The Unwelcome Guest

Apologies, but once again this blog is heading straight to the toilet. In fact thinking about it, it’s probably best read with the Benny Hill theme tune playing in the background. Not familiar with Benny Hill or his theme? Then click here.

If you’ve read the previous story, Radio Days (4), then you’ll know that when placed into the radiotherapy doughnut, one’s bowels must be empty and one’s bladder must be tightly packed with 350ml of water. I gather the amount of water varies from patient to patient.

Rafiq, my go-to radiographer, told me that to help this process I should self-administer an enema at home prior to visiting the hospital. I’ve done this before during my treatment and they always seemed to take forever to work. So I decided to, for want of a better phrase, shove it where the sun don’t shine, and then bicycle to the hospital, which is only 15 minutes away.

I’m about 10 minutes into the ride when it becomes immediately apparent, that this enema is one of the quick acting kind, and I need to go to the bathroom now, right now, or preferably sooner. I’m Desperate Dan.

Being past the halfway mark it’s too late to turn back, so the only option is to ride like the clappers to St Thomas’. To pedestrians and drivers my Boris Bike becomes a blur, I’m in motion. I overtake a number 77 bus and veer in front of a taxi and get screamed for my trouble. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Plunging the bike into its stand, with my pants still unsoiled, I charge headlong into a hospital toilet and make it in the nick of time. You can stop playing the Benny Hill theme tune now.

Catching my breath in the waiting room prior to my treatment, I chatted with fellow patients who have Unwelcome Guests of their own. Both the presence of cancer and its treatment affects people in many ways. One fellow sufferer was clearly on edge and nervous, blurting out all his feelings to me, a complete stranger. Suddenly realising this might be inappropriate, he apologised. Of course I’m only too happy to chat and said so.

Like me, he’s on hormone therapy, though his course is a great deal shorter than mine. Inevitably we talked side-effects and he claims it’s impaired his thinking as he constantly forgets things. This is a side-effect I wasn’t aware of, and I’m pretty sure my brain is no more scrambled that it was a year ago when I started out on the hormone rollercoaster.

We all have to drink between two and three litres of water a day to help maintain the healthy tissue that might suffer a radiotherapy blast. This causes some complaining, with one older gentleman saying that drinking so much water is making him feel ill. I’m no doctor but I’m guessing the combo of cancer, hormone and radio therapy is more likely to make you feel rubbish than guzzling a drop of H2O. He did moan a lot, perhaps his wife is waterboarding him.

Treatment three complete and as I’m leaving Rafiq and Hodma tell me I won’t be seeing them again as Hodma is having time off and Rafiq is moving back to Guy’s Cancer Centre. Rafiq is a football fanatic, supports Liverpool, but is a steward at Stamford Bridge where he keeps Chelsea fans and their visitors apart. He’s a bit worried about their next fixture, the Cardiff game. I’ll miss both of them.

So far, no apparent side-effects for me from the radiotherapy, but watch this space.