Tuesday - Flattened

Chemotherapy - oh my god.

I would describe the after affects of chemo as follows.  Imagine that a man in a big truck drives it straight over you, then, not wishing to do half a job, stops the truck, gets a spade out of the boot, whacks you over the head with it a few times, gets back in the truck, reverses it over you, and - finally happy with his work - drives off, whistling.

Thursday and Friday you barely eat or drink, and vomit repeatedly. The district nurse comes out, injects some anti-sickness drugs into your bum.  Sadly, for at least one of you, this is the highlight of the day.

On Saturday H decides enough is enough, and phones the hospital, gets you admitted.  They put IV fluids in your arm, and put you to bed with lots more anti sickness drugs.  Carol, Theresa and the whole team are brilliant.

On Sunday lunchtime, you manage to eat a bit and keep it down.  Life gets better from there.  On Monday, after two nights in the hospital, and feeling a thousand times better, you go home.

Writing this, at home, I feel human again.  

Wednesday - Chemo

In hospital with a line in my right arm.  I have Cloud Atlas and Parks and Recreation for company. Thunderbirds are go.

6pm.  Home.  Chemo makes you burp uncontrollably.  Who knew?

Tuesday - The Fitzroy

Blood tests, X-rays, nurse appointments, doctor appointments, blood pressure checks.  It is endless.  Sometimes, when I am given yet more information, I tune out - because there is still a part of me that doesn't believe it is happening, and therefore I can ignore what I am told.

Chemo will now start tomorrow.  I am reminded of a line from Henry V - "Would I were in an alehouse in London.  I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety".  

Sunday

We drive West.  We sit in Dan and Elly's beautiful garden, and Elly prepares the most lovely food.  You talk, and for a while you forget.  Later you realise that it's pointless to forget, because it only comes back.  The thing that counts is to enjoy your time, like this fabulous day.

Before you leave, Dan hugs you, says I love you mate.  What more is there?  It helps.

BC - 2 - A small place, but we'll be welcome

It's dark, sort of warm, dirty and loud, and it's the street on the way to the tube at Leicester Square, on the first day in March.  Andy stands in a phone box there, picks up the phone, for a moment not knowing what he is going to do, then a massive grin clambers over his features and he shouts into the receiver - it's a small place but we'll be welcome.  He's on the phone to directory enquiries again, and you laugh.  When other people did this, like when people did it to you when you briefly worked in the telephone exchange at Lincoln, you thought they were idiots.  But now, standing in the clamour at 11:30, drunk and swaying in the serene calm that familiarity brings, it seems like a laugh, and you tell him he's an idiot.

Because it's his line of the moment, his greeting and his parting and his way to fill the gaps.  There's a place in Soho that he knows, an all night drinking den underneath a sex shop on one of the main streets, where you tip the nod and they open the door, and you go down - always down - into a gloomy cellar, and buy cans over the counter, amid the drunken suits.  Whenever the pubs chuck you out, Andy wants to take you there.  His eyes light up and he nudges your elbow and says - I know a place.  You tell him it's a dive and that nothing will get you to go.  But someone else, someone less familiar always asks.  And Andy puffs his chest out in mock self importance and says - it's a small place but we'll be welcome.

You move along the street.  Gav and Andy are both burbling in your ear, making nonsense plans.  Slowly the words filter through into your head and you look up to see Andys shiny face and Gavs nodding head, and it hits you that this is a great moment  It's a perfect moment when everything seems to be right and to come together, like a perfectly composed snapshot in time.  There are other people all around you, but in the photo they'd just be a blur, like it was necessary to have them there, the way it's necessary to know that life goes on around you, but the exact composition, the faces and the clothes weren't important, and the blur is just meant to signify a composite mass.

The laughter wells up inside you, you can't stop it, and it comes out like a machine gun.  And they turn round and look at you strangely.  Andy grabs you round the head and shouts - what are you doing, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, and you shout out, it's a small place, but we'll be welcome, and in this way you somehow get to the tube.

