Often I struggle to come up with a title for these posts. Usually, they will come to me midway through writing it. Such is the case with today’s post. And yes, it does refer to what you’re thinking.
Imagine that your phone starts ringing in the middle of the night. You know it can only be bad news.
Well, substitute ‘the middle of the night’ with ‘Saturday morning’, and the ringing phone with me posting something, and that’s how I imagine many of you feel right now. “What’s wrong with him now….?” I can almost hear you sigh.
But this week, some good news.
Tuesday morning just gone. I have the first of three appointments at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. To recap, it is here that I have been referred to deal with the issue of my right kidney, which is 80/90% likely to be riddled with cancer. But whilst there’s that 10/20% chance that it isn’t, they refuse to categorically say either way, but decide that they will treat it as if it is cancer, i.e. whip it out and then test it to see if there is or is not any cancerous cells in what’s left of it.
When I was first referred to Addenbrooke’s a couple of months ago, I had to attend the Pre-Op Assessment Team, which sounds like the sort of place where the size of my Adam’s Apple, whether I need to Immac the backs of my hands, and how I look in an off-the shoulder number are assessed, whilst JK Rowling stands outside, brandishing a “Down With This Sort of Thing” placard, but isn’t. Instead, I was dealt with by typically lovely NHS staff, who were assigned the unenviable task of assessing my suitability to have surgery. In short: is this man likely to die if we operate on him? They asked a lot of questions (Them: “Have you ever taken any recreational drugs? If so, which ones, how much and how long ago?” Me: “Errrrmmmm….how much room do you have on that form….?”)
They decided that a) I needed to lose weight (no surprise there), and b) within the notes from the referring hospital, but with no detail, there were mentions of issues regarding my lungs and heart/chest they had detected before referring me over.
“What’s going on there?”
I shrug. “No idea, this is the first I’m hearing of it.”
As you may have read last week, the issue with my lungs rather overtook matters when I was admitted to hospital with respiratory issues in mid-October and diagnosed with COPD and a sleep apnea. And it seems that in the meantime, Addenbrooke’s have decided that they’d grab the nettle and investigate the heart stuff themselves, for on Tuesday (just gone) I am due to visit the Cardiology Team and then a return visit to the Pre-Op Assessment Team.
I arrive at the Cardiology Team at 08:00, and, after a short wait, I have an ECG done, then it’s off to the Cardiologist, who has been asked to write a report about my heart and how likely it is to either explode or just pack in when I’m under the knife. We don’t exactly get off to a great start when he says he has written but not sent a strongly-worded letter about the number of appointments I’ve either cancelled or failed to attend.
“I’m sorry, what? When?” I asked.
He peers at his screen. “Last Tuesday. You cancelled on the morning of the appointment…”
“No,” I said, I didn’t cancel them, I was told on the day that they’d been cancelled due to a staff shortage. One was rearranged for Thursday, which I attended, and the rest for today.”
“Oh,” he says, tapping at his keyboard.
“And then there were three in October….?”
“Yes, I cancelled those, because I was in hospital – not this one – and therefore unable to attend. I notified Addenbrooke’s via email as soon as it was clear I wouldn’t be able to make them. The email was acknowledged, if you want to see it….?”
We get on a lot better after the air has been cleared; he tells me that even though my weight isn’t ideal (you’re telling me!), and despite me having an enlarged aorta, which he would be referring me back to my own local hospital for further investigation, he could see no reason why I can’t have the required surgery.
And so off I went to the Pre-Op Assessment Team, where I was asked a load more questions, and the nurse asked me to provide a swab from up my nose and also from my groin. Job done, I handed back the swabs, ensuring I told them which has been where: it’s not the sort of thing you want there to be any confusion about. And then they delivered one more final request, Columbo-style:
“There’s just one more thing: we also need a swab from your back passage.”
I look around for the hidden camera. Spying none, I ask:
“Yeh, that’s what Kurt Cobain chose, and look what happened to him” I say, taking the swab from her hand and heading off to the Gents to debase myself in the name of medicine, fully aware that my Kurt Cobain joke didn’t really work.
Task done, I return the tainted swab to the nurse, and head off to have some bloods taken.
