Hello, my name is Sean Geraghty and this is my story of prostate cancer and me.
There was this day the 29th June 2017. I went in to the county hospital for an appointment with the urology team, to look at the results of a biopsy. I was taken into a little room with a frosted-glass window by a nurse who wasn’t in uniform. She was smiling away which seemed to imply that I was ok and this was some sort of formality.
When she said, with a big smile “…I’ve got to tell you that we have found some problems with some of the samples, some do contain cancer.”
It was her smile that threw me. In the films the white-coated guy usually says it with sombre tones then looks gravely at the patient.
“I’ve got cancer?”
“Yes, but it’s very slow growing and very low risk of spreading. It’s the lowest grade there is.” She thought about it, “You’ve probably had it for quite a long time.”
Well…! That’s not something you hear everyday.
Something that can’t ever be unheard, especially when it’s true, aimed right at you. There was no one else to be cross with, but I’d keep looking for the culprit. It just didn’t seem fair. What had I done to deserve this? Who gave this to me?
It wasn’t something I felt too proud of either. Telling people would have to be on a need-to know-basis. Like they said, it was low grade, slow growing. I could pretty much carry on as normal and hope maybe it was something I could live with, something that I died with, rather than of. As long as it didn’t start ratcheting up. I could keep going, carry on and see what happens.
That conversation took me down a very long road. June 2017 to December 2023 was a pretty good length of time for it not to warrant further action, a decentish run. Looking at it another way, it was 5&1/2 years of ‘living with cancer’. During that time not a single day ended where it hadn’t crossed my mind. Along the way various pieces of my my machine began to fall off as that road ended, drawing to a stop at a decision-junction. What started with shock, ended with an acquiescence, something had to be done and once that was decided, it needed to be done pretty quickly.
There were quite a few appointments in rapid succession at the hospital and on the phone once the alarm bells started ringing. The usual PSA test numbers having spiked was the first cause for concern. Nurses, Urologists, Oncologists, Pathologists, Consultants, Physiotherapists and other specialists all needed to put in. Radiographers put me through a selection of giant donut tunnels creating first an MRI scan, a CT scan followed on after. Once the decision to remove the offending gland had been taken, everything intensified in the few weeks leading up to the operation.
The effects of a cancer diagnosis start immediately. Once the news sinks in, I began negotiating a series of pacts with myself. I would focus on the important stuff, forego any big ‘projects’, including relationships. Accepting I was in a difficult situation, I couldn’t risk including anyone else. My headspace was edgy and unearthed. I would stay on safe ground if I could and hope for the best. Apart from not ‘feeling’ I was ill, the symptoms weren’t particularly pronounced or presenting any major inconvenience that I couldn’t live with during the early stages. I was just a bit dead from the waist down. That ‘dull’ sensation had prompted my first enquiry. I knew as you get older potency decreases. Still, I needed to know, was this right?
As the time progressed from turning 50 I had noticed a diminishing interest in the opposite sex. With the onset of this apparent ‘impotence’, women I would probably have ‘normally’ found devastatingly gorgeous began to lose that immediate physical draw, visually having the same effect as a beautiful oil painting that could be appreciated but not desired. I would get as much of a limited thrill from nice furniture or striking architecture. There were some rare exceptions, not necessarily from visual cues, being drawn to the ‘niceness’ is only way I can describe it. Maybe, conversely I was seeing things in a healthier way through being affected. Attraction had apparently also changed shape.
I was in no condition to participate in any activity with my compromised cancerous system. I had become a loner with no boner, and no amount of viagra or gentle coercion would cure my suspicion that this wasn’t how things could be and I wasn’t comfortable enough with how things were. If I didn’t like what was possible, I would just have to go without and accept it whether I liked it or not. There were other things more pressing, and it wasn’t exactly a great line to drop into the conversation at any stage of wooing. Maybe I saw having a partner as a risky business anyway. The relationship failures had stacked up to a point where I had serious doubts on my ability to maintain, regardless of my hopes. This new situation seemed to regrettably slam the door shut. I would just have to face it alone.
The tactic of pushing the disease/condition/situation into the background through monitoring had its limitations; it was quite likely at some stage that it would begin to come to the fore, particularly if the numbers recorded by the PSA test began to reach up to 10.
A count of 10 was the pact initially agreed with the ‘team’ at the hospital. In the mean time they would keep an eye on me, and I would inform them of any symptomatic changes. 10 was the point when monitoring would turn into talk of treatment. To begin with it had been 5.6, with an aforementioned low-grading. The Gleason score of 3:3 is the lowest grading of cancer I could have ‘hoped’ for under the circumstances. The first 3 meant low level of cancer activity in the cells, meaning slow-growing. As mentioned, it had probably had been going on for quite a while, but how long was difficult to say. The second 3 was spread, activity. This was also a good number, meaning it wasn’t looking to bust out into other areas at the moment of detection. The scale went for 1:1 to 5:5. 5:5 is not good at all.
The PSA test is notoriously unreliable and could be affected by all sorts of factors including consumption of certain food or drink, sexual activity, or lack of it, and smoking, which could also affect hormone levels. It could read differently in the morning and evening of the same day depending on the testee’s environmental factors. However, with all its flaws, as my GP pointed out, it was ‘all that we had’.
So when it had initially shown up as higher than acceptable, i.e. above 5, he had sent me for another one. When that registered high I was sent for a scan. When that found some abnormality there was a biopsy to confirm whether there was an actual problem. Tests and scans can find things that aren’t cancer but may look like it. All the time I am thinking it’s some sort of mistake. Right up until I was led into the room for the news and probably for some time afterwards, in pure denial.
I could have had an intervention there and then, it was offered but not considered essential by the team. I’m extremely glad it didn’t require immediate attention. I doubt I would have believed it was really happening, probably gone into some deep catatonic trance. I hadn’t had the time to adjust or the mental capacity to accept what they were telling me. I needed much more time to get used to the whole idea. Fortunately, without the immediate urgency I had that option at that moment.
The option I preferred by some distance was a non-interventionist approach. Something they called ‘Active-Monitoring’; which was pretty much doing nothing apart from 6 monthly PSA tests and waiting to see what happens. I instantly chose this scenic route. Mainly because it didn’t involve any big commitment from me in particular, except fervently wishing the numbers would go down by magic. What they were describing as ‘treatments’ all had side-effects which were pretty much as horrific as each other, and each time I read about each separate form of treatment sooner or later I began to feel a combination of nausea and fear and walked away from the pamphlet. It didn’t sound like a ‘cure’ in the way I understood the term.
These fears became even worse when I read about what could happen if the cancer was left untreated and made its way into other areas in the vicinity of the prostate, particularly the bladder. That sounded very difficult to deal with and something to avoid at all costs if at all possible.
I had to try and make some sort of internal ‘deal’ for my own survival and sense of well-being while this was going on. I had to try think a bit differently; things had changed and I hadn’t caught up yet.
It’s impossible to account for the psychological effects of an ongoing situation like this once these deals were made. A future blind-spot remains unknown; where unlike the road leading up to the diagnosis, every single present and future moment is tainted with an underlying sense of impending doom. Like many others, I’d shy away from looking too closely at the reality of mortality, having previously created an illusion that this didn’t apply to me in the same way it had done to all the relatives and friends I’d seen passing away over the years. I was aged 54 on diagnosis. Not so young, but not proper-old either. A bit too old to ‘start something new’ maybe. A bit too young to be written off, with hopefully at least another third of my life left to live if I was lucky, which I didn’t appear to be.
