But all the Belfast girls I ever met were such shy, retiring colleens! Except for my friend’s sisters who used to beat him up just for the craic lol As well as the T word, I hate it when they apply grieving process terms to my cancer when they don’t know the first thing about me. “Dave, you’re in the denial stage” because I was poker faced and not a blubbering wreck or “you’re trying to negotiate your way out of this”. i was trying to explain my rationale to a MacMillan nurse who sai she “wanted to show me around the local hospice where you’ll probably die”. Here’s my cold-hearted rational, as it was at the time. 1) I’ve been told there’s a 95% chance that my cancer will kill me within 5 years. 2) logically that means there’s a 5% chance that it won’t 3) 5% equals odds of 20 to 1 and I’ve seen race horses been those ofds 4) that 95% is based on patients of all ages and conditions, including very frail elderly falk with very low fitness levels who can’t tolerate chemo etc. (I researched this as an NHS Chief Information Officer) 5) at 55, I was relatively young, as fit as a fiddle with a lot to live for 6) it wasn’t cancer that killed off most patients, it was infections like pneumonia and COPD
I then had a long, serious, conversation with my oncologist who agreed to give me chemo at the high end of what was permitted and start immediately.
After each set of three weekly infusions I allowed myself to sleep for 36 hours before forcing myself to shower, dress and take my dog for a walk. My wife almost force fed me to avoid me becoming weak through under-eating.
I also went into almost complete social isolation to avoid infection. Pre-covid and people thought I was bonkers!
Luck played the biggest part but my stobborn mental attitude meant I stuck with the chemo, even when it felt like it was killing me! People avoid mentioning that in case it puts people off starting chemo but “no pain, no gain” is pretty true.