When I got home, I called my concerned mother to update her, like the considerate son I try to be. We discuss when the surgery is likely to happen. I have another appointment on the following Monday (08/12) with the Urology Team, so I figure I’ll learn more then, but we conclude it’s unlikely to be this side of Christmas. A follow-up call to my boss, and we come to the same conclusion.
But.
Thursday morning I get a call from the hospital, telling me the appointment on Monday is to be cancelled, as they were looking to get me in for the surgery on Tuesday or Wednesday, and I’d be hearing from Admissions shortly.
Friday morning I get a call from the same guy I spoke to on Thursday: he has been told to reinstate the appointment, but to make it a telephone consultation. The surgeon is going to call me to explain the procedure and answer any questions I might have.
I then get a call from Admissions: my surgery has been scheduled for 07:00 on Tuesday, is that ok? Bit early in the morning, I think, but not wishing to reject it and find myself at the back of the queue, I tell them that’s fine. I learn that post-surgery, I’ll be kept in overnight to monitor me and, all being well, I’ll be discharged on Wednesday, for a period of convalescence.
And so that’s it – unless I happen to write anything else over the weekend (and let’s face it, that’s pretty unlikely) this is likely to be my last post of the year. Hope you all have a fabulous Christmas, and that 2026 is better than not just 2025 (it can hardly be worse in my book) but every other year.
All being well, I’ll be back next year, I hope to hear from you all then.
Until then, one final song, one which I posted when I first got my probably-cancer news and the only song I know of with the word ‘kidney’ in the title:
You’re thinking: “Here he is, rocking up on a Saturday morning, almost four months since he announced he had cancer in his right kidney, before giving us a couple of Friday night mixes and disappearing for a month, reappearing to update us that whilst he probably had cancer, nobody was wanting say so officially (despite numerous consultations and the provision of a raft of leaflets about cancer of the kidney) but it was being treated as if it was cancer (i.e. “we won’t know until we’ve taken it out”), which meant whipping that naughty old kidney out, at which point, another Friday night mix and a very brief review of a Gene gig aside, and that was over a month ago, and then….nothing.” Am I right?
Some of you may have assumed that I’ve either died (I can categorically confirm I am still not dead) or have been having the aforementioned surgery. No such luck.
Either way, you may well be thinking: he’d better have a bloody good reason for leaving us all in the lurch again. Well I have. I definitely have. So settle down, buckle up and I’ll fill you in.
You may recall that when I was going though my pre-operation check-list at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, they had found amongst the notes from Peterborough Hospital (who had first identified the issue with my kidney, and referred me to Addenbrooke’s) reference to there being issues with my chest and lungs which required investigation. It was unclear who was supposed to be doing said investigations, so Addenbrooke’s decided to deal with the chest (by which I mean “heart”) issues, and they would chase Peterborough up regarding the lungs. Oh, and I needed to lose some weight.
But before any of that could start, events rather overtook us.
Midway through October, I noticed I was having some issues with breathing. A few people over the weeks prior had commented that my breathing seemed laboured; I dismissed it – just a cold coming on, I convinced myself.
16th October: I have slept on my settee as it’s nearer the bathroom and my stomach issues had reappeared. At around 6:00, I decide I need to get to the bathroom sharpish. I live in one of those old fashioned terraced houses, where the bathroom is downstairs, on the other side of the kitchen, which is next to my living room, which, you’ll be surprised to learn, is where my settee/make-shift bed lives. The kitchen is not very big, but I find that halfway along it, maybe 3 metres from my settee, I have to stop to take get my breath back. As I leaned across the kitchen worktop, it occurred to me that all was not well.
I should intervene for a moment here to point out to those new round these parts, when I’m writing about a real event in my life, by which I don’t mean a gig I went to recently, or a film or TV show I’ve seen that I enjoyed, or a record I love, what I tend to do is pepper the post with relevant songs – which, I should stress, are not necessarily songs that I like – to either make a point, to lighten the mood, or, more usually, just to break up the text. Like this:
I mean, that one falls into the “Songs I Can’t Stand” category, but still, here it is. Fear not though: there are a lot of songs which mention breath or breathing in the title for me to lob into this. Look, here’s another one (and yes, I know it’s not the original, but it’s Belinda, and I bloody adore Belinda):
That’s a bit better. Soothing, at least, although it does end rather abruptly.
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes: gasping for breath whilst having the shits. By the time I’d *ahem* finished in the toilet, I’d decided action was required. Too early to call my GP, and not convinced my current circumstances really constituted either an Accident or an Emergency, I decided to call 111.
