The realisation of change in me.

About 3 days before being admitted to guys, I was coming out of the Lewisham ultra sound room and caught a flash of a queue of about 6 to 8 grey, withered people in NHS green, ‘us army fatigue’ gowns… a fair spectrum from Lewisham society… but all uniformly waiting for a go on the jelly pushing machine that can decide their fate…

A machine that is normally associated with TV shows, innocently showing babies hearts beating and proud parents ooohing and aaahing at the badly tuned telly set!… You don’t normally get to see tiny troublesome lumps in yer left nut as the doctor reveals…“Mazal tov” mr ivin… these could be your primary tumours!  

As for the people in the queue, waiting outside, I’d only managed to flash my eyes over them on my way out.  For them, this is very much the norm to be utilising the scanner in this way, of course.   And now being here, at guys, sat in bed 19 for 3 weeks, looking back, showed me a realisation that sparked my brain to jump back to those people.      I can clearly see them now in my minds eye, lined up, most in wheel chairs, waiting for their turn.   Waiting for the answer to their news or finding out their fate…  some bad, some good…mostly good I wish!

I suppose you could say I’ve adopted the coming to terms with what is to happening to me with a ‘strong attitude, a smile and quick fire pun ready to launch’ Its my method of the “I know I can beat this thing, type attitude…GRRRGH!”   But being shown that immediate and unexpected identity parade, was like a very brief show and tell of just a few of the various ways in which I can turn and tumble.  

What did I look like to them?   No clear tubes out of my nose…I was not clasping a little trolley with an intravenous pump that beeps once every 2.3 seconds solely to remind you you’re permanently attached to it…all bleeding day/week/month!... I was also not in a wheel chair…I was walking quite briskly…  looking back and most probably lame joking to the radio therapists something about my nuts that she had, not so long ago, been rubbing gel into. 

What was that particular ID parade Thinking?   After only 3 weeks of seeing them in my minds eye have I now started to think what they might have been saying with their eyes.   I think the eyes are the last part of a human to withhold life when the rest of the body desperately can’t. They are the last things to go out.   They also can’t help but convey true expression when the body and mind are at its lowest ebb until; either the life force or the eyes are separated away from their owner’s soul!  

My thoughts for just some of the glimpses I managed to swipe have built in my mind into something like… “look at him, poor bugger, he’s at the start of the marathon… or… flash b’std, I bet he’s not even that ill!

Or was I being too selfish?   Of course I was…   they were naturally more worried about themselves, not me… They might be absolutely crapping it to even walk through that door.   They might have been thinking… “look at me, look how I’ve changed”…  “I was like that once”…  “It wasn’t so long ago that I wasn’t attached to this Chinese water torture beep machine at all”…  “What the hell am I doing here?”...“I had hair and colour in my cheeks and lots of life in my eyes.”

Or just maybe with a slice of reality check they were all slagging off my dubious dress sense… “Yeah, I was wearing bomber jackets in the late 80’s mate, proper raver, me!!!”  

All I did was flash through their eyes and dub my thoughts over theirs.   

Its amazing how your very own, rather natty/snazzy pair of striped day lounger  jim-jam bottoms, a shaved head, a clear tube connected to a torture pump and a canular residing in your arm can physically transform your look into, tired, withered, grey and suffering for what seems weeks, if not, nearly months…  its obviously the Chemo having most of the affect but the look can change me in a day with the trousers and shaved head and that can alter your mental state.

I just said hi to Fee, my nurse for tonight…  I was talking to her  a few days ago about how the hair in my Weetabix was really upsetting me much more than I ever thought it would.   Sure I’ll get better and yeah it’ll grow back (but if it comes back Ging… its all coming straight off again!)   It bothers me because I saw it happen to my sister…  it must be so much harder for an 11 year old girl being bald… as for me… being a fair weather, Millwall geezer-ish bloke, coupled with the fact I’m 34… one would merely assume it was a home from home, really.   So why does the baldness bug me so?  

I Think the answer is 2 fold… A, my parents having to see another offspring go chemo bald again!!!   And B, much more personally; getting physically one cancer step closer to my oppo’s back in the Lewisham line up.    Most times since the start of my stay in guys, I looked and felt as close normal by being off centre by only a degree of two.   But when I catch myself in the mirror in the loo after only 4 days of looking as close to Harry Hill as I’ll ever want to come… the shock of seeing that image still makes me flinch and shudder.   Even if I bowl into the ‘Khazi,’ pee jug in one hand... rubbing my stubble topped noggin with the other.  Then I stoop and gaze into the wheelchair mirror… I still get the… BLUURGH!!! WHO”S THAT!?! …  Effect!

When a new prisoner… no, hang on… patient… comes into our block… no, ward... sorry… you can sometimes see the dude swaggering down the hall, whistling, bomber jacket on, totally unaided and ready to fight anything, I think… easy pal… you’ve a very uncertain way to go…   and because I’ve now been here the second longest on this is my ward…  I’m the daddy.   Your bed, pal, is right over here… on the end of the row… bed 19!......  

and here I still am…. Only 3 weeks and a day later… feeling miles from being strong… independent… happy… healthy… useful!    Strolling around whistling, wearing my bomber jacket is a while away yet!

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