud’. So hearing the sadness in Ellen’s dads voice, someone who has been a great advisor and mentor along the way in mine and Ellen’s relationship, just made me long for my dads presence. It’s a weird one to explain.

We were done telling everyone, we were exhausted and my mind can now drift to the next day...getting my next set of results from the IVF clinic and back to believing everything is okay whilst working.

I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.