My one previous experience with 111 had not been great: I answered a few questions, and was told it was probably better that I took myself to hospital to be examined, which I did, and having sat waiting for four hours I was told there wasn’t anything they could do, and I should just go home.
But this time, the 111 operative was great, said they’d get someone out to me asap and, sure enough, just after 7am, two paramedics arrived at my door. They checked my lung capacity and gave me the following advice: “If you ever get like this again, just call 999; judging by this reading, you should be dead by now.”
“Built of sterner stuff, me”, I joked, as they strapped an oxygen mask over my face.
NB: both my paramedics, one of whom was also the ambulance driver, were women. I thought I ought to point that out as a show of unity and my contempt for the patriarchy, am I right, sisters?
A bit more background for newer folks: this is not my first recent brush the medical world with respiratory issues. In 2018, I was admitted to hospital with a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot) on my left lung, and pneumonia on the right lung. I spent a week in hospital and I learned two valuable lessons:
Anytime you go to hospital for what could pan out to include a residency there, take an overnight bag with essentials in it, and
Let your family know what’s going on, and try to keep them updated as best you can, until they can come and visit.
Back in 2018, I took no overnight bag, sent a text to my mother advising I’d been asked to go to hospital urgently, then, when detained and with no phone charger, I turned my phone off to save the battery until a charger had been located. When I finally got one, recharged my phone and found a mountain of texts, messages and voicemails, all getting increasingly more and more desperate for a response, what I should have done is simply notified my mother I was ok, in hospital and in good hands. What I actually did was call my mother, pass the phone to a nurse without introduction and asked her to explain what was going on. Sorry Mum!
Lesson learned, that wasn’t going to happen again this time. I had my phone, my phone charger, and I’d let her know what was going on, and that I’d update here as soon as I had something to tell her.
After a couple of hours in admissions, I am wheeled up to what will be my home for the foreseeable future: my own little room in a ward full of little rooms. I have an en suite toilet and shower, which is better than at home. I have an oxygen mask, which they strap to my head for several hours a day and overnight. I have a television (I discover a few days later, following a visit from my buddy Richard, although I later establish, with assistance of one of the Healthcare Assistants (HCA’s) or nurses – I can’t remember which – that either it or the remote control, or possibly both, didn’t work “I could log it, but by the time they get out to have a look at it, you’ll be long gone”, the HCA tells me, and I try not to dwell on the dual meanings of “long gone” and which one he meant), but what I don’t have is a phone signal or internet connection to get a message to my mother. Looking at the logs on my phone now, it seems we finally established contact the following day. (Sorry again, Mum – but not my fault this time!).
Ah, the oxygen mask. The stuff of my recurring nightmares. Essentially, it was a deep sea diver’s mask, covering the whole of my face, with a snorkel attachment through which oxygen was pumped, regulated and monitored by…well, I dunno, a machine, I guess: there was a screen with lots of numbers and running line graphs attached to it that I didn’t understand.
What’s so nightmarish about that? Well, the problem is that the mask they gave me didn’t fit. It was too small. When clamped into place, as it was overnight and for large chunks of the day, the top of it cut into the bridge of my nose. On top of that, around the mask was a kind of rubber seal, designed to keep the oxygen in – but when the mask doesn’t fit, all it does is flap as the oxygen escaped, like a bed sheet on a washing line on a windy day. And that makes a noise, a big flapping noise, every time I breathed in or out, which I don’t know about you, but I’m in the habit of doing quite a lot, asleep or not.
On top of that, whenever it detected an oxygen outage (or when it thought I had no pulse), the screen would flash and an alarm would go off, which was pretty much all the time. It prevented me from sleeping at all, which made me cranky and irritable and quite rude to some of the staff who were looking after me. I complain about the mask – although I can’t be heard when it’s on – it’s torture, and every time they come into my room and tell me it’s time to go back on the mask, I moan and whine like a teenager whose just been told he can’t got to a house party. Think Kevin from Kevin & Perry, and if you’re unfamiliar with the reference, here’s a collection of clips from Harry Enfield’s marvelous show, which I found when sliding down a wormhole whilst trying to source an appropriate bit:
NB: I do no endorse any requests to subscribe that may flash up on your screen when watching that.