The tube is like it always is at this time, a display case, a cross section of all humanity.  You stand somewhere at the centre of it, on the platform waiting, and you feel more inhibited and nervous down there.  You manage to steal seats, and stare at the floor.  You tumble out at the other end, and it doesn't feel so warm now.  It always seems to you that the Holloway Road is designed as a wind tunnel, and you curse it.  The three of you walk on down the road, and Andy veers toward the phone box again, but you pull him back, and tell him to button up his jacket as a vicious gust hits you.  You bury your head into your collar, and dig your hands deeper into your pockets, and for a second it feels like you're on your own.  But then you look up, and Gav is walking along, looking as if the elements couldn't touch him, and Andy is stumbling forward with his eyes half shut and his head down.

He peers out from under his eyes, and gives you his look which seems to say - oh you've caught me.  It should be another one of those moments, a snapshot that you want to keep in your head, but the Holloway Road doesn't lend itself to that.  Leicester Square is theatre, a place to suspend your disbelief,  but here it's empty and open, the way things return to before you go to sleep, bleak normality.  You move forward into the wind, towards the curry house.  You step in, and the man says, we're closing.  But Gav puts on his most normal voice and manner, just matter of fact, and asks if you can have a take away and a beer while you're waiting, and the man seems happy enough with that, so you take a place at the table and look at each other.

In the background, the radio is playing and there's a gentle voice coming out of it, just talking sense, the news.  Andy looks over at it, for all the world as though something wonderful has been revealed to him and he looks back at you startled.  You raise an eyebrow and he says - it's so soothing....so soothing.  And it is - the voice is measured and soft, the voice of a favourite teacher at primary school, and you sit there and run your fingers through your hair, let it all wash over.

You pick up the curries and walk back home to the house in the square in Archway, and fall asleep into them.  And when you wake up, it seems the three of you have the house to yourself, and it was all just clear blue skies.

Friday

Chemo is set to start on Thursday next week.  Yikes.

Meanwhile, one for Lewis.

Wednesday - Not drowning but waving

Andy A comes to see you, and it's great to see him. You sit in the garden, and he says, I can't believe it, I can't believe it. He says I can't sleep thinking about it. Somehow, his reaction and concern is comforting. He says this has been a wake up call for me, I'm making some big changes, and you think, brilliant, that's brilliant.

Later, at the hospital, you wait to see Doctor G. H can't remember his name, and says Doctor Gandalf will have all the answers. You snort, laugh, cough, say bloody hell, don't call him that. 

Doctor G says, we'll start with chemo next week, you say, good, throw everything you've got at me. The nurse takes you to the ward, gives you folic acid, and a vitamin injection. 

The tumour is like Gandalf 's balrog, it wants to wrap itself around you, drag you down.  But this is real life, not a scene from the book you loved when you were 12. There's no wizard to help you. You'll just have to crawl out of the pit, and fight as best you can. 

Tuesday

We meet with the lung cancer nurse, with the oncology doctor to come tomorrow. She outlines the treatment available - cycles of chemo, with maybe some radiotherapy if it is deemed useful. Apparently there is some tumour lodged in my ribs with they could target with the radio.  That would explain the pain I have in my right side.

I have more information than I can process, and endless love and support. H is a rock. But I feel like a rat caught in a trap. There is no way out. 

Monday

A few months ago, when all seemed well, we planted peas in the back garden. Now, in the middle of the heatwave, I sit on the grass with M and eat them raw from the pod. She is so beautiful.

I am blessed.

Day 2

Already, I am starting to notice changes that consciously or unconsciously, I am making.  I had full fat milk this morning - why not, go nuts.  I have never really been a drinker, but I don't think I'll ever have another drink.

We have been overwhelmed by love and support.  Telling my mum and family was the hardest thing possible.  Hearing your mother shatter into little bits over the phone is unbearable.  My phone has been red hot, I think I have cried during each and every conversation, whether the person I was talking to knew it or not.

Now and again, in a quiet moment, the full force of it hits me and I have a little blub.

BC (Before Cancer) - 1

I have had a good go at getting us killed before.  I wrote the following on New Years Day 2005, about the events of the Boxing Day Tsunami.

We were staying at a place called Poseidon Bungalows on Khao Lak beach, some 60k north of Phuket itself.  We were standing on Khao Lak beach in the morning, and we looked out to sea.  It was obvious something was going on - the waves looked unbelievable, and I said to Hayley that it was strange because it looked like really rough surf, and there's no-where to surf in Thailand.  But the main wave didn't seem to be moving, it just seemed to be building.   It looked fantastic, really quite beautiful.