The barriers were slamming down with even greater frequency now this new phenomenon was featuring in my life. It manifested itself in different ways; an inability to make any plans, or have any faith in working towards anything long term, commitment of any sort was adding stress to the situation. Stress was making my memory more unreliable. I began to dismiss things, not think about them, forget appointments, forget dates. Work was impossible to focus on. Who cared if a wall got painted or a drain needed digging or a window needed installing. The stress of having to dump a project, or not feeling able to back out if things got serious meant I was getting very picky about what I did. I needed a life-raft, I needed to know where the escape routes were. I needed the freedom to reserve the right to fight the cancer when it came back to bite. It had become an over-arching priority and an enemy, waiting in the shadows stroking its blade. Being so flawed created deeper feelings of lower self-worth, verging on feeling like an outcast. I began to withdraw further from activity beyond the family and immediate matters. It was quite a blow that my mother passed away in October of 2018, of cancer. Watching her fade out was deeply, deeply troubling. I didn’t put my plight next to hers, different lives, different ages, different type of cancer too. A coincidence of sorts, probably not a prophecy though. I had my own rocks to steer around.
The PSA had reached 14.2 by October 2023 and the direction of travel was pretty obviously upward, it had been 12 in the summer and just under 10 the summer before. It was decided that another biopsy was a good idea. The last one had been excruciating, so I wasn’t keen on it, but taking a tissue-sample is the best way to achieve accuracy and at this moment some precision was required. The analysis of the ‘tissue’, or very small bits of me, revealed a few more serious problems than before. The slow-growing cells had sped up, the slow-spreading cells were therefore ‘reaching out’ for new areas to occupy. It was now 4:3, the increased activity being the thing I didn’t like the idea of. If it was on the move and if it were to break out of the ‘capsule’ of the prostate, then things would very quickly get a lot more serious.
Left to go its own way, it would inevitably break out of the prostate and get into the other regions around there. Nearby is the bladder, the bowel and the lymph system, which opens up a super highway around the body, so it can scout around the system and lodge in the lung, or the brain or anywhere else the immune system goes. Other things like kidneys and liver are nearby, so it was a good idea to get this stuff out of the area altogether. if I hadn’t left it too late.
Now the PSA was going up rapidly there were three medical options on offer where there once were 4 (the option to do nothing had expired, unless I wanted to go untreated). That doing of nothing-much had lasted 5 and a half years. Active-monitoring had tracked it through the PSA test, climbing from the 5.5 to its peak at 14+. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, because things were now feeling different. I was up once or twice in the night to go to the loo, and barely ever got a full nights sleep. The old ‘thing’ felt like it belonged to someone else, numb and lifeless, hard to persuade to do anything, let alone stand to attention. I had read in the literature that you need to exercise the erection, or the blood vessels sort of close the road through lack of use. That isn’t so easy when you have no libido, where you have no stimulus or partners to inspire. I would have a desultory tug once in a while and midway through just lose interest or have thoughts about mundane everyday things like doing the laundry suddenly creep in and give up on it.
During this twilight period I had been hoping that a new way out would appear. Like in the movies. That special last chance saloon. Maybe a clever person in a white coat would suddenly find a cure. You hear it on the radio every now and again, ‘What’s being hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against cancer…” it usually begins. Then you dig down into it and someone somewhere is pitching for more research money and is talking up their findings. You discover that their optimism is based on extending the lifetime of about ten terminal patients in their 90’s. The pill or vaccination is not here yet. I’d called up trials at different universities, I’d gone for a consultation for specially targeted radiotherapy. I’d looked into hi-fu. It hadn’t stuck for a number of reasons.
So it was decision time. What to do with these pesky cells? It appeared that back in the real world, I had run out of thinking time.
One option: I can take female hormones for 6 months and then have some radiotherapy. Beams of hardcore rays aimed at the little walnut-sized pleasure-inducing-unit; burning and frying the thing so it sits there withered and lifeless inside you until the body gives up in its own time and it doesn’t matter what state your gland is at that point because there are bigger problems and you aren’t there anymore to worry about it. Not tempting.
Another option, they could ‘implant’ radioactive titanium ‘seeds’ into the gland and leave them in there. The heat emanating form the seeds burning the gland away into the similarly shrivelled thing above. Then the glowing metal would stay there inside the withered thing until everything else fails. No holding babies for a while, because the radiation is frazzling out of you. Showing a special pass at airports forever more, as the security gate would start binging as you walk through. Again not tempting.
Or option 3, cut it out, with keyhole surgery using a remote controlled robot known as the Davinchi. The surgeon sending the tiny end-thing and its rotating ‘arms’ inside several keyholes cut into your tummy from what resembles a gamer’s console and handset. Not tempting at all.
I had seen a film of the latter. I am still haunted by it. The grey and white strands of someone’s innards being pulled up and out, the blades working, then stitching it all up. Gut-churning material; no radiation being the big plus.
Prior to the robot’s invention this operation was performed front to back and took a very long time.
Each method ended with the same result, the prostate would no longer function whether it stayed inside or was taken outside the body. An obvious question as far as I could see, was that with an irradiated gland remaining inside me, doing nothing, what was the point of it being there? Could it cause further problems. Given they could take it out and it would be gone, that began to seem a better idea rather than ghosting it, it being there and be ‘gone’ at the same time.
I would have to deal with the consequences of leaving it in or taking it out. Find a way to stop pissing my pants and hope they would save enough nerve endings to enable me to have a viagra-induced erection at some point. With it gone I couldn’t reach any climax, or father any more children, or produce any sperm. Then again, did I give a damn anymore, it had been ages, it didn’t matter as much as it used to, or I had lost hope in that department or both.
I sat in the office again with Mr Afzal who was one of these surgeon guys. He was an expert with the robotic surgery. He was pretty keen to get operating when we first met in 2017, but I made him wait. I didn’t want his skills while there was still that hope of a miracle, while I still imagined that it was all a bad dream, that there was a cure about to be announced. Now I needed this guy. I needed him to be sober, steady-handed, considerate of my nerve endings. I needed this rather eccentric sounding gentleman to save my life and change its course. We sat and spoke for an hour, going through all information. ‘What would you do if you were me?’ I ask. He says with a smile, ‘Talk to everyone you need to and then make your decision.’
He wrote a date in the diary, January 21st. It would happen at Bournemouth Hospital. There would be two slots open that day. There was 4 weeks to prepare. ‘Happy Christmas, and do some KEGLs.’
KEGLs are pelvic floor exercises for men. It isn’t a big muscle and it isn’t a movement one would normally do, but with regular working, it was allegedly the only effective way to control incontinence. As my similarly afflicted friend pointed out to me. “They are all we’ve got.” The only weapon in the armoury.
I kept having a go, no idea if I was doing them correctly. A difficult thing for a physiotherapist to teach, ‘nuts to guts’, ‘hold, and relax’. Don’t overdo it, don’t strain on the loo. So this was the future, but not immediately after the op. That would be cathetised healing time, no stretching about in that region afterwards until you’re told.
In order for the surgeon to see what’s going on in the region they also needed to peep inside the bladder. Not himself, he had a urologist to do this delicate fieldwork. So before the operation I go to have a cystoscopy. Whether this is any less painful than the surgeon pulling open the pee-hole and shoving his head in I don’t know. To say I was shocked would be to put it mildly.