Anyway, I’m told they are trying to source a bigger mask, but for the time being, no luck.
Then finally, on the Monday after I was admitted, they source a bigger mask. Compared to what has gone before, it feels like heaven. I no longer moan about having it on, and I make a point of apologising to all of the staff if I’ve been rude or snappy to them beforehand. I’m not normally like that, I explain.
As it turned out, they has plenty of time to find out for themselves.
On about day 3 or 4, one of the nurses says: “It must be very difficult to go to the toilet when you’re hooked up to that machine; how do you feel about having a catheter?”
I’d had a catheter fitted when i was hospitalised back in 2018 and I bloody loved it. Whilst they’re no fun to attach, or indeed remove, the joy of not having to get up in the night and go to the toilet (or, since I had been in hospital, sit up and pee into a cardboard funnel) was immeasurable.
And so we welcome back Little Jez, who swiftly, and relatively painlessly, had a catheter shoved up him. And for a few hours, all was well with the world.
Until, I got up to have a shower one morning, got the catheter tube caught around the bed frame, yanking it out from his penile moorings. Ouchies.
Asked if I wanted it re-inserting, I opted not to. Back behind the thin veneer of the hospital gown with you, Little Jez.
A physiotherapist visits me. He explains to me how to breathe properly, and leaves me an A4 sheet with instructions. It literally says: “Breathe in…and breathe out again. Breathe in…hold your breath for a few seconds…and breathe out.” Thanks, I couldn’t have done it without you.
In the meantime, my room becomes a haven: as well as remembering to bring my phone charger, I have also brought a small but powerful blue-tooth speaker with me. Now, free from the tyrannical torture of the mis-sized oxygen mask, I play 6Music throughout the day, and pretty much every nurse or HCA who attends to me comments that they like coming into my room now because the music playing is always happy and upbeat – so props are due to 6Music DJ’s Nick Grimshaw, Lauren Laverne and Huw Stephens
One afternoon, the door to my room has been left open. I have 6Music going, and they (Huw, I think) dropped this…:
…which leads to one nurse/HCA popping into my room, for no reason whatsoever, other than to tell me that they love the song and hadn’t heard it in ages. She has a little dance in my doorway, I have a little dance in my bed. It’s a glorious moment.
Suitably emboldened, I decide that the next time a member of staff comments on the music I had on, I’d tell them what I was listening to, so they could tune in too, if they so wished. See, I’m not one of those BBC-bashing types, calling for it to be brought down, just because they (stupidly) edited a speech to show what Trump said more concisely than he could ever manage.
Around the two-week anniversary of my stay in hospital, a student nurse comes into my room. The last time she was in, she mentioned the music, and sure enough she did on this occasion too. I’d say she was in her late teens or maybe early twenties, had a nose ring, and, I decide, seemed exactly the sort of person who would appreciate being guided in the direction of some great music by an old lag like me.
But I must wait until she mentions it, or I’ll just seem like a desperate old perv, and sure enough, she raises the topic.
“I like coming in here, you’ve always got music playing”, she says.
“It’s just 6Music,” I say, “in case you want to check it out. It’s on the BBC Sounds app.”
She nods, and almost absent mindedly says: “Yeh, It’s the sort of thing my Dad listens to.”
I laugh and pretend not to feel mortally wounded. “Thanks!” I say, in response to this “You’re old enough to be my father”-type response.
“No, no,” she says, “I just mean…he’s even got a little blue-tooth speaker like you, thinks he’s proper cool.”
“That really doesn’t make me feel any better,” I tell her.
Anyway, by now the diagnosis was in, and I have some new things to add to my ever-growing list of complaints and conditions; now, as well as having, in no particular order, (probably) cancer. rheumatoid arthritis, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, (latent) spine bifida and psoriasis, I can add these to the list: COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) – in lay-person’s speak: my lungs are so full of gunk due to years of smoking, they don’t work properly. This has led to me also having a sleep apnea, a disorder where breathing stops and starts repeatedly during sleep, because my lungs don’t work, I’m prevented from entering a deep sleep at night.
“Have you been feeling tired a lot recently?” one consultant asks me.
“Yes, very much so!” I reply.
“And have you found yourself wanting to sleep, or even falling asleep at unusual times of the day?”
“Yes! I fell asleep in a meeting at work a couple of months ago!”
