cancer room

Cancer 1

Outside in the car park

The sky grey, spitting, stark.

Time it passes so slow:

20 minutes to go.

The traffic heavy on the main road,

The clouds darken, dropping their load.

Rain splatters the windscreen:

15 minutes to go.

What will she say to me?

Not too long now: wait and see.

Good? Bad? Definitive?

Absolute? Provisional? Tentative?

8 minutes to go.

I'm ready to hear my fate:

The state of my prostate.

5 minutes to go.

I face the wind and rain.

There will be no surpise or pain.

There's a history of cancer in my kin,

And a history of cancer within.

3 minutes to go.

It will not be a hammer blow.

1 minute to go:

Time no longer passes so slow.

 

Cancer 3

Main waiting area and

The appointment time nears.

Is this where it happens?

The confirmation of my fears?

 

Name called: mispronounced,

Weight taken, slightly shaking.

I’m now in waiting room C

And succumb to wanting to pee,

But I’ll hold it in and wait and see.

 

The nurses chattering and talking,

The corridors echo to the sound of walking,

Is there a cancer beavering away

As dark and quiet as a funeral day?

 

But whatever the outcome I will fight

And laugh and love and dance;

Embrace the dark and turn

That corrosive darkness into light.

 

Cancer 4

So now I know.

But the light still glows,

And it will burn brighter

As I determine to fight her.

 

 

Cancer 1 was written in October 2010 as I waited to hear my PSA score. It was too high. 6.9. So I was referred to a specialist. A biopsy of my prostate was suggested. Cancer 3 was written as I waited to see the consultant and hear the results of the biopsy. Cancer 4 was written as I sat in my car following hearing the results of the biopsy: that I had prostate cancer. A Gleason score of 6 and T1 tumour. 5% of the sample was "abnormal". That was in late December 2010. An early unwanted Christmas present. The picture itself was taken a few months later, as I waited to see my surgeon, when my PSA almost doubled to 11.5. it is back down to 6.9 almost year on from my intial PSA. I'm following a regime of active surveillance. Following the 11.5 PSA I was "re-staged" and opted for a transperineal biopsy. That will happen late September 2011. My aim is to go through 2011 without radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. Almost there.

24/10/11 Perhaps I wrote too soon. My biopsy results show that my cancer is more severe than the initial biopsy results suggested. My Gleason score is now 7, with a third of the biopsy samples showing abnormal cells. Currative treatment is now needed. Which form that takes I find out on Thursday.

19/11/11 I'm now having treatment for my prostate cancer. Hormone therapy, which will last for at least 6 months, and during the second half of that treatment, I will receive radiotherapy 5 days a week.

10/12/11

The hormone therapy is kicking in:

leaving me shrivelled, drying my skin.

I'm wasted, but don't drop me in the bin.

A drug induced male menopause,

with sexless thoughts I have to change the laws

and fight my corner and my cause.

A beautiful phrase, a kind word or a sad song

and tears flow down, hard and long,

but my love keeps me positive, happy, strong.

 

Things aren't going smooth, unfortunately,

I need a TURP before radiotherapy

To help my flow, to ease my pee

I can't say what the consequences will be

I'm going to have to just wait and see

hoping that we can smile when I am free

as we look back drinking our green tea.

 

The TURP (transurethral resection of the prostate) is scheduled for 20th December 2011.

Done