As the urologist put me on the table and drew up my sheet I had no idea what was about to happen, I thought it might be a gentle process with lots of reassuring words and lubrication. I was wrong.
My feet flew up in the air twice, once as the cable thing reached the base then as he moved it further up the urethra. When the black scaly snake entered the inner chamber it felt like I was being impaled on a spike through my penis, all I could think was “Get this fucking thing out of me, Right now!” At this point I am watching a tv screen with the progress showing on it it, like afternoon tv from hell. I am feeling nauseous. I don’t want to know what the components are, why is he telling me? What difference does it make, I’m not a doctor. I don’t want to see the inner workings, where the pee comes in or the pinky red colour of it all.
“It’s all perfectly normal, no cancer”, He says and whips the bloody uncomfortable invasive thing out.
So I sit down and then everything starts to feel weird.
I tell them, “I’m not feeling so good.”
I can feel it in my guts like I’m about to throw up. Then my fingertips start losing sensitivity. It starts creeping up my arm. “Think I’m going to faint.” I whisper.
They are all looking at me, I cant speak to them anymore or answer the questions. I’m going down…
I’m down the rabbit hole. There are layers, greens and reds, purples, yellows, I’m flying through them like undergrowth, there are shapes I’ve never seen, there are sights that are unrecognisable. There’s no me- no anywhere at all, I am in something, like a snow-globe flying through space so fast that no single detail is possible to see just fragments of vision, a sense of hearing, no feeling of being.
Now there are beings standing around me, floating around me, blue faces on white, or white on blue, it didn’t seem to matter which way their colours fell around them, they were constructed without an outwardly defined border or skin. Like creatures under the sea in a murky pool, they moved with freedom and ease and they are studying me.
One leans over and in my ear says, “You, are dying!”
It was firm, assured, a prediction, a diagnosis or a judgement. There was no room for misinterpreting it. I was going to die, very soon, probably at the operation. Or now, I was dying right there for no particular reason. ‘How daft is that?’ I thought, to die now with these strangers.
Then I am back in the room. They have got an oxygen mask from somewhere and had put it on me. Theres a unit/trolley apparatus wheeled in and they are checking my blood pressure and its low. They have put the red laser thing on my finger and my pulse is slow. I can see the screen again, with the wave patterns and the information, telling me my heart needs to beat more and my pulse needs to beat more and my blood is running slow.
They are talking between themselves and then they stop, so I tell them, “One of my ancestors just told me I was dying.”
They looked at the mad person. What was he on about? Maybe I was out for a few seconds a few minutes I have no idea. They gave me photographs of the exploration. I didn’t look at them, never wanted to see that again. I folded them into the piece of A4 and shoved it into my pocket.
“Give that to the surgeon on Friday.” the systoscopist says. Yeah whatever. Just don’t tell me anymore stuff.
The oxygen helped, so I was keeping the mask on for now. I was beginning to come back. But what was it, why did I know it was my ancestors, I could feel them, or were they unhappy spirits from the hospital? Souls who hadn’t made it home, waiting to recruit, in disguise, invading people’s blackouts and freaking them out. They didn’t feel part of me, but maybe they were.
A vasovagal syncope the nurse said. That’s what I’d had, an extreme shock reaction. A huge adrenaline rush, after which the heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, leading to reduced blood flow to the brain, causing a brief loss of consciousness. It didn’t seem to explain it properly.
More importantly, were the spirits waiting for me on Friday?
The date for surgery had moved forward, it was happening on Friday the 13th January now.
A slot had unexpectedly become available a week early.
Why wait?
So now I’m looking for further signs that confirm I’m leaving the world, as the spirits have just told me. I have three days to live. I better say goodbye to people. Uncannily it was the funeral of an old friend on Thursday, the day before my departure. So I will be with the dead (again) and with my old friends. That’s a coincidence. Maybe I could bid a few farewells just in case.
I’m telling people about it, I really don’t like this ‘vision’. It’s really disturbed me, or reminded me of mortality and what it means. At some point, one day it will be the last day and like hoping there was a miracle to stop the cancer, or a miracle to bring back the boner, or to have the energy of a young man again, there was no escaping the fact that one day there is an end, for everyone, and right now it could be mine at this moment.
I had been having a drink or two most evenings. No help there. That stupid habit stopped in an instant. The KEGL exercises intensified, the clock was ticking. Whether I walked towards this with resolute courage or was dragged there kicking and screaming, or ran away from it, it would still be there either on Friday or some other day, my doom. Running away from that was not an option. My best idea was to cleanse my system as much as I could in the meantime, take the right tablets, follow the instructions on the glucose sachets and gird those loins, because things were going to get a bit choppy.
If a little camera could hurt that much, think what damage Leonardo’s probing arms would do. It didn’t bear thinking about too long. They could do the medical stuff, I would do all the panicking. I was not in control of what was about to happen, I could only prepare now.
The die was cast.
What do you do with yourself the night before an operation? Stay up worrying wasn’t really the plan, but I would imagine most people end up doing that whether they like it or not. This could be my last night. We had calculated we had to get up at 5 and leave at 5.30 to get there for 7.15. I had suggested me driving there and dumping the car, but Elli my daughter insisted on taking me there rather than come get me and the car at some later date. All I had to do was pack a bag. So what would I need? They gave me some guidelines, slip on shoes, loose fitting clothes a wash-bag.
I was thinking baseball cap, with a peak to stop the strip lights in the eyes. Dark glasses for the same. Headphones, to drown out the screaming in the ward, a phone charger so I didn’t have to use the exploitative systems they have at these places. Sandwiches and protein bars, in case I woke up hungry and the kitchens were closed. And a water bottle; so I didn’t end up trying to drink from a flower vase and die of dehydration like that poor guy did a few years back.
To be as self-contained as possible was the key. I also found a pair of those hideous tight sock things they make you wear. I kept some from the last biopsy because they actually fitted right without completely cutting off the circulation.
It wasn’t ideal preparation going to a funeral the day before. My old friend John’s passing was as sad and pitiful as his later years in life had become. He had died alone, losing a battle with the bottle, like others had before him. In his case it was more like a war; 18 years or more since his partner died, he had been hitting the booze hard ever since. His family arranged the service and its constituent parts, which featured a lot of God and God’s things. Not something John was known for. The last time I’d seen him in a church (this same church in fact) was for the funeral of his mother three or four years before. I doubt he’d been back since.
Still he had psalms read in his honour and ‘The lord is my shepherd’ was sung, numerous blessings and even got a committal, with the creepy, teachery priest touching the simple wooden box they had put him in, mumbling his routine phrases to ensure this one was off to join the guy upstairs.
You couldn’t have created a less flamboyant ceremony if you tried, it was a truck-stop on the way to a cremation. John wasn’t a showy sort of person, he was quite shy, very private so in that sense the lid remained closed. There certainly wouldn’t be any light shed on his life today. The lack of tapping into the available knowledge of his peers was hugely disappointing. The send off certainly didn’t seem like it was what he would’ve wanted. Not the person I knew. What he would’ve wanted, was probably a similar miracle, like me with the cancer. A resurrection a cheating of death.
It gave me something to do after checking the packed bag and paperwork. I began writing my funeral service wishes. Just some tunes really and episodes/periods/pieces of life that mean something to me. I didn’t finish it but made a good start.
