Waiting game

I think the phrase 'playing the waiting game' can be applied to many things.

We play that game when we're as young as 16, waiting for exam results. Then again at 18, and once more in our early twenties as we reach the end of university.

Then you might wait to find out if an offer has been accepted on a house. You might be waiting for your boyfriend or girlfriend to commit - whether it be with a marriage proposal or another plan for the future.

There's the nine-month waiting game as you look forward to the start of a new life that you've created. That was my favourite kind of waiting game (not that we made nine months!).

Then there's this Waiting Game. (I feel it deserves the capitalisation.)

At the moment, everything is so out of control that it is very much a case of "wait and see".

We waited to get through the lung cancer, and it turns out that I was able to overcome that one... well, two.

Now I wait to see how the Ewing's Sarcoma is going to play out.

It's not really playing fair at the moment. I don't know if it has more players than me, or it just got to pick its team first so got a stronger support, but at the moment it's beating me.

I'm attending chemo, I'm eating how the dietician told me to, I'm resting, avoiding infection (how do you do that when you can't see infection?)... I'm behaving and doing everything right. But this one's out to get me.

My last scan wasn't my best.

It was just a friendly little update scan. I was expecting to hear "yep, see you again in a few weeks". I wasn't expecting to be told that the tumour isn't responding to the chemo. I wasn't expecting to be told this in such a quiet and level voice... the same voice they use to tell people how long they have left.

It didn't quite get to that, but the practical part of my brain is telling me that it's only a matter of time.

Let's look at the hard, cold facts -

1. Lung cancer. Twice.
2. Pneumonia.
3. Ewing's sarcoma.
4. Pleural effusion.

Someone or something is out to get me. My own body is out to get me!

Now I'm waiting to see if I can be fixed. My current Waiting Game is to see if I can survive this.

They'll scan again when this round of chemotherapy is over. Then they'll decide whether or not they're able to get in there and take out the bads.

My future isn't in my hands at the moment.

I'm sorry, but I'm not very optimistic.