And…how are you?

One of our wonderful hospice nurses is leaving. She’s returning to A&E to carry out, as she puts it, “some unfinished business”. I told her that wherever she lands in healthcare she will leave her mark. Our hospice’s loss is A&E’s gain. It came as no surprise to discover that she wants to acquire more experience in critical care before eventually returning to a palliative role once more. She’s passionate about hospice work, helping terminal patients to live out their lives by responding to and treating symptoms as they arise. As far as living is concerned the goal is always achievable quality in spite of the stubborn ‘unknowns’ around quantity. She will be sorely missed but we have the greatest trust and belief in whoever comes next. The hospice has an outstanding nursing team. It’s been a difficult fortnight or so, largely due to Mags having a bad reaction to new meds. So I’ve been leaning a little more on the hospice. “When in a quandary just pick up the phone,” I was told by

I didn’t agonise over a fitting title for this blog. Just went with the question I get asked more often than not these days. The question that has gently morphed from casual polite enquiry to tentative evaluation of my well being. The answer, for the most part, is that I’m okay. Truly, I don’t have the headspace for much outside of Mags’ needs and wellbeing. So when she takes one of her regular naps, and my alert level is reduced to amber for an hour or so, I usually bury myself in a book. Something with enough weight and/or momentum to keep those thoughts that might potentially overrun me at bay. Writing is the reverse. I can allow stuff to flood in as long as I can process it quickly enough and get it parcelled up into coherent sentences. Hence this blog. What I thought I knew about cancer before all this has been chiselled into an undeniable form purely from hard facts. The disease develops at a pace as it sees fit. It’s the freest of agents and will go where it wants when it wants.

To quote a late friend, “cancer is a bastard.” Dennis Potter went one further and named his pancreatic tumour Rupert, after the News Corporation mogul. Mags and I have long since passed the name calling stage. In some ways to name it is to have your life defined by it. Undoubtedly one of the reasons why the Big ‘C’ is used so widely. A nod of fearful recognition, in the same way that the nicknames of hard men are spoken softly from the side of the mouth. What we have come to learn about cancer, in recent months, is the sheer weight of a prognosis. The unrelenting progression of mutating cells and the resulting shrinkage of what was a full and active life. Over the Christmas period Mags decided to forego any further palliative chemo. The odds of success were so cruelly slim, she opted for quality over quantity. Obviously as a family we support her 100%. Her oncologist concurs. We have been on the same wavelength as him from the outset, and it came as no surprise when he told us how so m

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” - Ursula K. Le Guin It’s been a while. Nine months actually. Since I last posted anything on this blog, we’ve moved, de-cluttered, partly decorated, loosely agreed on the planting of our first garden in over twenty years and, weather permitting, tentatively explored new surroundings. In short, we’re resettling and we’re blissfully happy. All this activity whilst keeping a close eye on Mags’ health, which has been and is, as I type, good. The telephone consultation with her oncologist, last September, was positive. In fact he was happy to wait until June before catching up again. But in late February a ‘surveillance’ CT scan was scheduled as part of the surgical team’s post-op protocol. We would receive an update from the surgeon in early March. The call came and, after a considerable preamble, he said, “Unfortunately the scan shows ‘spots’ on the lungs. Pulmonary metastases. ”

We’re out walking again. A daily stroll in the early morning sunshine. The lane has become a leafy tunnel in our absence, and the birdsong echoes and reverberates along its length as we step. It reminds me of the excited, musical whooping and whistling of children, each outcrying the other. Infant’s voices in the hollow of a cavern or the parabola of a stone arch. Sensing the breeze on my face feels new, along with all it brings. The scents and sounds of a spring day bursting to get my attention. Out of the shade I shoulder the familiarity of the sun and carry it lightly. Warmth is never a burden. It’s just an hour a day, but it fits neatly into our new world of distractions. Close the door on confinement and catch up with all that feels lost. Then, all too soon, we are banged up again. We have become our own wardens, and will remain so until certified fit for parole. We pass our time easily and the boredom factor doesn’t get a look in. We’re still baking despite the fact that flour an

Just a year ago we were enjoying a family holiday in a cottage overlooking the Camel Valley vineyards. Wow! How the world changes. Following Mags’ diagnosis in May we promised ourselves to be forward looking and try, as hard as it might be, to remain positive about the future. During post-op recovery life became a series of small steps, figuratively and literally. By August we were taking our usual two mile walk across country to the village shop and back. With the sun on our backs we promised ourselves that 2020 would be a year to make the most of. We’d get out and about more, take advantage of the long summer days and drink up the goodness those times would offer. The chemo began a few days after Mags’ birthday. The ensuing three months passed in the form of a solemn synchronicity; the warmth of our days fading as the weight of treatment took its toll. By November, when the PICC line was removed and the chemo ended, we had the festive season to look forward to, although we were preve