John’s send-off confirmed to me that the church’s tired old routines have no further relevance. All those images of houses and rooms and sheep and the like. You have to stretch the imagination to find the beauty they are trying to convey. We aren’t those dozy believers anymore, we try to find the heavenly in the good we remember in our loved ones; and celebrate those times. We are able to talk about our feelings now, about the people we know now, tell their stories as their witnesses, give the proceedings an authenticity.
Calling in outside agents to speak on behalf of someone they never knew seems highly counter-productive, especially if their religion was setting a fixed agenda, filtering a broad interpretation over every act of someone’s life. Like they were always a fish on a hook dragged towards heaven’s shore through their life.
Those memorably terribly-played hymns by the organist, turning into experimental jazz at times with a thumb landing on a bum note more than once, peeled back the veneer of pretense with each clonk and plonk where it wasn’t required. A pretty dismal send off. The only thing missing was rain. It wasn’t even mentioned as to how he departed, or what he was going through.
Our-John drank himself to death. We are all grown up enough to understand what happened. If Jesus really saves, where was he when he was needed? It was all a bit late now.
Except now its the next morning. We are driving through the darkness at 5.45 am and the road is clear, mercifully there were no deer or rabbits or suchlike popping out to be cut down and give us a bad omen. It was good to talk to Elli on the way and have one of my children by my side at a time like this. I recounted about the funeral and the feedback from the small group of friends that attended. We are heading towards my rendezvous with the knife; where they will diffuse a fifty eight year old time bomb, removing something that has been doing a job in there ever since I was born. Elli has got up early and collected me with the loveliest way about her, so I am conveyed in my carriage in the finest available spirits. Knowing that you are loved is more important than I could ever have imagined, even more so at times like this.
You want to say ‘I love you’ to your nearests and dearests with greater emphasis at times like this, with some deeper meaning. This could be the last time I see her. Those hospital spirits told me I was dying, what could I do to escape them? I had just missed the last opportunity of escape, jumping the fence at Bournemouth airport and stowing away to Marrakesh or somewhere equally awful. We sped on past the white, blue, orange and red runway lights, skirting around the town; through the tiny formerly picturesque village of Hurn. Onto the ring road, close to our destination now on the edge of Christchurch. Then we were turning off, approaching the blue-roofed hospital. It was time to face the music. I hoped that John’s church organist wasn’t on the bill.
Has it been a good life I’m thinking? If it ends today in the operating room, with a malfunctioning robot flailing its arms and sending drilling moles and spinning scalpels straight up through my heart if the surgeon sneezes. Sprouting geezers of blood shooting in all directions as I regain consciousness from anesthesia to witness being torn to pieces by technology for the last brief moments of my existence.
The spirits would close-in around me again, this time claiming me as their own, my ancient ancestors and tormentors sniffing my entrails to experience the fragrances of a new world they had never seen the like of. A fulsome aroma full of the musty alcohol of hand-gel and cotton swabs, the fading deodorant and perspiration on the skin of the newly dead.
I am delivered to the doorway of the Eye-Unit, the main entrance not being in use, I have to make my way to the Sandbourne Suite. I wave goodbye to my glorious daughter who disappears into the wintry dawn heading west to Lyme. Goodbye forever. Tell everyone I love them. Tell them better than I could if you can. Make it more meaningful.
I am following the signs, with my little red rucksack with its dodgy zip on my shoulder and a carrier bag swinging by my side with my huge size 12 backless trainers and a spare hoodie within. Because you never know when you might need another layer. A heavy frost is outside, the corridors had a familiar underlying overheated hospital feel, but on this occasion regular conflicting blasts of freezing outdoor air entered the corridors from opened vented windows; a familiar feature since the covid days.
There is a long queue on the upper level of the mezzanine above the ongoing refurbishment of the Atrium. Big polythene sheets hang like gossamer parachutes, gleaming and wafting with the faint breeze under the bright working lights, soaring over the shuffling line of medical refugees waiting for their despatch. Every person waiting in line, either alone or with their companions are deep in thought; probably, like me, now also concerned that they are being made late for their appointments by this log-jam of people. No good-morning smiles, small-talk or polite enquiries pass between the people. It’s all respectful privacy and underlying anxiety.
I’m in the Sandbourne suite now, there are about seven more people to process, there are other processed people in the seats beyond awaiting further instructions. Trolleys and wheelchairs line up against the walls. Nurses are calling out names and leading people out from this hub through doorways that lead down connecting beige corridors.
This is similar to check-in time, like at the airport terminal we just passed, when the plane is due for take off and you still hold your luggage. One person’s unexpected presence seemed to have been causing the problem, lingering around the desk requiring extra help; maybe turned up on the wrong day or had something wrong with their paperwork. A discrepancy had been identified, wrong day. Having finally been squirted out of the blocked tube, the lost sailor stood by, somewhat forlornly; unsure of their next move now all their careful plans being dashed.
The line is moving quickly now. ‘Name, hospital number, take a seat over there please, someone will collect you shortly’. ‘Good morning, Name, hospital number…’ a few seconds for each person. And I’m almost there at the barrier within a few minutes.
When I give my name, the person behind the glass reaches to one side and there on the surface next to her is a navy-blue file with a printed white sticker on the front, bearing my name. I’m late.
My next accessory is Dee, blond hair, blue tunic, “Come this way.” She is standing nearby, I am her problem this morning. I follow her out through a door behind the desk, missing out on the indeterminable wait that others were enjoying yards away.
The corridor narrowed, the ceilings set much lower. We enter a cubicle just off a darkened two-bed former-ward of some kind. Two men are in there studying photographic images of body parts on a computer screen on the other side of the chamber. Red circles on a black background glow from the murky corners of the room. They whisper to each other over each variation flicking through each picture.
Dee closes the door and begins asking questions. She tells someone to come and get some of my blood and then I am getting my clothes into bags and sitting on a plastic chair in my gown, stockings and slippers, all my stuff labelled up in the two bags, phone turned off. Apprehensive is not the word. I’m just there, it’s not a good feeling.
I have a word with myself, ‘don’t blather at the surgeon.’ He’s got a job to do. I’m just the patient, I had my chance to run away, now this is happening. Be calm as possible.
Mr Afzal seems in a good mood, the pictures I hand him are ‘all good’ he says. He looks through the notes and ask me how I’m feeling.
“I’m ready I think.”
“Don’t worry, we will get this cancer out.” he says.
Yes, thats why we are here, to rid me of this wretched invader. From the first moment I learned I was in trouble things had changed, everything had changed. This was another change in that sequence. It wasn’t ever going to go back to anything like before either. I didn’t know if I would come through, how could I? The spirits were waiting in the darkness should the knife slip.
He’s ready, satisfied that he has a plan. He prepares to depart, then departs to prepare.
I’m alone again, a short break where the mind continues to race. Like waiting to be questioned in a police cell. A guy comes in holding a coffee, crazy hair and a warm smile. Nothing like a jolly anaesthetist. I tell him early, please do whatever you have to, please don’t tell me any details, I don’t understand the process, I am happy to be in your hands. Can we talk about football or something?
He’s fine about that, he likes rugby he tells me. I am wittering a bit, about my family, my son and daughters probably, these are details I don’t fully remember, bit preoccupied, could have lost it at that point. Managed to keep control. He’s happy with whatever is written on whatever he is flipping through and off he goes to dress up and get the cylinders ready. And I am alone again, with my baseball cap on to keep those overhead lights away.
