The long and agonising wait...

Keith had his hospital appointment this morning at 11.20am and after dropping Mike off at school and Sophie at uni, as she was meeting one of her friends, we drove to the hospital and arrived very early.

Both of us weren't looking forward to the appointment at all and when we arrived in the waiting room  at about 11am there were lots of people also waiting to be seen. Keith went to the reception desk and I sat next to a woman with a little boy who never stopped chattering away the whole time we were there! I would have found him exhausting and I think his mother did as she asked him at one point whether she could take a nap!

So, we sat and waited and waited and the delay made it into a real ordeal for us as we were both nervous of the outcome, especially as Keith had only had the proper scan a couple of days ago. When we had been waiting over an hour and a half Keith went back to reception to see how much longer it would be and he was told that the consultant was now running 80 minutes late...

We eventually got shown into a small examination room over two hours late and when the doctor came in he explained that on the first CT scan the ink hadn't gone into Keith's vein properly...Keith said he knew that which was why he'd had a second scan on Wednesday and had been told the results would be with the consultant today...

This was obviously a bit embarrassing for the doctor who disappeared back into his office to get them. When he came back he confirmed that Keith had a tumour on his left kidney but that the scan had revealed nothing had spread to anywhere else, which was a huge relief to us. The next move will be to see another consultant who will decide the best course of action - to either remove the kidney completely or to remove the tumour which he said was like a grape hanging off the kidney.

We then spoke to an Oncologist nurse who gave us an information pack to read and she was lovely and very reassuring so although the news wasn't brilliant it was a lot better than it could have been and at least we can get Keith sorted out!

After picking Sophie up from university where she had been waiting we returned home and then I treated Sophie to a drink and a sandwich at Beckworth. I had a cup of tea and a scone and we chatted about the events of the morning and how relieved I was!