Cancer 234

I was surprised the other day. We intended to celebrate my reaching 50 rounds of chemotherapy with 5-6 people at the pub, having a glass of milk and a light bite, but 26 people turned up! Thank you everyone, it means a lot to me, especially as what was meant to be just a recognition of the chemotherapy but, it turned out, I had my news tha the treatment had failed and my tumours had grown significantly, before the meal. So it turned into my first pre-death wake, though a little less raucuss than I expect the real thing to be. Perhaps it was the milk.

I did think of making a short speech, but time passed and I didn’t, so perhaps I can make it here. First of all, lock the doors. We don’t want people getting away before it is finished. I do want to emphasise how I felt that so many people turned up. It really does make a difference. I roam around trying to be positive, trying not to get depresse, trying to tough it out, but it is not enough. People matter a lot. The social support is a crucial part of dealing with cancer and I am priviliged that I have a lot of such support, from a wide range of people. Obviously, at the top of the list is the wife, but I am not allowed to talk about her. Those who know me know about her though

Support isn;’t all about doing things, though that is very helpful. It is certainly not all abut being nice to me, though that helps sometimes. Mostly it is about getting on with normal life, saying and doing normal things. Yes, we mention the cancer or no we don;t mention the cancer. Yes, I get my normal abuse from most people I know – that will never change, It has been suggested I invite it through my behavious so I had better not do too much analysing.

I realise that many people with cancer have problems with support. They say their friends don’t know what to say or do, they avoid the topic or avoid the person with cancer. I have probably experienced a little of this, but I tend not to notice. There are one or two people I haven’t seen, but then there were always one or two people I havent seen – not everything is to be assessed by the existence of cancer.

It is down to relationships and the responses from both sides. If the person with cancer creates difficulties by lacking strength or a get on with it attitude then I think it makes it more difficult for their friends to know what to do. I knw this might go against the usual way of thinking, but if the person with cancer is depressed, confused, not knowing how to deal with theoir experiences, then this is going to make it doubly difficult for friends, who may not know how to respond. This isn’t to say the person with cancer is responsible for their social support, but it does work two ways.

Nevertheless, the people around person with cancer matter. You should send a message, ask about going out for a nice glass of milk, just ask how things are – though I think this last can be difficult because sometimes I dont respond in tthe English manner of, ‘Not bad, thanks’, or ‘fair to middling. You know how it is.’ I sometimes respond with the details that are going on, whether it is problems with a grotty stoma, my aches and pains, lack of sleep, or dietary problems. Boring things that no-one really wants to hear, but tough, I have the cancer ticket so I can say what I like.

Usually though, life carries on as normally as possible. We go out, we stay in, we get on with work, we watch telly. Having cancer is not like having the plague. It is not transmissible. You won’t catch it off me. Thankfully I don’t have the experience of absent friends.

Anyone for a second pre-death wake? This time we can invite all those others who weren’t there at the first one. I quite like the idea of a series of wakes before my death. Why should it just be you lot who get the pleasure?

Glass of milk anyone? Open those doors, they didn’t need locking after all.