Il tempo passa e non ritorna.

‘Daniel Bratcher‘ I swiftly turn and yep he definitely said my name, ‘follow me mate’, and follow I shall. Walking down the corridor he turns and asks ‘Have you ever had a CT scan before?’ and i hadn’t so he said he would take time to explain everything which I’m sure I heard him explain another 3 times that morning whilst I was waiting for my scan.

So I took a seat in the chair and he said ‘so we will inject you with a special dye called contrast that will light up the vessels and then you'll go through a donut shaped machine and just follow the breathing instructions’ okay, that seems straight forward Right!? But instantly I feel like I don’t know how to breathe ha! So they stick a cannula in my arm and I Look away again. This time looking at my left arm which has a little plaster on from where my bloods were taken, and I start to feel a bit woozy again, i just think it was a bit overwhelming as in 30 years of life within the last hour I’ve had more needles in me than ever before!

So he sits me out in the waiting area and gives me cups of water to drink to help outline different internal parts, I was busting for a pee!! I finally got signal and managed to send that daunting text to Ellen, almost 2 and half hours after I left the car, first and foremost I felt awful for keeping her in the dark and then secondly just typing out those words I have cancer hit it home even more, send, it’s gone.

So I’m sat there, left arm just about recovered from the bloods being taken (I’m a softy) and scared to move my right arm or even look at it as it has a cannula hanging out of it. Sipping on my water, worried about peeing myself and worried about Ellen.

Its a long old wait and people who came after come and go before me which makes me more anxious! Text from Ellen comes through ‘Ok babe, you okay?’ Straight away I know she’s not okay, she’s short when she’s upset and that gets me! ‘Daniel Bratcher’ yep, that’s me again, in I go. Again which I haven’t mentioned already is confirming my name, date of birth and address again! Just to make sure I’m the right person and not a hypochondriac roaming the hospital for scans and blood tests!

I lie down and they explain the whole process again and advise that I may feel some side effects once the contrast goes in; these can be a metallic taste in the mouth, a hot flush and the urge/feeling of peeing yourself. I joke that I might actually pee due to all the water and apologised in advance but they just brushed that straight off!

So arms above my head and they hook me up to the machine via the cannula, just relax and breathe. They leave the room and on goes the machine.

I’m sat there thinking this is alright you know, arms above my head, machine going up and down from my hips to my chest and following the breathing instructions to a tee. ‘How you doing Dan’ comes from the room next door, ‘yeah good thanks I manage to muster’ thinking yeah I’ve got no symptoms I’m smashing it! ‘okay we are going to start putting the contrast in now...’ wait what! Suddenly the contrast starts to enter through my arm and it’s the weirdest flushing feeling In the world, hard to describe but I could feel the fluid going through into my body and up my arm! This is where I start to panic a little, and start doing my own breathing exercises to calm down, and all I can think now is oh crap what if I do pee myself! I start to get hot flushes immediately and I concentrate on following the breathing exercises, I think it’s nearly 5 minutes and then it’s over. I didn’t get any other symptoms and they come back in the room, ‘well done Dan, you’re all done’, and as typically English as I am, I say ‘thank you’, yep thanks for doing this to me although deep down the gratitude is certainly there as I know this will determine if the cancer has spread.

A nurse sits me in another waiting room so they can assess if i have any reaction to the contrast dye, 5 minutes pass and a nurse comes to remove the cannula from my arm and there’s a slight rash and I reassure her that my fiancé who’s picking me up is a paramedic and she lets me go, she said due to the small rash they’d normally keep people in a little longer but I just wanted to get out!

So off I pop. A whirlwind of a morning, as I walk down the corridor I give Ellen a call and she says she’ll come get me, and sounds sad bless her. I have time for a quick pee, as I’ve been busting for hours and also because I was curious to see if my pee would be a strange colour because of the dye, it wasn’t!

I’m waiting outside feeling like a cloud is over me thinking what on earth do I say to El, I see her coming and I’m smiling like a Cheshire Cat, why?, because what else do we do! I get in the car and we do the standard pleasantries and I can see Ellen’s been crying and I do my best to reassure her. I take her hand and the car ride was a blur.

It makes me think now to something a great man called Roberto (god rest his soul) who coached me in Italy, once said to me ‘Il tempo passa e non ritorna.’ Which as a basic translation is ‘Time passes and does not return’ and he used to push the fact that we must use whatever time we have wisely and so although I’ve received this terrible news, I know I will be positive and I’ll do whatever I can to make the best of what I have.