Junkie

This is what happens when you get cancer.  We’ve so many drugs I’m running out of places to stash them safely.  I’ve just been going through them, sorting out what P will need for his third round of treatment next week.   You don’t realise how much it takes to keep life on an even keel.  P will be in hospital for three days, and no visitors are allowed because he will be radioactive.  Once he’s released, he can’t visit the barber or dentist, or fly abroad.     He can have sex, but not get his hair cut.     We’re getting used to this particular treatment now, and in a strange way it’s comforting; no other  significant tests or diagnostics can be done till all four sessions are over, and that takes us into the summer.  In theory, no-one can give us any really bad news.  And anyway,  what are they going to say?  You’ve got cancer?  In a way, we’ve had the hardest news.  It can still be terrifying though.  Last week after routine iron tests, a very nice but very inexperienced young receptionist at the doctors told me his haemoglobin result was 4.9.  Since this would mean he is actually dead, I gently pointed out that there was another column he might check, and all came out well at 13.9.

The ambiguity is tough.  P looks great, he’s put a stone on, his hair has thickened up and he has more energy than he has for a long time.  I  see people looking at him and I know they wonder if we exaggerated.  One woman actually said to me ‘if he’s lived this long he must be ok’.  Sadly, neuroendocrine cancer doesn’t work this way.  It  grows slowly; like ivy, it sleeps, then creeps, then leaps.  P’s cancer probably began in his stomach, which almost certainly means that at some point it will either have to be re-sected, or removed.  The tumours in his liver will become more numerous, till eventually they join up and threaten its function.  It may spread to his bones, or lungs, or both.  He is seven years older than me, and I have to remind myself sometimes that I won’t be growing old with my husband in the way I had hoped.  I joke that a third husband is out of the question.  I really hope it is.

Advertisement