Almost Living With Cancer

On the 27th of March 2015, I was diagnosed with Colonic Cancer. And with it also being my 54th birthday this certainly wasn’t the gift that I was really hoping for. Previous results for an uncomfortable time whilst visiting the lavatory at every given opportunity was put down to a renal condition - probably a kidney stone. An x-ray later showed that I did indeed have a stone in my left kidney, but that stone passed through my urinary tract while in was taking a pee a few weeks later, and not without the most horrific pain to my penis. Yet the initial pain still continued and I was assured by my GP that it was just an after effect and the pain should ease and eventually go away. But the pain got worse by the day, and I was eventually sent to the hospital for more tests.

After having a camera shoved up my arse at the ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Colorectal Clinic, the truth had finally been found concerning my uncomfortable complaint. So when the consultant who performed the ‘up the jacksie camera trick informed me that I had a tumour in my gastrointestinal tract, it came as little surprise to me.

“You’re taking the news quite well,” he said.

” That’s what I thought was the problem” I answered, totally unconcerned.

Neither he nor the student sidekick who was seated next to him could see why I was taking the news so graciously. But to be honest, this is exactly what I thought the results were going to say anyway, so how different should I react? I was then told that I would have to undergo further tests to see if I would get a few more breathing years on this planet, and little did I realise it at the time, but I was to visit this hospital on at least another eighty occasions before I could continue to live life as I wished.

Prior to this unfortunate appointment I had to go 36 hours without a bite to eat, and before I left the hospital that day a nurse informed me that I must take it easy when returning to eating my food.

“Just have a bit of soup when you get home and then wean yourself back onto solids - Okay?”

“The last thing I want right now is food,” I informed her. “As soon as I am near to my home I am grabbing a four pack of Budweiser beers.”

The nurse, a medium build black lady in her mid-fifties, and who may have in fact been a head nurse, probably took pity on me and was no doubt aware of my results. She just raised an eyebrow of disapproval and said very little about my future welfare before I left with some paperwork to take to my GP.

To save a few quid I actually walked the four miles to the hospital that morning and so I thought it would be a good idea to walk back home, as this would give me plenty of time to gather my thoughts. I was down to my last few pounds in cash and had just enough for a four pack of Budweiser’s. But when I reached the bus terminal the coach that takes me very close to my home was stationary there, and I therefore decided that I weren’t in the mood for a walk after all. I was sorting out the £2.10p fare that I required when a chap of about my age approached me. He had no doubt seen me fumbling for change and had realised that I hadn’t a pass of any sort.

“Wanna day ticket mate? I ain’t gonna use it again today.”

“Cheers mate” I said, and before I could offer him at least a quid for the ticket he was gone.

I took the day ticket from him and then took my place at the back of the waiting queue where naturally I checked the ticket to make sure that he hadn’t pranked me with an out-of-date pass. I put on my spectacles and examined the ticket to find that I was in the possession of the genuine article.

“Oh thank you God for that bonus,” I murmured to myself. “You’re too kind.”

I looked up at the heavens with spiteful sarcasm, growling at this miserly gift that was supposed to compensate for my recent diagnosis.

So I had a bit of luck with a free day ticket for the bus. Not a bad gift after being told that I wasn’t going to be part of this planet for much longer. But unbeknown to me at the time, my luck was just about to hit the jackpot.

I sat at the back of the number 29A single-decker bus that would take me into the town of Northfield, and I began to mentally arrange my bucket list. I have had this pain in the arse (literally) for a good few years, and the pain was increasing to a high level as each month passed by. I couldn’t see a good way out of this particular cancer, and although the results from the colonoscopy hadn’t told me whether it was terminal or not, I wasn’t confident of good news ahead.

I alighted the bus outside the first available off-licence where I indeed did fork out the last of my cash on four cans of America’s finest export. I then headed in the one-and-a-half-mile direction towards my home by foot. Rather than take the busy footpath I elected to hike via the ‘Lea Hill Recreation Area. This route would at least give me some privacy if I wanted to down a few ales. As soon as I entered the park I immediately pulled the ring-pull from one of my cans and took one big swig. It wasn’t a good idea to drink beer on an empty stomach but I was in no mood to indulge in any food just yet. It took only a few giant slurps before the first can was empty, forcing me to crack open another one. I also needed a wee pretty desperately and so I headed towards the brook where I wouldn’t be seen. There was a white plastic carrier bag directly beneath where I was taking my pee and I could see a fee new white envelopes sticking out of it.

“Oh” I said out loud, “I could do with a few of those.”

Once I had zipped myself up I picked up the bag and placed the white envelopes into my holdall. As I was just about to discard the plastic bag I noticed another envelope that was bulging with something inside it. I picked it up, and because it was very damp, the envelope tore open. Straight away I noticed it was a wad of £20 notes that was causing the bulge. Normally when you see a wad of cash on the ground, you get an exciting applause from a heavy heartbeat. Due to what had occurred at the hospital I was as calm as if I had only picked up a 50p coin. I quickly checked to see if they were joke notes but they all seemed okay. And besides, the money still had the banker’s band around them. I checked the plastic bag to see if there were any more goodies inside. A few jars of pills, no doubt for narcotic use, where inside, but I left them there. My first thought was that the money was drug related, but that wasn’t my problem.

It took me little time finding a bigger stride to get out of this park, and I was soon walking through some farmland close to my home. Now that I was alone and safe from prying eyes I re-checked the wad and was satisfied that I had real money on my person. But how much?