It’s not too late to run away I think. Although it would be a very late call. I close the door again in the cubicle, don’t want to see those red and black images they are studying so hard. Wrong colour scheme at this moment. Someone else’s insides, someone else’s problems. I’m ready when Dee comes back, I heard her voice outside saying, “They’re ready for him now.” to a colleague. The door clicks open and we are on our way and I am walking there under my own steam, on top of the doubt and the fear.
I walk by her side silently through the corridors, there are people moving in all directions around us, some in scrubs some in posher versions of scrubs with stethoscopes, there are other patients too and porters moving things about, one pushing a grey haired lady on a bed through the crowd.
All that was missing was a loose phalanx of ex-cons calling out ‘dead man walking’.
I have no idea how to do up a hospital gown. I can feel the cool air on my buttocks and am thinking its quite funny that my goose-bumped arse is mooning at whoever may be behind me, or whoever might be glancing sideways at our wake as we pick our way through the crowd to some or other big set of swinging doors. Rather like the soon to be less-headed King Charles, I feel I need an extra shirt, to prove I’m not afraid; that it’s only the cold air making me shiver on the gallows.
We arrive and I bid Dee farewell. Up on the couch, now I’m with Fay the nurse and a Malaysian looking chap called Raymond together with the anaesthetist and they all get to work on me, plumbing me into things.
They ask me for my date of birth and whether I know what is going to happen now.
‘Yes I will be losing boners forever’ I am thinking, but best not to make wise cracks at a time like this. One of these people will be inserting a pipe up my penis in a few minutes, the other will be deciding whether I wake up or not, I have no idea what the Malaysian fellow is going to do, even though I ask him and he tells me as he fits me with a series of sticky pads all over my upper torso and attaches wires. Meanwhile the vile cannula is stabbed into the back of my left hand and a syringe full of antibiotics and god knows what else goes into the vein.
The view of the ceiling is pretty uninspiring, a white space. It’s the people, or at least their top halves that are interesting from here. Even though they are busy and being careful and precise, they are working together as a team, moving me through the phases towards the moment they want my presence to disappear. I watch them. They are a nice bunch.
The gas mask goes on. I’m thinking about asking someone to tell my children I love them, they keep reassuring me it’ll be alright. What do they know? Theres a vent in the ceiling, next to the lights, there’s four bolts on it, or they could be plastic coverings for the heads, some sort of protective layer. I can hear my heart going beep, beep, beep outside my body. The famous machine that goes beep! Must be what the Raymond was wiring up.
I hope they all had a good night last night and didn’t go out clubbing. I hope they aren’t curious to see what happens if you take someone’s heartbeat down to 3 beats a minute. I hope they know what they are doing, because right now, I don’t think I’ve got any more to say, ever possibly.
It’s been ok this life, not spectacular, just ok. At times there was some spectacularity, but mainly just ok. I was a child once. Grumpy little sod. It would be nice to see my mum and grandparents again and be a bit better informed. I only knew what I could learn at the time. I was pretty unhappy at times. I wish I still wasn’t like that now. There was a lot of life to live then.
Bye vent.
Hmmm, awake. There’s a room now, a big whitish room. My red bag is next to me, I can see it on a table, and the carrier bag beside it, a big logo printed across it’s side, my shoes sticking out the top of it. My bag for the after-life.
I’m back.
This part of me is definitely back with the living and there are a lot of them around here. The other piece of me is missing, probably in a little pot on the way to the lab with my name written on it.
Wow, loads of them, people all around me. I’m on my side, sort of half turned. There are beds with other people in them and quite a few people walking about between them, doing this and that, whatever’s necessary.
I recognise this guy next to me, its the surgeon and he’s happy. He’s beaming in fact.
“We got it all, it’s all gone! All of it!” He says.
He was really happy, I tried to say something, but there were just jumbled thoughts at the moment, so I offer my hand, and we shake hands. It’s the first time I’ve touched him. Apart from the time he pressed my tummy a few weeks before and approved of the fact I wasn’t a fat person, because that would’ve been harder to get through and operate on.
I like the guy now. He was pretty scary before. I suppose this type of action was his thing, he was buzzing as he flew away to do another one. It must’ve gone well. It wouldn’t have been unexpected if he’d done a knee sliding goal-celebration in the centre of the recovery ward with a fist pump as he went out the door. Got to love what you do.
I’m pretty bleary, my god it really hurts, I really, really want to pee. I tell the nurse.
“You’ve got a catheter in, it’s probably that”.
No it’s more than that its just the urge to pee that hurts. Like your trying not to but you’re desperate and you so want to go but you can’t so there’s just the unrelenting urge. It’s excruciating.
“Do you want something for the pain?”
Bring it on. I get a little dose of pills and I try to settle. They’re talking to me, checking my blood pressure with that squeezing arm thing. The red glowing finger thing is on again and its beeping a bit. They seem ok with it.
Now I am desperate to pee, to fart too. I am feeling the wind, it’s torture. I cant move properly. I reach out for my bag, the hat is there, yes get that light out of my face. I’m going to go back to sleep, sod this.
I’m awake again, there’s a translucent pipe coming out of my penis. What the shit? Shit, no chance. The nurses are back again, they are putting the squeezy thing on my arm, the finger glows.
“I need to pee, really need to pee.”
Did I want some stronger painkillers? Does a bear shit in the woods? Hit me with your finest. Then there’s a bit of a warm taste of fluid, 20 ml they said, fine by me whatever, I’m asleep again.
They seem nice these nurses, but I’m in a foul mood, satan and his demons are sticking pokers up my rear end and blowing flames into my battered penis, I sort of want to pee inside, anywhere, just take the damn lid off the kettle, but I can’t. I’m asking again and the nurses are getting fed up with me I can tell. They are saying useless things like try and relax and try not to worry, try to rest. Doesn’t seem that easy from here. What do they know, it must look easy. Who put this damn tube in my willy, curse them. More sweetish liquid, another 10 ml. That’ll do, let me sleep some more.
They’re moving me they say. I’m going somewhere or other. The bags are put on the bed and I’m sort of clinging to the sidebars. They wheel me off, still in the bed, straight out through the doors. Behind me they are wheeling people in. A blessed fart emerges, through the trundling. That was good. That stopped the hot poker for a moment or two.
They’re taking me to the private ward they say. Down the hallway. It’s late morning or early afternoon I think, there are people here and there’s stethoscopes, day-clothes. No scrubs though, the engineering vibe has changed, no one in this area is dressed up for the theatre. I am the old-lady now, it’s my turn to be trundled through strangers looking quizzical, betraying my vulnerability to whatever might be occurring. I cant even lift a glowing finger to check which way the wind may be blowing through the vented windows of the ward corridor. I am not in control of anything. Couldn’t pee if I tried.
We glide through the wood-effect doorway, I’m on a sea of oramorph. So it could be anywhere. The echoing hallway behind is dampened by the sturdy semi-comfortable carpet beneath us. The walls have a yellowy tinge unlike the white of the recovery ward.
I’m going down a semi-darkened corridor and I’m parked up in a room called Tolpuddle. Nice! Its a motel for ill people. There’s a tv in the wall opposite and two windows. There’s also a little private bathroom and next to the bed is a chair, where the bags go.
I ask for the lights to go down. They’re probably pleased to see the back of me. I don’t mind. I’ve had surgery, people who have surgery are notoriously grumpy. They forgot to take that bit of me out.
