I walk into the oncologist’s office, with my colleague, Ahmad from work. The colleague who I have met once before last week and really only this week…who has, fortunately for him in terms of having to deal with me, set up all the mental health and psycho social programmes in Jordan for IMC. The point however is that I barely know this poor man, who has ended up sitting in an oncologists surgery with me.

We both take a second when we meet Dr Majdi….because he has the classic ISIS look. The clothes, the long beard with no moustache…the works. At this point, had he declared his lifelong affiliation to ISIS, I would have been fine as I was so desperate to talk to someone about my results.

He takes notes, I get up on the bed behind a curtain. He tells me he will get a female something, I didn’t hear what, to come in. OK. I lie down, in she comes, asks me to take off my top and bra and then covers me with a sheet. I am at this point wondering if she is going to check my boob and somehow transmit this information to him – perhaps by holding his hand through the curtain or something? But no, he came in and did the job. I am at this point crossing the rubicon into surreal…

We talk after – he if very, very reassuring. He says the lump is small, that it is always stage III when it has gone into the lymph nodes but does not mean it is that serious – I mean as a Stage III may suggest. I ask him about the likelihood of it having spread, qualifying by saying I know he cannot tell me definitively. He says he does not think so, but I will need the PETCT scan to be sure – but I do not have any obvious symptoms. He talks about two possible treatment options; chemo first which could actually eradicate the tumours completely or surgery followed by chemo. This is qualified once by him saying of course these are the options in the case it hasn’t spread. I asked again re spreading…he quotes the Quran about basically living one day at a time. I didn’t think this was the time to say we do the same in NA as well.

He is then deeply concerned about my implants. Which he talks about at length. All in front of my colleague – the one I barely know. I mention to Ahmad, joking, now you get to hear way more information than you need and if you tell anyone in the office I will kill you. The doc is completely taken aback, muttering about thinking it was fine to say this and he didn’t realise etc – Ahmad and I joked afterwards that we should have pretended I didn’t know him at all (not quite so far from the truth) and said to the doc, ‘what do you mean, is this man not with you – I have no idea who he is’!!! Or at least pretended I had just met him in the waiting room.

We left to get my blood tests, Ahmad had the same read as me re positivity from the doc and we are giddy. We were cracking up laughing at the ISIS connection, we had both thought exactly the same re the nurse or whoever she was and on and on. They clearly thought we were totally insane in the reception and phlebotomy place. Oh, and the doc had talked about different sort of mastectomies…Ahmad and I of course felt that he could do it with one clean swipe…

So I am happy tonight. I am still laughing at the surreal visit and all surrounding it, I had to go straight back to work and it was quite hard to concentrate…but I feel as if a 10 ton weight has been lifted from me. Yes, there is still the risk of course, but a lot less than I thought.

And to end – I could have had the scan tomorrow. But I can’t, since I have a meeting with investigative US Federal Agents for 3 hours in the morning. Do I mention that an ISIS doc is going to cure me of breast cancer?