What… No tears? And a dormer window.

As you know (if you read my previous post, and if you didn’t, you don’t know, but I’ll tell you now) hubs is diagnosed with colon cancer.

Shit, yes.

Anyway, we heard it last Monday and now he has to undergo all sorts of medical examinations to find out where exactly the tumour is, if the cancer has spread and what kind of treatment he will get. These examinations were to take place in the next two weeks, but since there is only one MRI scanning machine (if there is a different English term for the thing, please let me know) in this particular hospital and it is a very popular MRI scan thing, apparently there is a huge cue of people waiting to get scanned, his scan has been moved to a week later. Which means that his case will be discussed in the surgical team a week later too, which means that we will hear what exactly is going on inside hubs’ intestines and which treatment he will get a week later too. Three weeks from now. Are you still following?

Yesterday we had an appointment with his ‘regieverpleegkundige’ or his ‘director nurse’. She is the nurse who knows everything about his case and will be our main person to talk to. I’ll call her ‘case nurse’.

She wanted to talk to both of us. See, I’m one of those people who like ‘a little less conversation, a little more action please’. Especially in cases like this. But okay, hubs and I went to meet his case nurse. She had a box of tissues at the ready. And was highly surprised that we weren’t crying our eyes out. “Are you always this cool?”, she asked hubs. “Pretty much”, he said.
She looked slightly disappointed at her box of tissues and moved it to one side. Away from us. We clearly didn’t need them. Yet.

“I’d like to know why the MRI scan date has been moved to a later date”, hubs said. “If I’d been a famous football player with a twisted ankle, I’d probably get an MRI scan this afternoon!”

“Uhm, yes. Good point, well made”, she responded and picked up her phone to make a few calls. The people she spoke to agreed that the rescheduled MRI scan wasn’t according to the protocol, but they couldn’t do anything about it (we were not surprised). “I’ll confer with your specialist. Perhaps he can do something about it, but he isn’t working today”, she said. So we’ll have to wait and see again. On the other hand, an earlier MRI scan also means that hubs will go into the ‘treatment-path’ earlier, which means that he will have less time to paint the outside woodwork of the house. Every advantage has its disadvantage.
Next Monday he’ll have a colonoscopy. Next Tuesday he has a CT-scan and we’re planning to have scaffolding delivered on Wednesday so he can start painting. That is No. 1 on my list-of-things-he-has-to-do-before-he-gets-ill. I’m not cruel. Just practical. And I’ll be assistant painter, so it’s not like I’ll be sitting and watching.

She also asked if we have a social network around us; people we could talk to in times of need. HA! We certainly do. Two neighbours came to bring flowers (and every disadvantage has its advantage too; we get pretty bunches of flowers) and to say that ‘if they can do anything, anything at all….’. And yesterday morning a couple of friends came to say the same thing. And yesterday evening another neighbour came to offer help and a shoulder to cry on. We have a lot of great friends and neighbours and I know they mean everything they say. Only, there is a timing issue, because by the time we may need help they probably all have gone on holiday. It is that time of the year.

Again, we’ll just have to wait and see.

On a different and much happier note; last Tuesday a company came to put a dormer window on the roof of a bedroom. Now, that sounds like the doorbell rang and someone surprised us with a dormer window, but no; we knew the thing came. What a huge difference it makes to the space in our bedroom.

Here are some photos:

This is a ‘before’ photo. Obviously. Through the internal windows, the angular ones, you can see into our living room. This is one of the carpenters (not the band) busy preparing things for the arrival of the dormer window.

And then the window arrived….

…and they made a hole in the roof…

and then they lifted the dormer window over the house into its new spot…

(I told you the woodwork needs painting)

the guy on the ground used a nifty remote control device to steer the crane

very strong guy, using only one arm to lift the whole construction (yeah, right)

and now it looks like it has always been there (The woodwork on this side of the house looks better. Only here there is a shameful mess on the floor, and the bricks need cleaning on each side of the house. Who knows, we may even do that this year.)

and this is what it now looks like on the inside, with plenty of room for a nice decorative drying rack

And now we have to think about the design of our new bedroom and create it. But it can wait. First things first.