The Biopsy

At 7am the normally bustling foyer of Belfast City Hospital is almost empty. Outside the cafe a tired looking doctor in surgical gear is grasping a coffee and bun. I walk past her and down the long stark corridor to the Day of Surgery Unit. It’s busy, the eight bed ward has two nurses taking case histories from anxious looking men. I am directed to the bed in the corner, my name and my consultants name is written on a white-board above it. I sit in the chair beside the bed and sigh. I have become a patient again.

In a short while Nurse Josie comes, draws the blue curtain around the bed and begins to take my case history. Between the questions about my medications, previous surgery and whether I have been at risk of CJD, we chat about places we knew in Glasgow (where she trained and I used to live). At the end she takes four vials of blood for different tests and attaches a label to each of my wrists. Sometime later a junior doctor appears, double-checks most of my case history and inserts a cannula into my forearm.

There is nothing left to do but get into my gown, sit on the bed and wait for the procedure. I exchange anxious glances and a few sentences with the patient opposite. James is in for an angioplasty. But soon we subside into our own well of fears. I try and distract myself reading the newspaper. Then a porter arrives and manoeuvres James’ bed out of the ward. All that is left is the whiteboard with his name and a pile of clothes on the bedside chair.

It’s not too long before they come for me. I am wheeled into a small theatre in Radiology. My details are checked and the surgeon shows me the long thin pair of scissors he will use for the procedure. Soon I am watching them on a high magnification screen as they are inserted into my side. The scissors penetrate under the skin and muscle and into my lump. It doesn’t look like a satsuma, more like a knobbly potato; it bulges at one end and is slimmer at the other. The surgeon clicks the scissors and they cut a sliver from my lump and capture it in a tiny tray. He withdraws the scissors, places the sliver in a little jar and does the procedure again, taking a piece from a different part of the lump. It’s a very strange experience. I feel next to nothing as I’ve been given local anaesthetic, just like at the dentist.

Afterwards I’m wheeled back to the ward and prescribed four hours bed rest with my pulse and blood pressure to be checked every half an hour, in case of any internal bleeding. I’m also allowed to eat and drink (having been fasting from midnight) but my first bite is an NHS cooked dinner: cold mashed potato, soggy cauliflower and a greasy slab of grey pork. I’m not allowed visitors.

At 4pm I’m permitted to leave. After nine hours in the same hospital that I spent five difficult weeks in during 2011 I’m feeling exhausted. I trudge back to the foyer and get coffee and cake from the cafe. I’m very glad that T is there to take me home.

The samples from my lump will be sent to the laboratory and I’m told I ought to get the results in a week or so. The anxious waiting continues.