My partner, Pam, was still at work, and so I took the money and another can of beer to my bedroom. The cash was very damp, therefore making it difficult to separate each note. I took Pam’s hair dryer and proceeded to blow-dry the notes, and I watched with amusement as they flew in the air. I had barricaded them in so they wouldn’t go everywhere, and after a few minutes they were pretty well dry. Now it was time to count it.

I had found the biggest haul of my life.

Because I walk almost everywhere I tend to find money on a regular basis. I have handed a few items back that have had the owners name on it because I am too guilty to keep it if find out who owns it. But if it is showing only the Queen’s head, then it becomes my property -period. My biggest find before this one was when I found £215 scattered on parkland near my home just a few years earlier. But this find would take some beating.

With the £1000 drug money that I had just found I bought a nice second-hand HTC One Android Phone from CEX. I paid for two holidays, one in April at Snowdonia, North Wales, and a week-long break near Falmouth in Cornwall. I purchased a few nicer items until the cash finally ran out. And do I feel guilty about keeping the handsome find? No, I do not. If I had handed the money into the authorities, the chance is that I would have been able to keep it after six weeks anyway, that’s if nobody came forward to claim it. But it was almost certainly drug money, so the chance of a claimant coming forward was pretty close to zero. So why should I wait for six weeks when I can have it now? At least I saved the police from nuisance paperwork. And besides, it was my birthday and I had just been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Well, that’s the way I looked at it at that point in time.

I managed to do a little work here and there, but the pain eventual became too much for me to take. I eventually had to give up graft but did manage the odd bit of work for small amounts of cash when I was drugged up with morphine. This forced me to take the drastic action of becoming one of the many victims of the dole queue, and the little money that I did get only covered minor bills (It took me another six months to claim sickness benefits, and by the time I was accepted I received the backdated amount of £2,450).

It took me a few days before I would tell my immediate family of my predicament (except my brother Rion, who I told immediately. And I also gave him £200 of that grand that I found, but don’t tell anyone). By the time the word had reached Pluto I was to receive condolences from just about everyone that I knew, and I hadn’t even died yet. I was also in the possession of umpteen pieces of paperwork from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB), and when the time came for me to attend the results from an MRI (or whatever) scan, my sister Dawn came along with me to give a little support and encouragement. I actually wanted to go on my own at first, but looking back, I am glad that she came along.

It had taken almost two weeks before my appointment letter with Dr Radley, my oncologist, to arrive in the post. In that time, I began to deteriorate rapidly in health. No longer could I walk more than about 200 metres without becoming tired and breathless, plus I was losing my appetite. The tumour was hitting me very hard, and even the morphine pills were becoming pretty non-negotiable in pain relief. I was convinced that I would be on my deathbed in no time at all, and I was just hoping that I could be given some super strong drugs to keep me going for the final few months of my life. This would at least give me just enough time to complete a bucket list of some sort, or what I called it at the time, a fuck-it list.

I met Dawn at her home in King’s Heath on a pretty nippy spring morning. She had a lot more confidence with today’s eventual outcome than I did. I myself had already written a very thoughtful obituary to be read out at my funeral by whoever may want to do the oral speech. Yet despite my confidence with my soon to be positive results I was actually in a decent mood. Too be honest, I wasn’t as depressed about the situation as I may be making the reader believe. We all have to go at some point in time but I really wanted to see a few more Football World Cups before I leave this planet, plus it was Rugby World Cup year too.

“Geoffrey Peyton.”

That was my call to have my weight and height measured before I see Dr Radley. Dawn waited amongst the dozens of other waiting patients while I went into a room with a young black nurse who seemed to be happy in her work. To be honest, I’ve never met a depressed looking nurse. They are always cheerful with everyone. For the job that they do, and with all the annoying assholes that they have to put up with, I suppose they become more relaxed and modified with various situations. Or maybe I am completely wrong, and they are just putting it all on in a professional manner.

After a very short time in another waiting room I was finally called into Dr Radley’s room by a very pleasant nurse who was dressed in the darker blue uniform, rather than the sky blue one. This usually means that she is a bit ahead on the gaffer side of things; a sister nurse perhaps. Her name was Mrs Crutch, and thankfully I refrained from bursting into hysterical bouts of laughter. Dawn came in too, and when Dr Radley joined us we were all ready and set for my time limit on earth to be itemised.

Dr Radley was about forty years old, which in my book is an acceptable age to quality as an experienced consultant. He shook my hand and gave me a look of solicitude before offering me a seat next to the door.

“Well,” he said, still with a mindfulness stare. “You know why you are here?”

I nodded a silent yes.

He looked at his laptop before returning a stare back to me.

“You have a tumour in the lower rectal. A rather large one.”

I nodded a silent okay.

“The good news is, is that the cancer hasn’t spread, but you will need surgery very soon.”

I immediately looked at Dawn with a raised eyebrow, and we stared at each other with no doubt the same thought.

Dr Radley continued.

“You will have to undergo radio and chemotherapy so we can reduce the size of the tumour. Once you have completed that treatment we will need to perform surgery and cut it out.”

With good news being dished out, it came as little surprise when Dr Radley gave me some bad.

“During the surgery we will have to fit a temporary stoma and you will have to wear a colostomy bag until we can reverse the operation, which will be after three months or so. Do you know what a stoma is?”

I shook my head.

He showed me an artist’s impression of a stoma, but I didn’t really look properly because I simply didn’t want to. He put his index finger on the right side of my abdomen and announced, “The stoma will go just there.”

Dr Radley went on to explain what I should expect

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.02.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-4382-0

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Widmung:
I would like to dedicate this book to the many, many people that I met on my journey through my cancer period, and especially to the ones that did not make it. And naturally to the nurses and doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Well done guys.