On my Radio...part one :The Cancer Diaries pt 4

*Warning* the following post contains nudity (mine) and C word swearing (also mine) - if easily offended then best you divvent read it like...😉

So, we're into October and I'd told my family, my in-laws knew, my close friends had been informed and now for the difficult one...the lads WhatsApp group.  If you're a woman reading this then you're probably rolling your eyes at this point but if you're a lad then you know what I'm on about. We don't do talking about serious stuff - football and music excepted - and I didn't want my potentially life altering/ending condition sandwiched between OnlyFans videos, football arguments and bare knuckle brawls so I created a separate group, wrote it all down, took a deep breath and posted it. Then waited.

The first thing that happened was that someone I've known for over thirty years left the group without saying anything*. Bit harsh I thought.  Then the commiserations started rolling in...bloke style. They were all along the lines of 'You'll be alreet ye cunt!' (which was good, 'cos I will be) so I thought I'd drop the other bombshell on them - that I wouldn't obviously be coming to Birmingham for the Happy Mondays Gig in November. They were less sympathetic about this and I think my ticket was sold about two seconds after I'd pressed send. Normal service resumed - cheers lads! 😆 

Now I knew that I was getting ready to start treatment it was time to do the thing I was dreading most. I'd spoken to my future brother-in-law (Doctor. Proper one. Anaesthetist no less!) about side-effects and stuff and he'd said that being as fit as you can prior to any treatment helped enormously once you were being pumped full of drugs. So with that in mind I'd increased my gym sessions and was now fast approaching the time to...give up alcohol...sob!

But before I did I had one last session with my best mate Danny who came down to Brid from North Shields especially to have a drink with me while I still could. Then, the next weekend I had another one last session with my siblings who..well...you know the drill . Hey-ho.

But after that I had definitely stopped. Honest.

My appointment for Castle Hill hospital near Hull came through the post and I was ready. Another CT scan to prepare me for my Radiotherapy treatment and another hospital to tick off my list. Having visited Scarborough, York, Bridlington and now Hull I'd done the lot in the local area - like an extreme kind of train spotting with a possibility of a fatal outcome just to keep you on your toes.

Once there, in the smart Queens Centre for Oncology part of the Hospital, I was ensconced in the also very smart Radiotherapy department and ready to go. I'd been given a water bottle and told to drink it all and I'd then be seen twenty mins later as you have to have a full bladder for these things. I hoped it wouldn't be longer than that because as a man in his fifties this can be a very touch and go situation I can tell you! 

The two radiologists, both chirpy, down-to-earth, ladies, called me in to a very large, bare room with a space-age looking contraption in the middle - like a big doughnut with a bench attached - and asked if I had a full bladder.  After I'd replied 'believe me it's more than full,' they laughed and said 'right Andy, bare bum on the bench and we'll take a look.'

I'd wondered how much of me was going to be on display during this procedure and it turned out it was going to be all of me. As I nervously pulled the rear of my pants down from a lying on my back position - tricky when you're close to pissing yourself I can tell you - one of the ladies did the same at the front and unleashed the little fella (I'm self-deprecating just in case you weren't aware - don't take everything I say as gospel 😉) then her colleague appeared with some kind of modesty paper thing to lay over my frontage. Despite my discomfort (desperate for a wee remember) I managed to quip 'You won't need all that...' and got a laugh. They probably hear that shit fifteen times a day but it was nice of them to indulge me.

They did an ultrasound to see how much water I had in there (two young women I've never met before rubbing gel into my nether regions while I lay there exposed - had worse days like 👍) and it turns out I had about 650ml instead of the 300ml required (this was to be a common theme by the way). So they got a jug, drew a line on it and asked if I could piss up to the line? I was almost up and doing it in the corner of the room when they laughed and sent me to the bog outside. Sweet relief I can tell you, the hardest part was stopping at the line but I managed it...just.

Back inside and I was on the bench again in double-quick time and we were off. The radiographers exited the room and then the bench passed through the doughnut until my head and chest were clear and it stopped and did whatever the fuck it does. Then I was passed back through to my initial position and my new, intimate, mates came back in. 

'Well,' I thought, 'that was a piece of piss...' 

'Okay Andy, now we're going to tattoo you...'

Eh?

It turns out that to prepare you for the actual radiotherapy they tattoo you in three points to ensure the correct lining up at every session - eminently sensible really.  So they did. I had to have one on each hip and the third...well, you'd have to be a very close friend to see that one. 

Or be a radiographer. 😂

* Turned out he'd got a new phone and given this one to his ten year old son some months previously...ooops!