I can get to the phone now, I call some people. They’re glad to hear me, me them. There’s a new nurse now, lots of east-asian people on this shift. All so lovely, they are doing the arms and fingers again they want to know if I’m comfortable.
‘Drugs’ I plead. More arrive. Sleep. Then soup. Lovely lentil soup. I get the out-of-date sandwiches out of my bag and dip them into the bowl. Better bulk up, teaspoon by teaspoon, chomp by chomp.
Ducks are outside somewhere nearby, making a fearful racket, maybe a fox has had one of them. They are so noisy, it’s funny. Quacking at the max. I’m grinning. Drugs. It’s getting dark out there, and that’s all just fine. A little bit of wind passes through me, forcing its way out. Pressing against whatever internal wounds are in there, it hurts most just before it escapes.
I’m trying to walk to the bathroom, I reckon if I can pass something solid, then the wind would stop. It’s got to be trapped in there at the moment. But nothing’s happening on that score, just the damn feeling of wanting to. It’s as though I have no influence in that department either. They tell me the bowel has gone to sleep under anaesthetic with the rest of me and needs to wake up again. So I’m taking laxatives and drinking loads of water. My wee bag is my new puppy now. I’m taking it for walks up and down the room.
Sitting down is a terrible thing, even on a chair on top of my foam donut. Every position is uncomfortable. Still nothing is happening down there.
Maybe gravity will help?
I’m on the floor rear quarters in the air, as if I’d had way too much to drink. But that’s no good either, a tiny little gust pops out in sympathy but nowhere near enough.
Enough to stand up though. Very, very slowly, reaching out for cling points and steadily I’m upright.
Back to bed. Sleep again.
They waking me up with the arm machines again. Taking blood again, needles. The cannula snagging on everything, use that?
Can’t, it’s contaminated.
Take it out?
Might need it again.
Great so maybe I’m not out of the woods just yet. Sleep. Breakfast. Cereal, a yoghurt, a banana. Anything to make things move down below.
No joy.
I’m wandering about in the evening and trying to keep a balance of sleep, exercise and rest. It’s so calm and sweet in this room. I really lucked in here. The staff keep prodding at me and bringing me food and tea sometimes. So nice. So kind. Doesn’t matter how many laxatives I take, nothing is coming out. Should I stop eating? They tell me to continue. Seems a strange solution. They are right though and eventually theres a tiny spatter of progress. Oh yeah! I’ll take that squishy little mess any day. Thank god for that. That’s not the only thing on the move, its Saturday night and I’m going out onto the wards. The Dr wanted me to go home. There are steps where I live I tell him. I live alone I tell him. He doesn’t seem impressed. They let me stay on another night, but not in my cosy room.
I bid my calm oasis of recovery farewell and there is another ride, in a wheelchair this time. Progress, I must be getting better. Another day in the room would have been perfect. But I am off to ward 12. Ward 12 area B bed 6, the bed by the door. Someone once told me that’s where they put the ones that look like they’re on the way out. The guy opposite looks more than half way there.
This is a very, very different proposition to my previous quarters. The sky tv is replaced by a clumsy great dentist-light arm thing that has a tv and telephone receiver attached to it. At the crippling rate they were charging I wouldn’t be availing myself of their services. No headphones either, so theoretically all 6 beds could be blaring out a different channel.
At the moment the grumpy looking chap in middle bed opposite is glaring at me and listening to some tv show or other, loud. Probably getting territorial in some feeble fashion. Sod him and his hostility.
Through the blue curtain beside me someone is babbling away in a foreign tongue. An Indian, Pakistani or Bengali gentleman is in there. I don’t recognise the language but I can recognise the rhythm and tone. I hear the odd English word, like ‘operation’ and ‘examination’ in amongst his conversation with various members of his seemingly very large circle of family or friends. Because they are on speakerphone, loud. After a long round of conversations, during which time the nurse puts the squeezy thing on my arm and the glowy thing on my finger again, the gentleman next door relaxes to some very loud, jangly music, where the wailing high-pitched female and imploring men’s singing voices declare whatever it is they are declaring over a swirling arrangement of sweeping strings and furiously incessant tablas.
Two men in the opposite far corners of the ward are having a loud conversation. Before coming in I knew nothing of the servicing and maintaining of troops equipment in Belfast, or the solemn duties associated with ensuring the correct ammunition had been issued to the correct weaponry. Fortunately this and other stories would be retold the following day during visiting times. In case I missed any details this first time. The guy listening opposite to Mr Paisley Knee-op guy interjected a few times, but it was mainly one-way verbal traffic.
I don my bright green cap to shield myself from the strip light peeping over the top of the curtain rail at the end of my bed, whose piercing light was coming straight into my eyes as I reclined. I brandish my pee-bag with pride and stare defiantly back at the grumpy old man diagonally opposite. I refuse to smile meekly at him, I am here too, I’m not so happy about it either. Repositioning the bed, the drawn curtain should shield me from the strip-light.
Time for a bit of Iggy pop’s radio show. Loud, to drown it all out. The proximity message seems to spread and volume levels are gradually reduced throughout the room by mutual consent, except the conversation. There was more to come from there.
I request more morphine. Just a splash. Despite the general racket I drift away from the orange walls, the dismal light, the scraping of trolleys and beeping of machines somewhere out there in the corridor. When I wake up it’s late, about one a.m. and the guy opposite is not settling down so well.
Every time he breathes out he groans. Every single time.
I put the headphones in, no music, just ear plugs. Can still hear him.
I try a gentle, ‘Shhhh!’ Not harsh. More like how I used to settle my babies when they couldn’t sleep. “Shhhhh”, noisy man.
It works! He seems to calm down a bit. Then a few seconds pass and he’s groaning again. So I ‘shhhh’ again and he settles, then he starts again and it goes on like this for quite a while. The gaps between ‘Shhh’s’ as lengthy or tight as ever, not running to time, more running to out-of-time.
I hate myself for being unable to not be irritated. It’s a flaw in my nature. I can’t sit there when a child kicks the back of my chair and say nothing and hope it will stop, or when someone is tapping further down the table, or when someone is whistling a non-descriptive airborne doodle over and over. I can’t listen to the droning song trying to drive a wedge of nonsense into my skull without appealing, I can’t have the sound of adverts on between segments of film, I can’t have general irritation. That tolerant component part was not fitted. So without tolerance, there is only attack or retreat. Tiring of the ‘shhh’ game, I’m going for a walk.
Luckily the bars on the side of the bed are down, and I’ve got hold of the controls. I lower it down taking it all very, very slowly. Theres a lot of groans before I’ve got the shoes on over the tight stockings, pulled the light dressing gown over one shoulder, then the other. Obviously it snags on the cannula, sitting there on the edge of the left hand where it bumps into everything just so I can feel the leverage aching under the skin. This is the portal where they’ll put things in me if I need things, if I have a funny turn or get an infection or something. As long as this is still stuck in me I am still on some sort of watchlist.
I’m off to the loo, maybe something will move.
It’s a much smaller space than Tolpuddle. I cant even manage a plop, or anything else, just wind dragging its way through the shocked unmoving rivulets of the gut. Stabbing each time. I would so love to pass something, anything. I’m getting the urge to pee, while sitting there, my yellow bag attached to the hole in my penis. Christ whoever put that in doesn’t understand the need to dangle. I’m messing with it, unclipping hoses. It’s way too tight. I get the general idea, its looser now, a bit of bloody urine trickles round the edges when I strain to move wind through the bowels. All the time that uncomfortable feeling but still nothing coming out.
