Cancer Man

It's been a while since I posted anything in this blog, largely because my depression wasn't sufficiently interesting to warrant another post. However, since then things have occurred which make how I felt last year look like the proverbial picnic so I thought it was about time to start putting things into words. I don't know how many people will read this but to be perfectly honest, I'm doing it for me. So if you want to come along for the ride then you're welcome. I don't know how often I will be updating though.

So, cancer. Cancer. Horrible word, something to do with the hard consonant at the start perhaps. But then I don't feel that way about the word "cup" or "captain". Or even, oddly enough, the star-sign Cancer. So it must be more than just the sound. It's everything that it implies - IV drips, nasal oxygen catheters, people wearing pink, death... You can hear "Cancer" underlying everything that the surgeon says to me, right from the moment he begins with "So tell me where you've got up to." I want to scream, "I've got fucking cancer, do something about it." But instead I take a deep breath - not too deep in case someone takes it into their head to test my breathing - and go from the start. The twenty years of acid reflux, the chest pains, the inflammation of my oesophagus - henceforth to be sometimes know as gullet because it's easier to remember whether it's spelt with an "a" or an "e" - and the difficulty swallowing. 

I am well rehearsed in this story and sometimes embellish it with little details like "It took me twenty minutes to swallow a bread roll," or "Oooh, I've never known reflux like it" as if I'm some kind of hydrochloric acid connoisseur. At anything like this, the given professional - in this case a surgeon but I have also spoken to a surgical assistant, a nurse, my GP, and am prepared to repeat the whole sorry tale to the oncologist - smiles and nods, not surprisingly since they've got it all in front of them in my notes, give or take the odd bit of elaboration. I'm reminded of Miss Schofield in Alan Bennett's "A Woman of No Importance" - "I was all right on the Monday. I was all right on the Tuesday. I was all right on the Wednesday until lunchtime, at which point all my nice little routine went out of the window." But of course she died, so maybe another tack is called for. 

The surgeon, Mr Dexter, is at least honest with me. None of this "It's looking fine" nonsense that I sometimes get. I have Adenocarcinoma of the Oesophagus and it's not good, not good at all. It's one of the bad boys of cancers, more difficult to diagnose and cure than most and only the ninth most common in the UK. The top four, you'll be interested to learn, are Breast, Lung, Prostate and Bowel which sounds like a firm of solicitors. However, all is not lost. Oh no. The UGI Department at St James' Hospital in Leeds has such sights to show me. But first they have to do another endoscopy for reasons I don't entirely understand but seem to be something to do with the lymph nodes. 

If you've followed me this far, you're no doubt wondering what the lymph nodes are. Well, apparently they are part of the lymphatic system which collects peculiar fluid from various organs and carries it around the body in some kind of restless continuity. I have two lymph nodes next to my tumour, which is apparently baaaad, and they might or might not be affected so another look at them is required. This time, however, I am demanding a sedative on the grounds that last time it felt like someone had pushed a chimney brush down my throat and given it a good push-through. 

I'm not very good at being demanding however. I tend to arrive with lots of forthright, assertive things to say and then relax into my default position of saying "thank you" a lot. I intended to try and find out why, when I live near a perfectly good hospital, they insist on sending me into the badlands of Leeds at a moment's notice. I did hesitantly mention it but was slapped down quite quickly with a lecture on how good the hospital is and how lucky I am to be a patient there. Since this comes perilously close to telling me that I'm fortunate that cancer has given me the chance to visit, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.  

It might have helped had I not been in Leeds since 8.00, having arrived in time for a physical endurance test that never happened. You see, following a sleepless night in case I missed the alarm, they dragged me out of bed with the lark, stuck me on a hot, crowded and frankly smelly bus and forced me to walk miles to another hospital which is, helpfully, halfway up a hill. Following these treats, they stripped me to the waist - more unpleasant for them than for me I suspect, since I rather resemble a cross between Jayne Mansfield and Richard Griffiths - shaved half my chest hair off, stuck wires to me, pushed a breathing monitor in my mouth, shoved a clothes peg on my nose and stuck me on an exercise cycle. They then took my blood pressure and, fuck me sideways, it was apparently quite high! Cue five minutes sitting there as if I was auditioning for Page 3 followed by another blood pressure test. And, guess what, despite this relaxing environment, IT HADN'T GONE DOWN. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth later, it was decided that I should come back when "I felt a bit less stressed". I said something like, "You mean, when I haven't got cancer?" and received a stare which indicated that levity about my condition was not appreciated. 

I stormed out in a polite sort of way, having decided that I was going to abandon all treatment and beat the tumour with a combination of willpower and bacon sandwiches from Greggs. In fact I was so cross I had two bacon sandwiches. Being cross does have its advantages. Then I ambled through Burmantofts, the Monte Carlo of West Yorkshire, to St James' Hospital and thought that as I had an hour or two to spare, I would go and speak to the Macmillan Cancer people on the first floor. Big mistake. I don't live in Leeds you see so to speak to me would break some sort of West Riding Omerta. I then rang my (lovely) Macmillan contact in Harrogate who persuaded me that seeing the surgeon was probably a better idea than drowning my sorrows in a bucket of Domestos or taking up Christian Science. I also wandered along to the canteen for a very nice bit of meat and potato pie so the day wasn't a total disaster.

So that was my day, darling. Nighty night.

Oh incidentally, every time I post I intend to link to a song I like. So pop-pickers, here's "Hey Judas" by Black Star Riders.