Week 6
8 September 2008
12 noon My birthday today, and the last full week of treatment begins this afternoon. It’s been a long old haul, and I shan’t be sorry to see the last of it. I only hope it will yield the expected result – to reduce the cancer to a point where it will be easier to control. I’m not hoping for a cure as that’s never been on the cards.
‘So you’re having the full Monty!’ the tall male radiologist remarked a week or so ago when I told him I was down for 37 sessions. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ I cautiously replied, wondering if they expected me to reveal myself in all my dubious glory on the last lap.
Today’s session will be my 30th – I’ve been counting from the very beginning. It’s been an experience alright, but one I could very well have done without. I find the place depressing, but how could it be otherwise? Everyone there, staff apart, is a cancer patient, and cancer is redolent of gloom and – I was going to say despair, but I mustn’t. One must never despair, because despair means the annihilation of hope. And without hope we are nothing.
10 September
Memo to myself: ‘Cheer up man! You’ve got a lot to be thankful for! Think of that birthday – thought you were going to have a quiet one, and what happened? Unexpected party with visits from sons, daughter, grandsons (two with partners) and granddaughters, plus great-grandson, little Ashley! Prezzies galore, and a stupendous hat in the shape of a birthday cake with candles! What more do you want?’
I know I’m lucky. And who knows what this treatment will do? Give me a new lease of life? You never know. So smile, man – stop whinging!