One of my favourite writers, Joan Didion, once stated, “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be...”. I’ve often felt this about myself. But these past seven or eight months have flipped that quote. I’ve actually discovered a couple of people I didn’t know I was. When you live with someone for a very long time many of your conversations take place in the abstract, usually prompted by a simple, sometimes random, question. What sort of person might our daughter grow to be? How would we spend a substantial windfall? Can we ever truly prepare for old age? What’s the point of a career? Is enough really as good as a feast? How would each of us cope without the other? We, like many others, have speculated and tested our imaginations. Then we have sighed and got on with our daily business while the unknowns and inconclusions pooled around us only to quickly evaporate, until next time. Recently there has been a been a lot of form filling for us, and questions that demand c

Although I have the utmost respect for scientists and all things scientific, my life choices are almost always decided in the heart, not the head, and this has generally served me well so far. But what if the choice relates to health and well being? What about when it comes down to life and death? A little over a fortnight ago, after an entire weekend of talking through the options, Mags concluded that maybe six cycles of chemotherapy was enough. The constant fatigue, the increased regularity of low platelet counts, the pins and needles in her fingertips and a frightening episode of atrial fibrillation. All this at the halfway point. What shape would she be in after twelve cycles? At the outset, the oncologist made clear that the regimen would be particularly ‘intense’, and if Mags could complete all twelve cycles, that would be great, but he’d be happy if she only managed six. On decision day, what we were looking for was a proven scientific reason to carry on. Complete the twelve and

Once upon a time I took a keen interest in politics. But it’s amazing how a vision of building a better world for all can shrink so dramatically, it barely figures in your life anymore. I mean it’s still there to a point, like a tolerable stone in your shoe. One that occasionally causes you to break your stride and wiggle your toes, but never actually makes stop and shake out your footwear. These days our bigger picture is so crammed full of detail, the irrelevant stuff has been pushed out to the edges where it sets solid to form a frame of sorts. Mags is halfway through her chemo, and has been tolerating the toxicity of the treatment reasonably well. But just over a week ago she collapsed twice. A GP arranged an appointment at the surgery for an ECG. I know the qualities of her heart better than anyone, but the medics are only concerned with pulses and physical functionality. To each his own. We were all set for a quick check up, then home for a cuppa, but it was not to be. “There’s s

The title of this post may well have become the working title of a longer and more detailed account of our lives since Mags’ diagnosis. Wasps, because of their frantic efforts at our window this summer, trying to get to the other side of something they could feel but couldn’t see. Dragonflies because often when Mags has been sleeping I’ve watched them in numbers, sprinting and glinting with apparent purpose, before drifting and floating on seemingly random trajectories. Looks like I’ve discovered my inner insect, an undeniable fragility  that manifests in the shadow of that which has the potential to squash me. It’s doubtful that the account will ever get written, not least because I would always be conscious of the story titling towards me, how I’ve been affected. And that’s not the way it is, by a long way. It’s about us, two ordinary people like countless others who have had their entire existence turned upside down by cancer. It’s about vulnerability. That which is shared and that

When I was much younger, there was fire in my belly and words in my head, and I had half an idea I could write for a living. The recurring advice from established authors and journalists was, “keep a diary”. In a letter I still have, from Jilly Cooper, the emphasis is very much placed on making notes. Sadly, I’m not a natural diarist or note-maker. Throughout eight years of various academic studies, I barely wrote a single word more than was necessary to get me a pass mark. As for remembering events from the past, I rely solely on my memory, although despite best efforts, my powers of recall can sometimes result in the original monochrome being remade in glorious Technicolor. On the flip side, traumatic episodes may be softened, even obscured. I’ve had to sharpen up my record keeping act of late, though. Some things must be logged with pinpoint accuracy. You really can’t keep a cancer diary for someone in a half-hearted manner. Every symptom and side effect must be recorded ahead of th

That thin line that we all walk. You know, the one that requires balance and concentrated effort. The one that you lose your footing on from time to time, causing you to gasp and reach out for something that’ll save you from falling. The shifting, invisible division between good fortune and bad, happy and sad, genius and madness. The difference, all too often, between life and death. I’ve neglected this blog all too often, for the lack of something interesting to say. But in recent weeks, I’ve had so much I wanted to say, but have been, until now, unable to type the words. My wife, Mags, was officially diagnosed with a life threatening condition on the 1st June. She underwent major surgery nine days later. A seven hour operation that only 15 in a 100 pancreatic cancer patients are offered. Only 9/100 actually undergo the full procedure. Despite the wonders of modern medical technology, CT scans don’t always show everything that’s lurking. A point put to us only minutes before Mags went