The Unwelcome Guest

My course of radiotherapy starts tomorrow, and I can’t deny I’m approaching it with a degree of trepidation. My birthday falls right at the beginning of September and kind friends and family have made the celebrations to mark my 64^th trip around the sun last a full week, but these must now draw to a close.

My treatment takes place at St Thomas’ Hospital which was unexpected as all my previous consultations, scans and tests have been at Guy’s.

Coincidentally, we have a family friend who is a senior medic at St Thomas’ and she has given me two excellent pieces of advice which I’ll do my best to follow.

First up, I am being treated by the NHS and as marvellous as it is, there will inevitably be delays and days when I’m kept waiting around, perhaps for hours. Her advice: Accept this as an inevitability, take a book and don’t stress. I’m continuing working while being treated but making meetings on time or making meetings at all could be tricky.

It’s likely I will get side-effects from the treatment, some of which may be unpleasant, but all being well these will be temporary. Her advice: Acknowledge this and take it in your stride; it won’t last forever.

Years ago, I was a journalist and inevitably got into some scrapes; postings in Sarajevo, Mogadishu and DR Congo spring to mind. I was never remotely brave but if I knew we were going on a potentially dangerous assignment I always wanted to get on with it so as to leave it behind as soon as possible. Rather what I’m feeling right now; let’s do this thing.

A blog well worth looking at is Dan’s Journey Through Prostate Cancer. He was diagnosed in November 2010 and has kept a very informative an enquiring blog ever since. His writing is now a fantastic resource which contains a huge amount of technical and informative information.

Taken almost at random here he is on relationships:

When you tell someone that you have cancer, be ready for the relationship to change, most often in a direction that you didn’t anticipate. Some of those closest to me couldn’t handle the news and were the ones I could least depend on for emotional support, while some who were mere acquaintances prior to the diagnosis became my rocks.

I learned that I had to be the strong one in the relationship, even when I didn’t necessarily want to be. I also learned that I had to set the tone on how and when to talk about–shhhh–cancer. My approach was to talk about it openly, honestly, and with humor. I had to make fun of this somehow.