Post radiotherapy checkups
Following the end of my month long radiotherapy sessions, (on my 66th birthday, 15th Dec 2022), I was told that I would, subsequently, receive 6 monthly check up PSA tests to track and monitor the progress of myself and / or the cancer.
But this didn’t happen.
What followed was several planned telephone consultations being booked and then cancelled one after another over the whole of summer and autumn
So … by month 7, with my PSA test and specialist telephone consultation a month overdue, exactly one month passed my planned checkup date, I took it upon myself to book a PSA test.
And now, ELEVEN MONTHS after my radiotherapy, and 4 months past my 6 monthly checkup, completely out of the blue, I get a random email that I might easily have overlooked, informing me that I will be receiving a telephone appointment from a Urology specialist the very next day. (Today the 09/11/2023)
No warning. No prompting letter prior. Nothing.
And lets not forget …
These consultations are profoundly important; and important at an existential level because the results of these PSA tests dictate whether the forecast for my future is a positive and life affirming one for, at least, the next six months OR a deadly, life sucking, (and frightening), negative forecast; a stark explanation that the cancer is growing and / or spreading.
So here I am, 10:28am, once again pondering my mortality while, echoing in my ears are the comments of friends and others cheerfully offering, “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Chris”.
Really?
I mean; would they be quite so cheery if I was asking them to play a game of Russian roulette? Me, insisting they take 3 bullets out of a 6 chamber gun and then twirl the barrel like being a guest participant on some televised Wheel of Fortune gameshow?
Would they be so cheery knowing that, within a few moments, they would be, metaphorically, rolling a dice with a 50/50 chance of having their head blown off the split second they put the gun to their temple and pull the trigger?
So here I am … without family support, without anyone to chat to or confide in …
And, shortly after 2pm, I’ll learn my fate.
Either … I’ll feel the rush of relief in being told that my PSA level is fine … enabling me to ponder and imagine some concept of joyously living my life a further 6 months and, likely, stepping into a future that would include the miracle of feeling the rays of a glorious Spring sunshine on my skin;
OR it might be, instead, an “I’m sorry, Mr Goodland. Your PSA levels indicate that …”
(We’ll leave any actual revised diagnosis blank for now)
So.
This day is an important one and a day that further highlights the cruelty Jackie and the children have delivered upon me by, bewilderingly, wishing to have nothing more to do with me since my cancer diagnosis.
The Rings
Here is a photo taken when I would have been just 2 to 3 years old. Notice I am the little boy in a pushchair in the photo, with a black harness and reins hanging off my shoulders, in what looks to be a happy and idyllic photo of a family snapshot taken at Bridport harbour back in 1958 or 1959.
Somerset born, from Yeovil, my Nan and my Aunty Jean both had caravans based at the West Bay caravan site so it was common, (and inexpensive), for all of our family clan to take “free” holidays at West Bay every now and again.
Anyway, the anecdote I am about to relate, (the very first anecdote of hundreds of life experiences I will soon decant onto these pages), represents my very first every conscious memory. A memory not prompted by the above photo but prompted by the first indelible experience I would have ever burned into my memory.
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