Symptoms / Diagnosis

Butter Side Up!

Ok so you’ve been dealt a pretty crap hand, it’s not fair, you don’t deserve it but what do you do? I suppose there are many ways to deal with the hard knocks, everyone is different thank goodness but until this ordeal is over every time I drop it my toast lands….

John, Jane, Lydia & Miriam Widdowson (Click pic to enlarge)

You can LEAVE A COMMENT HERE or email Jane or myself at

john@johnwiddowson.com or jane@johnwiddowson.com

The family photo above was taken on our late summer break to Anglesey. At that time, as you can see from the paunch, I was knocking back the lovely Welsh lamb and freshly made baguettes with no problem at all. Not that I’m blaming the whole Welsh nation for me getting cancer but if the cap fits ...

That was in August 08, then back to reality and work at Nottingham City Council where I hold the longest title of Principal Officer Middleware & Systems Support. I’ve always taken pack up for lunch, sandwiches, fruit that sort of thing. During September I started to struggle swallowing the bread, brown, white, whole meal, sliced or rolls it didn’t matter. Often after a big swallow or a walk around it would go down, sometimes it wouldn’t. After I’d had to regurgitate the undigested bread a few times I switched to crackers. There, that’s how a man deals with that sort of stuff, just ignore it and blame it on passing your 48th birthday in the summer.

A couple of weeks later when the crackers that had been made up the night before and left to go soft in the Tupperware box failed to go in and only the ripest banana would pass through without difficulty did I decide to go and see my GP.

Text Box: I was referred to the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre, a new building on the Queens Medical Centre (QMC) campus. I went for a consultancy appointment on 21 Oct. We discussed exactly what I had discussed with my GP some two weeks earlier then I was booked in for an endoscopy the following week Oct 28, Lydia’s birthday. I braved it and just had the throat spray, I’d come on my own on the bus so had no choice really. My advice, take someone with you and have the sedative, it might cost the NHS a few quid more but believe me it’s worth it. I came away with a printed form that said biopsies had been taken and at the top it said ’mild inflammation’. I waited and waited for the results, all the time the weekly shopping list had more and more things on it that I was able to eat. I was regurgitating more and more then knocking those things off the list for the following week. Around the first week in December I got a letter from the GP surgery in Ilkeston to ring the surgery to make a telephone appointment to discuss the report from the consultation, it said on it ‘This is not urgent and nothing to worry about’. Sure enough when I spoke to the GP he said the results were clear and it seemed that was that! When I explained the events since Oct 28 he had no option really but to refer me back to the consultant. I

Not following my own advice I took the bus again, went on my own and braved it with just the throat spray, in some ways it was a big mistake ‘coz it was bloody painful, in another way it was good to be completely compos mentis.

I had a discussion with a young female doctor who was to perform the procedure, she asked me how I was, wasn’t that nice of her? I told her that over the past few days I’d really struggled to eat any solid food at all and that I was sure I’d got food stuck in my gullet. That would just be any swelling giving that sensation she informed me.

The same consultant as before was in the room, busy on the computer. Because you opt for just the throat spray you also get an extra nurse, no not for extras, just to hold your head still! The doctor began to put the endoscope in and around the U bend then exclaimed ‘my goodness what’s that’.

That - was the food from the last two days stuck in my gullet just like I’d said. Everyone gathered around to have a look, it looks like kids toys said one, and chocolate balls said another, I can see the face of Elvis said a third. OK I made that last one up but it was a bit of a carnival especially as I couldn’t even see the bloody monitor.

At that stage the consultant took over, she’d probably got ‘bagsies’ on any gold coins that were down there. “Just a little bit of food debris” she said and attached a large syringe full of what I assume was just water to the endoscope and flushed it all out. The normally five minute procedure was almost fifteen minutes in when I held one hand up and pointed to my stomach with the other. “I realise there is a little wind in there”, a little! I felt like a space hopper. As the camera finally came out so did the wind, from both ends and it just kept on coming. She explained that the camera wouldn’t pass into my stomach and all the air was to expand the gap a little to get it in, well that hadn’t worked. As I composed myself she commented that she was concerned this time, that coming from Madame Blasé, so was I. She would have to book me in at the QMC to repeat it under radiology, she also wanted to do a CT scan. I farted all the way home and waited for another letter. This time I was clutching a form which said ’Oesophageal stricture’.

The kids toys and chocolate balls if you’re interested were the tiny cubes of potato from Sunday’s Spanish omelette and the mincemeat from Monday’s shepherds pie.