We wandered over to the other beach at our resort, to get a better view, this must have been around 11am on the 26th.  The part of KL beach we were on was at the bottom (South) of the main beach, and you had to walk around a headland to get to the main beach.  The waves came closer in and everyone stood and stared – there were probably 15 or so of us on this particular bit of beach.  As we stood and watched, H said – I’ll go and get the camera from the room.  She took a couple of paces, then turned to me and said jokingly – feel free to run if you need to.  We both stood and watched the wave.  It seemed to be moving incredibly slowly, just building and building.  It came further and further and further, to where it should break, then five feet past that, then another five feet past that, and then suddenly we were all running.

To get down to the beach we were on, you had to do a bit of a scramble down a rocky slope, and it was this we had to run up.  I’ve since realised that it was the existence of this slope that saved all our lives (no one from Poseidon was killed, although there were, of course, several injured).   The main part of Khao Lak beach, North of Poseidon and around the headland, is very flat with a long flat hinterland, and my guess is this is why there was such devastation, and terrible cost to human life, there.

We scrambled up the slope, aware that all the time the water was around my ankles – it was never above my ankles, but even as we climbed it never seemed to be below them -  and onto the path running through the small resort.  I had Hayley with me, but neither of us had the first clue in how to react.  At what stage in your life are you taught how to react to a Tsunami?  There were people running in every direction in blind panic.  Below us was the first bit of beach we had been standing on that morning, and looking down we could see the water ripping into the bungalows which were directly on the beachfront.  Within five to ten seconds, we saw (I think) three bungalows ripped apart.  We found ourselves standing with three overweight Italian men wearing tight speedos and sunglasses, all jabbering at each other and running around in circles, and I’m afraid that I thought – how wonderful to be with the Italians in a crisis.

There were people screaming and shouting everywhere but one woman really sticks in the mind.  She was a Swedish (Khao Lak is extremely popular with the Swedes, which is why the toll for that nationality is disproportionately high) lady of about 40, and she was shouting for her two children and husband who she had been separated from.  She shouted their names over and over again, and then she just started screaming.  The noise she made I can only describe as a primal scream – she screamed again and again and then she was sick, and then she screamed again.  Finally she collapsed.  We went to her, as did some others around us, but all we could do was put our arms around her for a while, or hold her hands (happily, in this instance, we later saw her reunited with her husband and children, who it turns out had run to safety in the forest). 

As luck would have it, we were due to change rooms that day so we had left our bags packed on our beds.  Once we saw that the wave was not anywhere near our bungalow (which was much further up the slope than the ones on the beach) we quickly grabbed our bags and ran into the forest with them.  H and I walked some way down the road which led from the resort to the main road.  Half way along this approach road we saw another large slope which led into the forest.  We scrambled up this and sat as close to the top as we could get – at this point we thought there was a good possibility of more waves coming.

We sat there for a while – I’ve really no idea how long.  The owner of the resort – Olof - drove by, and we waved at him through the trees.  He shouted to us – what is your room number and we looked at each other and in spite of everything laughed.  Had we forgotten to pay our bar bill?  We realised though that he was compiling a list of people that were ok, and he said – I need to go back and work out who is dead. 

It was only then that we started to get a bit of an idea of the severity of what was going on. 

After some more time and no more waves we walked back with our bags into the resort.  We were told that Phuket had been hit.  Alex, a nice German guy who worked at Poseidon said – Kata beach is gone.  Karon beach, Patong beach, all gone.  But like everything that happened at the time, and pretty much everything that has happened since, it didn’t seem real, didn’t connect.  It’s like someone has wrapped your brain in cellophane and nothing can penetrate it – new thoughts and concepts can’t get in there, they just slide off.

Everyone from the resort congregated at a bus shelter on the main road, a little distance away from the sea.  We waited and drank water and tried to stay out of the sun.  We waited for Olof to tell us what to do.  At one point an English guy drove by and said – don’t stand there, another wave is coming – another bigger wave is coming in half an hour.  We all looked at each other, and then up and down the road.  There was no where to go.  Miles and miles of road ran roughly parallel to the coast.  Thankfully as it turned out, there was no bigger wave (I have heard reports that there were between five and seven waves which hit Khao Lak, but strictly from the point of view of Poseidon Bungalows, it didn’t seem that the subsequent ones were bigger, more powerful or more destructive than the first). 

