I am no different to anyone else, I think. I have my own family tales of cancer.
My mother battled and beat cancer twice; as she puts it, now she’s rattling around inside. Grandad smoked all his life, but didn’t die of lung cancer; it was everywhere else though. My father-in-law didn’t smoke and lung cancer took him. There is no rhyme or reason to the havoc cancer wreaks.
These events were rarely spoken about. I certainly pushed them to the back of my mind, preferring to remember the people not the disease.
Now, it’s my turn. I went into hospital with sepsis and high blood pressure, came out with type 1 diabetes, kidney cancer with secondary cancer of the lungs. I’m not sure I won that round. Certainly, I was down but I’m not out. Not yet.
The cyst on my liver is benign and the MRI on my brain didn’t necessitate any stay in hospital or panicky phone calls telling me to get myself back there PDQ.
Not like when they found a blood clot on my lung. Funnily enough, that upset me more than when I was told I had cancer. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the thought of another night in MAU; the experience wasn’t enjoyable when I had sepsis.
I thank all the NHS staff from the cleaners through porters, nursing staff, doctors, registrars and consultants – even the four radiographers of the apocalypse – for the kindness, decency and professionalism, especially in the moments when my illnesses stripped me of all human dignity. When I was low, they picked me up, dusted me down and set me off and running again. OK, stumbling.
So, the upshot of it all is that I’m having my kidney hooked out in a week or so, with the consultant “confident” he can do it via keyhole surgery. Once I’ve recovered, a course of chemo for the lungs which I’m told may be fun. Mother Nature beat the pills to hair loss as my sister pointed out, hot on the heels of my wife telling me my head is egg-shaped after a trip to the Turkish barbers.
Sorry if I’ve rambled or offended anyone with the levity; that’s my way of dealing with it all. And remember, you aren’t as offended as I was when a man wearing orange crocs told me I had cancer.
Orange crocs. Orange blooming crocs.
