Cancer 35

From September 1939 to May 1940 the Alliies, Britain and France, experienced what was known as the phoney war. They sat behind their defences on the Western Front, the French facing the Germans, the British facing the neutral Belgians (if Germany invaded the British would sweep through Belgium to attack the Germans), the Germans facing the French and the neutral Belgians and Dutch. Elsewhere Poland was defeated and occupied by Germany and the USSR, and in April 1940 Denmark and Norway were attacked and defeated by Germany. But on the Western Front very little happened.

Tomorrow it is six weeks since the operation, the point at which I imagined everything would change. I will start to drive again, I will start my cancer treatment, and the battle will commence.

I feel that I am in the middle of a phoney war at the moment. I am 80% recovered from my operation. I have one small dressing on the wound that is taking a while to heal, though it is not problematic. The rest is developing into scar tissue. I have nearly stopped taking painkillers, and the other day created a new record of walking about 2.5km, so all is well on the operation recovery front. It is just a bit boring.

I am now waiting for the opening of the second front (I know, I am mixing my WWII metaphors here, jumping ahead 4 years), the cancer front. I have been referred back to oncology, but have so far heard nothing from them. I will phone shortly, but I am not optimistic about an early start to treatment. The junior doctors’ strike has delayed appointments, and they are short of consultant oncologists. Never mind, it is only lives at stake, and as I have pointed out in previous blogs, life is essentially meaningless. Except at this point it isn’t. I do still have the desire to live so I do want some treatment.

In the meantime I am looking up hotels and cottages, searching for places to go, things to see. At the moment, apart from going to see the kids and roaming the Peak District, the list includes, in no particular order, Northumberland, Scotland, the Lake District, Morecambe (don’t ask), Shropshire, the Oliver Cromwell museums at Ely and Huntingdon, Norwich (the rebellion of 1549) and the tank museum at Bovington. It is no wonder that, at least for the moment, I would like life to continue!