My cancer's worse than yours (12)

Where the heart is...

THE DAY her cancer was diagnosed was seared deep into my late Vikki’s psyche, to the point where she even wrote a poem about it when the Royal Marsden Hospital asked for contributions to a charity collection of poetry they were publishing. It was about how she had imagined her reaction might be to such news. Perhaps a trip to the travel agent to book an exotic holiday? Actually, all she wanted was to be at home.

(A previous Substack containing the poignant poem, which naturally they chose for the collection:

It’s curious. I remember the day and the date she was diagnosed – March 10, 2007 – but can’t remember mine. It was sometime over the summer of 2009. Her cancer really was worse than mine – as just a reminder of V’s sense of humour, and probably to reassure me, she called it a bit of man cancer – and its severity back then preoccupied both of us.

I do remember last Thursday, though, and understood only too well Vikki’s desire just to be in her own home after some bad news.

I finished the chemotherapy – more accurately, it finished me – back in October. After six months of much confinement and restriction due to feeling so ill, the hope was for six months, maybe a year, of being and feeling ‘normal’, of doing normal things like having a weekend away, maybe even having a holiday. Such was the zest of life returning after treatment.

Then came the December 5 consultation and the oncologist’s verdict on PET and CT scans I’d had 10 days earlier.

The cancer, which has gradually down the years moved from the original prostate site via pelvic lymph nodes to bones, has gone walkabout again. As well as hip and lower back lesions looking ‘clearer’ on the images (which means they’ve grown), a new one has popped up in the rib cage. The chemo might well have helped prevent disease spreading to soft tissue and organs, but it hasn’t worked how we’d all hoped on dem bones.

I have, in my more rational and lucid moments, been very philosophical about all this. As I’ve written before, I have been blessed both professionally and personally and enjoyed a fulfilling life. Everything these days, especially after a brutal and terrifying two years of raw and intense grief after Vikki’s death almost six years ago now, is a bonus.

This news, though, hit me hard, knocked the stuffing out of me. Everything suddenly got a bit more real. I came over all exhausted, lethargic. I walked around the hospital in a daze for a while. Drank a tea. Did a crossword. Texted my kids, though didn’t want to speak. For now, I just wanted diversion and distraction as I took this in. The cancer, devious and fiendishly clever, would not be cured now, as I had known for a while. Now it was sinking more deeply into me that its natural, crashing, conclusion was hurtling towards me more quickly and time – the enemy, the thief – was shortening.

Being out of control emotionally and sometimes physically in the aftermath of a loved one’s death provokes different behaviour in different people. For me, it prompted the feathering of my now solitary nest, creating an evironment that was warm, safe and comforting for this now single bloke who liked books, reading and writing them, watching sport and eating good food. Also, visiting places that felt familiar and not venturing too far from that which nourished and nurtured. I liked things neat, tidy and organised. Being punctual and planning things properly. Controlling the things I reasonably could, keeping a lid on life, to offset the seemingly uncontrollable waves and chaos of my emotions.

I had planned that bombshell day at the Marsden to have a sandwich after the blood tests and consultation, head into Central London to scout a venue for the launch of a book I’d commissioned and visit the Marsden’s beautiful Ever After Garden in Grosvenor Square, where an artificial flower can be planted in memory of a lost loved one in return for a donation. After that, back to the Marsden for their annual ‘Celebrate A Life’ carol service in early evening and a meal afterwards with a friend in what has become an annual event since the loss too of her partner, also treated at the hospital.

I had energy for none of it - the bustle of the city, waiting around in a cancer hospital, dinner (no offence to her and she graciously understood). Like Vikki, I just wanted to be back in a place and places where I was in control and which soothed. I felt guilty, and also concerned. Vikki and I had gone to the carol service together every year after her diagnosis, except for 2018 when she was just too ill to brave the cold. She worried that not going might be unlucky. She died two months later.

I thought about being unlucky this coming year as I drove to St Albans Cathedral to pray in the place where I had first given thanks for the birth of my daughter 38 years ago. I walked up into town, bought a Poinsettia for the flat, and a steak pie for tea. I had a few words with the Big Issue seller and bought a copy from her. I even bought some sweets for the first time in yonks. It was self-care of a sort.

Now, sometimes people are accused of feeling sorry for themselves if they voice their fear and frustration about this damned disease. Of being negative. Stay positive, we cancer sufferers are told. It makes a big difference to outcomes. Well, perhaps to the length of that time before the inevitable outcome for us secondary, incurable, sufferers. Sometimes, though, you just feel sad. (I should take ownership and say I just feel sad.) Perhaps the stoicism will, would, return. On that day, though, I just felt sad. Nothing to do, on reflection, with self-pity. It is OK to feel sad. To give ourselves a break even if we do feel a bit negative.

And, irrationally, a feeling of anger came out of nowhere. Anger that Vikki wasn’t there for me as I had been for her. (Nuts because I know she would desperately want to be here for me and would be if she hadn’t bloody died. My God, I miss her.) That my kids were busy with their own currently challenging lives and I felt lonely. (Nuts again, because they have been so emotionally and physically supportive this grim year.)

I’ve spent the weekend online ordering stuff. Prezzies for the grandchildren, yes, but also stuff for the flat. A lamp, a table runner that might work well. Eight months before she died, Vikki wanted a new kitchen fitted. It felt like an unnecessary extravagance given that she was unlikely to be around for long to enjoy it, and knew it, but I didn’t begrudge her. Now I understand exactly how she felt. It brought normality. It offered hope and the pleasure of something just, well, nice.

So what now?

I begin the new treatment in January. It involves more infusions via cannula of a drug specifically targeted at the cancer in the bones, hopefully interrupting its spread for a while. They will be once a month, for six months. They take only a few minutes to administer, apparently, rather than the hours of chemo. I’m told they are less debilitating than chemo, though one side effect can be problems in the jaw and mouth. I was advised to see a dentist before the treatment and have already done so. The chemo has caused some decay, it appears, and I might need four teeth removed. (And feel free, you older readers, to break into a chorus of ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth’.)

On a whim a week ago before life laughed at me again for making plans, I booked a week in June at our favourite hotel in Italy, on the Ligurian coast. I don’t know whether I’ll make it. We’ll have to see how the new treatment goes and where it leaves me. I do also worry about not having company should something go wrong. I am, though, going to make it an aim to get there one more time.

*After I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, Vikki suggested that we should write a book together, entitled ‘My Cancer’s Worse Than Yours’. Alternate chapters, each reacting to our own and the other’s cancer. We both had too much on at that stage of our journalistic careers, however, though after she died I found some material she had written. I might even publish some of it on here. She was right by the way – her cancer was worse than mine. She always was right. Even when she was wrong.