Olof took us to a local thai mans house – a guy who worked as a ranger in the Khao Lak national park.  There were approximately fifty westerners that descended on this place – more and more people kept on arriving.  The thai family were magnificent – they didn’t once complain about fifty strangers in their front room, in their garage, all around their house.  They just cooked endless rice, provided us with drinks and were unfailingly hospitable.  The wonderful response of the Thai people was to be a continuous theme in our remaining time in Thailand.

We spent an uncomfortable night there.  I think for us this was the lowest point.  Many people there were injured – many had extensive cuts on their legs, faces and arms – and even worse, many people did not know the whereabouts of their loved ones.  We spent some time with a Finnish lady who was missing her husband and daughters.  The only thing she could think to do was phone home to let them know she was ok – but she didn’t know the relevant codes for Helsinki, just the local no for her family.  We texted the number to Rupert and asked him to find out the codes, call the family, tell them the lady was ok and call my mobile to talk to her.  Rup played his part brilliantly and it was nice to be of some help to someone.  H spent some time patching up the ladies legs using our meagre first aid kit.  Her family called her back quickly on my mobile, but after we left the house we didn’t see the woman again and I don’t know what happened to her family.

We spent a horrible night.  Along with everyone there we were emotionally drained and physically tired.  But H and I had nothing to complain about.  It was already apparent to us that we were extremely lucky.  We were alive, we were almost completely uninjured, and we had not been separated.  We also had our possessions. 

The next day Olof drove us in stages down to a local temple which had been designated as a Crisis Centre.  It was a filthy and depressing place.  We elected to get onto a truck which we were told was going to Phuket airport.  In fact it dropped us off at another staging area.  This was also a depressing place.  While we were there we spoke to another English chap called Graeme.  His story made us feel even more lucky – if that were possible.  Graeme has survived not only the wave, but had encountered looters, hordes of rats, been concussed after falling from a truck, and, dreadfully, had seen his friend die from a heart attack.  His was the most extreme story that we personally came across, but each time we spoke to people we thanked our lucky stars that we were unscathed, we had not been separated and that we had our passports and money.  As we met new people and left them again, we noticed that nobody said goodbye – everyone said good luck.

We made it to Phuket airport, which was complete and utter chaos.  We (almost literally) had to fight to get onto a plane to Bangkok.  I don’t mean this as a criticism of the Thais though – all throughout their response to the incredible disaster engulfing their country was magnificent.  They were just struggling to cope in the face of an unprecedented situation and I think they coped brilliantly.  I heard that very shortly after we had been through Phuket airport the situation there improved a lot – apparently the army have opened a temporary terminal there to cope with the situation.

We got to Bangkok completely shattered.  We were put up by the authorities in a hotel.  I can’t remember ever sleeping as well as I slept that night.  We woke early and started making calls to try to get ourselves on to a flight.  We found one on Thai Air that night, and TA told us we could have seats (for free) if Air France (who we had tickets booked with) would agree to transfer the tickets.  Hayley really had to argue with Air France to get them to let us transfer, but in the end they did.  This was the only part of the experience that angered me.  I could understand if they were keeping the seats for people who were badly injured, but that didn’t seem to be the case – it just seemed that this sort of transfer wasn’t normal procedure! 

We flew back that night and landed about 6am on the morning of the 29^th, incredibly happy to be home. 

Several things stick in my head.  The first is how small the wave seemed to me.  I’ve heard that at Khao Lak it was six metres, but it seemed much smaller than that to me – just a bigger than usual wave that kept on coming and coming.  The second is the response of the Thai people.  Finally we want to know what happened to the people that we met, especially on a snorkelling boat trip that we were on.  We have heard that an American couple we met are safe and well, which is wonderful news.  The staff on the boat are also fine.  There were 12 Swedish people (3 families) on the boat who as yet we’ve no news of.  We just hope and pray that they’re not among the casualties.

Day 1

The consultant tells me I have lung cancer, and at that point everything changes.  It is stage 4 non small cell cancer, and it has spread to my bones and liver.  I am proper ****** effectively.

Hayley and I go into a room, talk to the nurse and then start to cry.  Actually, that doesn't happen immediately.  When the nurse leaves the room it kicks in properly.  We are both numbed, and in shock.