The Mean Reds Part 4

In the film Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly describes having the 'Mean Reds'. Worse than the blues, to quote Audrey Hepburn from the film she dismisses the blues as being those days when you are getting fat or it's been raining too much, you're just sad that's all, but the mean reds...well they are in a league of their own.

"Suddenly you are afraid and you don't know what you are afraid of" is how she describes them..

I went to the surgery to see one of the doctors about my leg, an infection I had from an old horse riding wound needed checking on as it wasn't healing. I'm not keen on this particular GP, he messed up something for me a few years ago and I have avoided him ever since. However I was told that he is good with infections so I parked my real feelings about him to check up on my leg. The appointment didn't take long and I was ready to leave after only a few minutes. He however had something on his mind he wanted to discuss with me.

"I have noticed from your notes that you have breast cancer, I'm very sorry to see that" he said.

He then went on to mention how interesting it was because my levels of CA125 had been quite high back in May. Of course I already knew about this, CA125 can be a marker for cancer, it is something to do with the level of a particular enzyme, the normal level is around 35, anything higher and they start to worry. Mine was at 100.

"It's fine" I said really not wishing to enter into a discussion with him.

"That was all put down to my abdominal fibroid, they did think it was ovarian cancer and although it was pretty scary at the time in the end it was decided the levels were elevated due to the fibroid". I said, done with my explanation.

I made to get up and leave but he hadn't finished with me yet.

"Well that is what is terribly interesting" he continued, "There must be a link between ovarian cancer and breast cancer, especially with any family history of either cancer".

He looked at me half smiling as he relayed this news, there was an element of discovery in his tone as he continued telling me about a patient of his with the same thing, turned out she too had breast cancer, and her levels of CA125 were also higher than usual. He found this nugget of information fascinating, it pleased him no end that there was this potential medical breakthrough which had not been confirmed but which he had deduced by looking at my notes and comparing it with his own case. Clever man.  He was certainly quite happy to be sharing it with me. I felt sick as I took in what he was telling me.

"Does this mean they could have found this back in May? Four months ago?" I asked, in disbelief.

I watched as, metaphorically speaking, he climbed onto a fence as he could see me registering the impact of his conclusion. He refused to admit anything all the while mumbling something about 'it being highly unusual to link the two' and there was 'no definite link just a possibility' but 'wasn't it interesting?' Not for me it wasn't, it was frightening, although quite what I was scared of I wasn't yet sure.

Catching something like this early is important, it is hammered home to girls and women of all ages how we should check ourselves again and again because the earlier it is caught the sooner they can treat it. Was he saying that they should have / could have checked and then insisted on a mammogram just to rule things out? Should it have been caught before, maybe, before it started hurting. If there was a teeny tiny chance that it may have been linked then should I have been screened? It's confusing enough at times in my head but at that point it was bedlam.

I'd had enough and stood up to leave.

"Your leg is making good progress" he said, I was nearly at the door.

"Of course the chemotherapy will set that back" he said.

Even my consultant wouldn't confirm what my treatment would be until after my operation, yet this GP with the limited knowledge of my case set out on a screen in front of him felt he was perfectly able to blithely pass on this terrifying piece of information with all the compassion of Genghis Khan.

I walked out before I lamped him.

I did write a letter of complaint and they have assured me there will be an investigation,  I have asked that even if there is a glimmer of a link then anyone with high levels of this enzyme need to be offered a mammogram. It isn't enough to dismiss it as a theory, the procedures need to be changed.  I have no idea what is ahead for me, I won't know a thing until I'm given the results after my operation and that is a few weeks away. One step at a time.

I'm almost looking forward to the operation, it won't be pretty but I certainly need to know what I'm up against. That's the thing with the Mean Reds, once you know what the frightening thing is, it's not quite as frightening.