The bag is pretty full. It has a plastic box on the front and a bag at the back. I’m supposed to record how much comes out, too late its gone. I’m washing my hands and nothing is happening. If these arse-ropes don’t wake up soon, maybe they wont wake up at all. Where is all the food going? All the breakfast cereal and sandwiches and yoghurts and bananas. Come out you bastards, transform! I beg you. Don’t stay asleep, you’ll make me someone who needs help every time. Oh god, please just poo!
Sod it. Nothing do-doing. I’m padding up the corridor and back again. I open the damn doors and go out into the damn corridor. It stretches for ages into the distance. I’m standing there, it’s so late and dark outside. Theres a bench in the blue and white yonder and I am aiming at it.
Slow, slow, slow, maybe not ever walked slower. Actually maybe when I pulled a hamstring and had to drag one leg along like a dead weight. The health people were there for me then. That lovely physio lady at St Bartholomew’s. London was a long time ago, further away than that bench.
The wind whistles through the windows, doesn’t feel too good this freezing night, it’s getting around everything with its cold probing fingers, are those evil spirits surrounding me again?
No, I didn’t die this time. I must’ve gone somewhere near but not there. I’ve met the angel’s work before, when Esme my grandmother left I met him face to face, before then it was stories or rumours. Hollywood deaths were the only one’s I’d witnessed, where it was heroic to kill ‘bad’ people who departed softly and quietly with very little blood or any complaint.
I met death again, where it came to silence the last rattle at my mother’s bedside. She had gone to the next place with the dark angel where we must all visit one day.
I could see the way the lights would dim one day, before that drop into the darkness. Some way on the way there names would drop away, memories would depart, all that would be left would be that indefinable soul, that presence that exists somewhere, without even its sensitive conscience.
When I faded out, looking at the vent. I realised this was my journey and whatever I could say, whatever last words or last sentiments I uttered before the blackout, they wouldn’t be meaningless exactly, just the noises, sitting beside the truth in their own setting. I would say I loved my children; please tell them. I nearly said that to the anaesthetist before he sent me off, ‘Please tell my children I love them if I don’t wake up’, which would’ve been so nice for him.
In fact I sort of prepared myself for departure, if I woke up or not then that was just what happened; if I went away, then I wouldn’t be there anymore. ‘I’d’ be no more; whoever I actually was would be somewhere else. Remembering the rabbit-hole for a moment it was nothing you could see, in the sense of recognition, or feel in the way a person feels things, through their body; like this pain, this cold temperature, that bloody trapped wind.
I sit down. There is no way to be comfortable in this or any other position. The bench is too hard. I can perch on the edge, it doesn’t feel like rest though, the weight of the upper body is too much for the seat. I should’ve brought my foam donut, but, there you go.
I may as well get back to bed. The corridor and the way back seems even longer. It is a few hundred yards, but I’ve overdone my capabilities this time. Just plug on through, don’t panic.
At least I’m not there, in that dead unaffecting place where there is nothing but the end of things. I am here in this one, where things happen. Where people are. The place where people come from, made when a man and woman’s seeds are combined. Where the person comes out. Do they come out as one, ready to find there way in the place and time that they land in? Are they in there somewhere, waiting to learn the tools of communication before they emerge? The eggs of the mother’s grandchildren inside her little girl are with her when she arrives. When does the soul join us, is it there from the start or does the soul develop while we live in the world we find?
The people who want to know are calling to see if I’m ok and survived the challenges. The people you love. And these amazing people who keep you in this world when you start to fall apart. I never thought I’d die, because I’ve only known alive and that was something other people did, but now I can see it clearer, even though it wasn’t today, that unknown journey is waiting up ahead. When I die, the ‘I’ wont be the important thing, that will be left behind.
How would I want to go? They say the hearing is last to go, so I would hear the sounds, of farewell I hope, or the rolling waves of the sea, or the rustle of leaves in the warm summer breezes in the woods.
It might be the buzzing of the white machines under the dismal lights in the corner of a sweaty room, with Ian Paisley and Bollywood and BBC news talking their made-up garbage at full blast. I hope not, but if that is happening, hopefully someone will also have Iggy Pop on, loud.
He’s still groaning when I get back. Every breath ‘Ooooh, ooooh, grrmmh, ooooh’.
I ask the two African ladies on the desk, what’s up with him?
Heart failure, he is a nice man they tell me.
He’s groaning a lot
He gets distressed and pulls his oxygen out.
“Do you think it might be an idea to put it back on him?”
There was a definite huff of disapproval coming from her. But she still got up and went over to him and reattached the pipes into his nose. Then he settled down and he went to sleep.
So I did too.
It was 6am when the African lady woke me up, put the squeezy thing on the arm and redfinger thing. Then I’m awake with nothing in particular to do and regrettably so are my cell mates. So Ian starts up again, to the listening chump. That starts Bangra Man off. He starts clearing his throat, so I let out a salvo of strangulated farts in response. It’s too early for me to call anyone. But his family are back in touch from the subcontinent before the cornflakes turn up. They must be worried about him.
Sod it, I’m off for another walk.
The dying man is sitting in his chair beside his bed, head back, eyes closed; his pyjamas open and his penis laying out all grey and old in the ward, for everyone to see. His eyes are closed tightly, so that lines are on his forehead and it doesn’t look so good for him poor fellow. The oxygen tube is gone from his nose again. He is panting weakly, probably too tired to groan now. The angel is circling him, he is moving into the departure zone.
I’m off to the toilet and although it wasn’t much in relation to three days worth of food and seven or eight laxatives, there was a blessed motion, one in favour of going home and I fully support it.
I announce to the African lady that I am ok to go home now as my bowels are moving.
“You have to wait for the doctor”, she tells me.
So I wait.
Any chance of some more morphine? Terribly moreish stuff. I want to avoid the third telling of the tale of the ammunition.
Breakfast comes around with paracetamol, which is probably all I deserve.
The voice is still busy smashing up the mother-tongue with a sandpaper rasp, the nodding donkey is attentive and the family are still calling Bangra Man long distance; children and grandmothers make occasional contributions, but the most concerned and persistent must be his mother. Her voice is quavering with concern and affection. He speaks to her in reassuring tones. Its probably the way I’d speak to mine in this situation if I still had one on the end of a telephone. Lucky him. I would have liked to speak to my mum right now.
There is a big crowd of white coats around the dying-man’s bed, a lot of medical people, stethoscopes, gowns, tunics of all colours.
Someone is speaking loudly to him, “David, wake up David.”
“Can you open your eyes for me Mr. Hardy.”
“Open your eyes Mr Hardy.”
“Dave… David… Dave…” Maybe they are shaking him just a little bit. He isn’t responding by the look of things.
I am behind the curtain and I have the cap on and the headphones in. So I can’t hear them anymore either and Dave is probably somewhere unfamiliar down the rabbit-hole drifting away from his old home into the new one. But it’s none of my right-in-your-face business. I’m tucked away in my flimsy universe behind a very thin semi-transparent curtain.
Why poor Dave isn’t in Tolpuddle I don’t know. He could have done with the tranquility, so could I. In fact Paisley with his knee and Dumb-ass trauma man with whatever was up with him and Bangra Man could probably all have benefitted from a quiet place to let the impact disperse. My stress level was ratcheting up just by proximity to these others, before they’d done anything, and anything they were doing wasn’t really unexpected. We were all in need of tranquility. Maybe the morphine was wearing off. I definitely wanted to go home now.
