I went for my six week post-radiotherapy check up today.

I have learnt that the hospital is a busy place between 2 and 4pm, with visitors, clinics and treatments reaching their peak. There is very little hope of getting in the carpark, so I parked over the road in Wymering and walked the short distance up the hill. As I crossed into the road that leads up the hospital I had a memory of the afternoon I went to get my biopsy results six months ago, when I had also parked in the same place (Lisa-Marie told me about a secret ‘no restrictions’ place that hospital staff use. I can’t tell you where it is because she’ll kill me). It was late afternoon, getting dark because it was 20th December, and I can clearly remember what I was wearing and that the grass was damp so I didn’t want to walk on it and trash my boots. I haven’t thought about it at all since that day, even with the number of times I have now visited QA. (I could probably feed my family for a week on the amount Carillion have taken from my pocket for the privilege of parking to receive necessary cancer treatments.) 

It totally span me out. On the one hand, that day seems like ages ago now, and so much has happened since. So much. On the other hand, it seems like a really short time since everything changed. This reality disparity was sudden and abrupt. It made me momentarily dizzy, and in the space of a few seconds I felt simultaneously terrified, lucky to be alive, sad, happy, disjointed, nauseous and overwhelmed. This was a microcosm of the way I felt after diagnosis until February when I finally cracked and went batshit mental for a few weeks. Fortunately it only lasted a couple of seconds, just enough for the adrenalin to kick in and make my stomach flip, released by the sudden mental fear of imminent death at the sight of some grass by the side of the road. I’ve always found the things that trigger intense memory recall really fascinating; I can’t smell grape flavour or grape juice without thinking of living in Canada, and whenever I see clover in the grass I am always reminded of the time I sat down to eat some on the way home from junior school while my mum was chatting to someone. It was hot, and I can remember what I was wearing then too. I also remember my mum shouting at me because I dog might have weed on the grass. 

It’s not nice thinking about that day, (diagnosis day, not potential dog wee day), it makes me slightly uncomfortable. I’d rather pretend that whole thing didn’t happen. Being told you have cancer is pants. And it’s this fear that I want to break down with Feel Yourself. There is a taboo around cancer, it’s a highly sensitive subject. Everyone knows someone affected by it, whether it’s a friend, relative, colleague… it’s rampant, rife and apparently indiscriminate – unless you have one of the few known genetic triggers. If people don’t check themselves, they can’t protect themselves from a late diagnosis. But how do you approach this? A lot of people don’t want to talk about cancer, it freaks them out. 

I had a similar response in the car today when I turned on the radio and someone was talking about her husband’s last moments, and saying that the way you are with a dying person stays with you for life, so it’s important to try and approach someone close to you dying in way you can live with. I don’t want to hear that! Jesus! I don’t want to think about palliative care and hospices and bedbaths! But that is not the way I used to feel about hearing something like that. It wouldn’t have bothered me because it hadn’t entered my world yet. I could have listened to the story, maybe felt sympathy and empathy for the woman, and probably put some music on without a second thought. Now it is a fear. You don’t ever get to leave Cancer Towers. Not fully. You might make it outside again, but you’ll always be in the building’s shadow. I’m no longer scared of checking myself, or of having cancer, but other people are. It’s the big unknown. The thing no one wants but so many people get as a bonus prize. 

My tits are fine by the way. Very lumpy as always. The oncologist was training up a nurse today and explained to her that mammograms don’t work on the under 50s because the breast tissue is too dense, so the drive to push the NHS for mammograms for younger women is pointless. I already knew this, and we had a good chat about a couple of studies with opposing view points on the subject, and she congratulated me on being well informed. She is of north European Aryan origin, one of those tall, striking Danish or Finnish types, in her early 50s, very well dressed and authoritative. Then we discussed the niggly back ache I’ve had for a few weeks now, and I told her the GP had sent me for blood tests to check my bone and liver function and the results were fine, but I was nevertheless still waking up in the night in pain, despite taking codeine every night, so she’s referred me for an x-ray. On the referral form it says ‘breast cancer – metastasis?’ 

I’m not unduly worried about this, as the blood tests didn’t show signs of bone or liver cancer, but there is a lump on my pelvis and pain that – as she put it – ‘veeth your history ve have to check out’. As I was leaving I asked her if she knows why mastectomies aren’t offered at diagnosis, just because I’ve been wondering. We talked about that for a bit, and then she sat back in her chair, pointed two fingers at me like a pistol, and said, ‘I like you, you are interesting to talk to, I vish all my patients vere like this.’ 

I like her too, but as with the previous oncologist in her early 50s who was well dressed, looked like she favoured a robust red with supper and whose job it was to get me hooked up with chemotherapy, I’d rather not see her again either.