4. My Mum Came.

After the shock of Boy dying and the next day spent taking him to the pet crematorium, I thought I would be free to grieve in peace and gather my thoughts for a few days. But on Wednesday 30th July in the afternoon, the telephone rung. No one rings our landline and as the shrill ringing cut through the houses silence I heard it for the first time in over a week....... <<< they know!>>>

After only 8 days the hospital was ringing to tell me to go back in on the following Monday (4th Aug) as they needed to speak to me.

I immediately agreed and put the phone down, and then the wave of panic surged up from the pit of my stomach.

Maybe because its so quick nothing is wrong ? But would they want to see you to tell you that? If it is something, does it means its worse because they know so quickly? Is a quick result better or worse with a biopsy? Google got its usual hammering as I sat in shock wondering how I would last 4 days until the appointment.

I'd already decided to do this alone. I'd gone alone for the first appointment, had biopsies, been brave, I could do just talking surely?. I didn't want the pressure of having to be other than myself whatever the news. I also wanted the choice.

The choice to do or not do anything.

To walk away with the information and process it how I wanted, to act on it how I wanted to, to share it if I wanted to. My life had led me to a very solitary way of dealing with things. I was married, but we were/ are both loners, guarded people living within a relationship.

I am an only child, who mainly had to be the parent in a abusive marriage, I have been the decision maker and responsible for everyone in my life since long before I should have been.

No finding out alone was the best way for me to cope with how, at the end of the day I would deal with this.

So for the next few days I prepared my plan A, B C and D ready for the appointment the following Monday.

Sunday arrived, and I was alone in the house with Lottie our dog. I heard a noise from the kitchen and initially thought nothing of it as I still hadn't got used to the fact that Boy wasn't prowling about and jumping up onto his table, it had been after all, less than a week since he'd died. The second time I hard the muffled bang, Lottie picked up her ears and looked at me, we both walked out of the lounge and into the kitchen to see a tiny bird, a Jenny Wren, sitting on the breakfast bar, straight out of a Disney film, as if it was a perfectly normal daily event. I walked across. Slowly reached out my hand, gently folded my fingers around her tiny body and in my mind whispered 'hello Mum'.

My Mum 'Jenny' had always loved these birds, her namesake, and that afternoon, I knew she'd come to say sorry about Boy, and remind me who I am, what I'm made of, for what was going to come the next day. She came to help me say goodbye to a life without cancer.