I ask the nurse for a suppository. There shouldn’t be any doubt if I want the wheels of motion to roll. She appears and is suitably gloved for the procedure.
“Try and hold it in as long as you can, it works better.”
She could be right, we’d find out soon enough.
After what possibly could be the last intimacy I will ever experience with a woman, I am prepared to fulfill my part of the bargain, alone with headphone music, waiting for the unmistakeable gurgle.
At which point the urologist appears.
“So you’re ready to go ho-”
“Yep!”
“Someone to collect you, help you when you get back?”
“There’s help nearby.”
“Comfortable?”
“Yes I had a bit of action down below.”
“Good man.” he signs something. Great not long now.
So I’m on the phone and my brother arrives at visiting time. So does a great gang of about 5 young men with crash helmets and loud voices while we wait together. They’ve come to see grumpy old guy in the middle-bed opposite. One of them bores easy and shares a recording of Dire Straits to the assembled company. Charming. We sit there my brother and I and just look at each other. There is no escape til the nurse appears with the go-home pack. Maybe grumpy man doesn’t deserve Tolpuddle after all, not if he can’t educate his offspring how to behave properly in a situation like this, and him being around all these years.
Eventually they all fuck off. All bored with grumpy man now. Now we are all listening to Bangraman’s doctor telling him they have found something they weren’t expecting. That doesn’t sound so good for him either. I don’t know if Dave is still with us but his huge wake-up party has gone away. He didn’t oblige them with an answer by the looks of things and I think I heard one of them say that the nurses should call his family before they left, but they haven’t shown up yet.
A very sweet little nurse appears, a lass from up north, all tattoos and peroxide, very chatty and wanting to get in there and help, bless her. Lost her father a year before, she says, seems so young, just not fair. Wants to live life to the full she tells me.
“I’m going to make the most of it”, she declares. I hope she does. In fact I hope I do. I have been asleep too long by the looks of things.
Dave is there at the threshold, some day I will be…
But the go-home meds have arrived and the girl who knows what inside my asshole feels like through a rubber glove, hands me my very own home wee-bag kit and the boxes of injections that I have to give myself once a day to avoid DVTs. I have to stick these in and around the 6 wounds once a day and don’t forget, she says sternly. Showing me how to do the first one. Another horror awaiting on the road to recovery.
Bro gets the little blond lass to find a wheelchair as we scrape the stuff together and I return the gowns and don my stretchy trousers. I try to say goodbye to the nurses at the desk, they are busy, probably writing all over the goodbye notes and wiping my name off the whiteboard. So we leave in silence.
Negotiating the corridor we find the lift and eventually out the same eye-surgery door I’d come in.
I wish I could have thanked the lovely filipino crew that took such tender care of me, the check in girl, the op team, the breakfast guy, the bloods ladies.
I wish I could have apologised to poor dying Dave, for being irritated by him and ‘shhhing’ him gently when he wanted to moan and couldn’t help it. I hope the shhh was soothing. It seemed to calm him down. I wonder if Paisley’s knee will heal up ok, or if Bangra Man will see his mum and distant family again. I’m sure dumbo will be ok, if he can listen to Paisley tell the ammunition story multiple times he can probably survive anything thrown at him. Grumpy man can fuck right off.
I am off to see my homies, with my new tube and bag arrangement strapped to my calf.
I’m a survivor now. That’s good news.
It’s over. They say it’s all gone.
Or it’s just beginning, depending on how you look at it.
For a while longer anyway, thanks to these people’s skills, I am going to live a bit longer before the angel claims me. I am going to meet the angel and surrender one day because I will have to go to that next place. There is no ultimate escape, but in the mean time there is now, hopefully, a bit more life to live.
A year to the day since my all clear
One year ago today Friday 13th 2023, I was given a gift by NHS. A future.
Prostate Cancer is a silent killer, I was diagnosed in 2017 and monitored until I was faced with a pretty stark choice; have operation and survive or ?
I can honestly say I thought about both options.
Who wants to get old and knackered anyway?
Anyway, I chose half-life and hoped that I’d wake up after the anaesthetic. What I remember about the experience more than anything else, honestly, is FEAR.
Yes, I found courage within that fear. If that was my time I had made my peace with this world and was ready for the next, or just to lay the burden down. But the fear, even thinking about it now is difficult.
I wrote a short-story/journal of the experience, in the days after, which many who have got this far have now read. While wandering about at home with a catheter attached for 3 weeks, in a state of shock, incredibly uncomfortable, just about hanging in. I shared my experiences with Prostate Cancer UK, (a fantastic organisation dedicated to support for men with this predicament) there are so many people affected, you’d be surprised 1:8 = 12,000 men die every year of it, many not knowing they have got it.
A year on, it is a very different life, side-effects are pretty real, can’t deny that and difficult to reconcile; but I am glad I’m still around and that was the choice; live or die, no choice really. We are, in the wise words of the esteemed Patrick Hernandez, born to be alive.
I am active, playing old-man football, and still got a bit of skin in this game of life.
I want to urge the men I know over 45 to go get checked out every now and then, periodically, every few years; why? Because early detection is everything. EVERYTHING!
I went along to my GP on a bit of a hunch, with a question about certain observations; loss of libido, lack of urge, nothing specific, was waking up in the night occasionally and using the loo, I felt I wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t feel ‘ill’ as things seemed fairly ‘normal’ ; lucky for me, I did go! It was detected early.
I was 54 pretty healthy and active and importantly, other than a feeling that could have been attributed to my age, there were NO SYMPTOMS. A simple blood test (PSA) can identify any issue and these are available from GP, administered by nurses, just call and book. Why? Because there is nothing good about not knowing; honestly, the risk of spread is a lot worse than getting it health-wise; if it goes undetected, it makes really, very difficult reading.
The prostate is a tiny thing the size of a walnut, situated in a very central place near the bladder, bowel, lymph system and all the major organs. Any ‘spread’ can affect many other parts of the body, and I am mighty relieved that it was detected early, so it could be treated before things might have escalated.
I would also add that the diagnosis had a massive impact on my life and mental health, the initial impact of the news, living with it for 4&1/2 years under ‘active surveillance’ and dealing with the day to day consequences. Not easy! Psychologically, how do you ‘live’ if you’ve been given a ‘deadline’. I was often in a bad place.
During this time, I was lucky to be given support from close friends and family, and people who are now my prostateless brothers (Shaun and Piers, thank you forever).
I am grateful for the skill of the surgeon and the fantastic professionalism of the NHS team that dealt with me from day one. It is quite a shock to be told there is something seriously up; but my god we are lucky to have the NHS. I walked/wheel-chaired out of the hospital without being presented with a bill, for one of the most major operations out there for men. Just so lucky!
I am still being monitored afterwards, and a year on, all I can say about that is, so far, so good.
Anyhow, gents, if you are in the age zone, I’d highly recommend going to go get a PSA test. Early detection is EVERYTHING! If you aren’t there yet, be sure to put it on your fuckit list.
I said that before, but I can’t stress it enough. EARLY DETECTION!! IS EVERYTHING!!!
Anyhow, for me, until there’s any evidence to the contrary, I’m still about and I will take that over the alternative, I urge you gentlemen to get it checked out, keep an eye on it, and you ladies to ensure they do!
Long live life!
It allows me to experience this:
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