Text Box: The CT scan (Computerised tomography) was booked in at the NHS Treatment Centre on Fri 9 Jan 09, the endoscopy to try and get past whatever was blocking the entrance to my stomach was for the following Monday, 12 Jan.
The CT scan was straight forward I just found it a bit odd that I had been nil by mouth since early morning only to have to drink a litre of aniseed tasting fluid as soon as I sat down.
I didn’t expect to see a doctor and I wasn’t disappointed, the two ladies conducting the procedure were very nice and explained what was going to happen. They fitted a cannula to my arm and explained that mid way

Monday morning came and I was at the QMC in good time for my 8.30 appointment with the same consultant as before. I ought to have took Jane with me but again I didn’t and went on the bus. At 9.30 I was still sitting there with a numb bum, the receptionist noticed my frustration and made a call through to the day case ward where I was headed. A few moments later I was taken through by a nurse. They do things different here, at the Treatment Centre you can keep your civvies on for the tests, here is was one of those gowns that lets it all show at the back, but they’re not daft they give you a dressing gown as well and get their laughs from seeing you in your boots! Very fetching.

The nurse came back a few minutes later with ‘bad news and good news’, the consultant had rang in sick, but she had found another doctor willing to take it on, he’d come and talk to me in a few minutes. This guy was a real top bloke! He explained he would fit a balloon to the end of the endoscope and blow it up then squeeze the camera through to get into my stomach, what couldn’t be done before if you remember. He asked who I had come with - D’oh. I gave him Jane’s mobile number and he passed it to a nurse to call her. I had to be sedated for the first time. I do remember crossing the corridor with my bag of belongings and getting on the table, the doctor asking for a combination of drugs for the sedation the names of which I can’t remember then I was back in the day case ward. None of the gagging and choking and quite high into the bargain.

He came to my bedside and spoke to me but when Jane arrived I had no recollection of what he’d said. The nurse told us the doctor wanted to speak to us both before we left. We waited until he was between patients again and he took us down the corridor into his office. He explained to us both that he had managed to do the balloon trick and get into my stomach, he’d had a look around and all seemed well then he turned the camera around to look back up at the entrance to the stomach and had seen the tumour! He said he had taken biopsies and that the results would go to the Multi Disciplinary Team (MDT) meeting at the City Hospital in Nottingham on Friday that week. He’d said tumour, not mass or swelling or lump or inflammation but tumour, that was a bit of a shock for us.

I was off the following day as the appointment had been rescheduled to the Monday but I took the rest of the week off sick, I was a bit beaten up from the procedure and really didn’t want to miss what was coming on Friday from the meeting.

Text Box: Friday came and mid afternoon the phone rang, it was a nurse from Nottingham City Hospital. The MDT meeting had taken place but the biopsy results were inconclusive.
I’d have to have an endoscopic ultra sound (EUS) and some deeper biopsies taken.

28 Jan 09 - this time Jane was coming with me, well meeting me there after she’d sorted the kids out, the appointment was for 1.30. Familiar ground here at the QMC now same procedure as before with the running late and the gown and boots thing.

A different consultant this time to do the EUS and a different sedative. I heard him ask for pethidine, it went in and we got started. I was drowsy but conscious and started to gag a bit as the endoscope went in. I heard the consultant ask the nurse for “a little more pethidine please” and I thought I wouldn’t mind a bit more either! I remember seeing the ultra sound monitor this time but not understanding what I saw, a bit like a baby scan, until the midwife points out the wriggly bits it could be anything. I also remember hearing the snapping as the biopsies were taken. I don’t know if I felt it, I may have imagined that bit.

Afterwards again a similar procedure, the consultant spoke to us. He said he’d seen what he’d seen but there was not point in second guessing the biopsy results, they’d be available in a few days anyway. They were available and reviewed at the Friday MDT meeting at the City. Again we had a call on the following Monday this time, the results were conclusive this time and would we go to the Treatment Centre on Tuesday 3rd Feb 09 for the results.

Text Box: 3 Feb 09 - I met Jane at the Treatment Centre on the QMC campus, I’d been to work in the morning and Jane had farmed out the kids again to family and friends. We took a seat in the waiting area and were called in almost immediately. Height and weight were done again. On 21 Oct 08 I weighed in at 13st 8lb, now I was 11st 4lb which while still a healthy weight and probably about right for my height just isn’t me, I’ve always been a big chap, I used to box at 12st 7lb when I was 17 years old and probably only went below 12st during basic training in the Army. We met the nurse from the City Hospital, Cathy, who we had both spoken to on the phone and recognised her voice as she spoke to someone in the corridor. Then they arrived one by one, a specialist consultant who I only remember as ‘Paddy’, a young student doctor who looked terrified and the nurse from the City. It was Paddy (I must find out his name) who broke the news. No beating about the bush he just said ‘do you know the results of the tests?’ I said no and he said ‘you have cancer’. At that point your mind races a bit, the word ‘cancer’ repeating itself so it was good that Jane was there to take it all in and we could confer later. I had a quick examination behind a curtain and I could hear Jane shedding a few tears and Cathy consoling her. Back in the room we were introduced to Mr Welch the surgeon, I can’t recall how long we were there but strangely it was all a big relief and the people we had met were all so positive. We came away with some literature to read and an indication of what the treatment plan would be.
There was no escaping it now, it was real and the clock was ticking to get started. All the tests, treatments