“That’s because you’re not getting into a deep, or R.E.M, sleep, so your brain thinks it has to keep doing stuff,” they explain to me. “Is what little sleep you get disturbed?”
“Yes! I am forever having to get up and pee! I know most men of my age have to go two, maybe three times a night, but I’m up every hour or so.”
“That’s your sleep apnea: your brain isn’t shutting down properly because of the COPD, so it looks for something to do, and in your case, it’s decided it’s time would be best spent making more urine for you to get rid of.”
Suddenly, a lot makes sense.
As I enter the second week of my stay in hospital, they start weening me off the big oxygen mask: at first the hours are reduced, them I’m put on a smaller, hand-held oxygen mask (think Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet) and then, finally onto one of those where a small tube goes up each nostril.
The progress is positive: I don’t have to wear any of them during the day, and at night they monitor me and, if my oxygen intake happened to drop below a certain level, they would come into my room, wake me, and attach the small, nostril tube method of getting oxygen into me.
This all seems quite positive, in terms of being discharged, until I am awoken at around 4am on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of my second week in hospital, where I had been sleeping maskless, by a nurse telling me I had to use the small, up-the-nostrils method of oxygen intake, as my levels had dropped too far.
Thursday 30th October was the two-week mark of my stay in hospital, and when I was awoken at 4am on the Friday morning, I figured I’d be staying there over the weekend. They’re not going to let me out if I’m still having issues breathing at night, I figured.
But no! Late Friday afternoon on 31st October, they wheeled a chair into my room, told me to get my things together, and took me down to the appropriately if distastefully named Discharge Suite, where I sat for a few hours for my medication to be prepared before….
And so here we are, four weeks post-discharge, just completed my first week back at work (albeit on a reduced hours/phased return basis) and I feel pretty good.
Going back to that pre-operation check-list, I think we can safely say we’ve established what the lungs issue Peterborough Hospital identified was and it’s been dealt with; I lost a bit of weight in hospital (maybe around a stone or so, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of that having been added again since I was discharged), and the heart stuff? Thankfully, Addenbrooke’s have grasped the mettle here: I’ve had a couple of heart scans in the past couple of weeks, and am due to have a consultation to discuss (I assume) the results next week.
Fingers crossed, the cancer/kidney operation might be a little closer to happening now and then I can get back to normal…I might even let you know before I go AWOL again….
Last Saturday, I ventured into That London to a gig at the Hammersmith Apollo, with my mate Richie.
On the menu, for the first time in 10 years:
I had intended to write a review of the gig here, but, as I suspected, Martin over at New Amusements has already said everything I planned to say and more, so, if you’re interested, you should head over and read all about it there. (Martin’s blog is even named after a Gene song, so I’m not going to tread on his shoes here.)
What I will add and agree with is that they were truly magnificent, delivering a set packed full of every song one (i.e. me) could have hoped they played.
These are the kind of gigs I love to go to these days: legacy acts, by which I mean acts who I’ve loved for years, either having recently reformed (Gene) or been ploughing their particular furrow for yonks (The Wedding Present, Teenage Fanclub), perhaps without ever achieving the success they, and I, think they deserve.
Gigs where people of ‘a certain age’ can revel in their glory, feel vindicated that they were right to love a band that many others did too. Moreover, gigs where you can have a bloody good sing without fear of annoying anyone near you, for anyone near you is doing exactly the same thing.
Look, here’s some amateur footage of Gene doing the title track from their Nearly Perfect debut album Olympian; you’ll get the idea of what a communal, euphoric experience it was:
A week later, I’ve just about got my voice back. In the interim, I’ve listened to little else than Gene.
Here’s my favourite song by them, an absolute beauty, which follows the usual Gene template: quiet start building to a crescendo whilst lead Gene-dude Martin (not the same author of New Amusements, I assume…) croons his love-lorn, erudite yet everyman lyrics:
Yeh, I know. Bit too close to Birthday Suit, that title, isn’t it?
Anyway, today is my birthday. *Pause* Thank you.
To mark this anniversary of not being dead yet, I’ve knocked together a playlist of, as it stands, at this moment in time, my favourite songs by, as it stands, at this moment in time, my favourite musical acts. Not that anyone asked me to do it this time, but if you asked me to do this next week, same criteria, then the result would doubtless be different.
There are no real surprises in here, I don’t think. Maybe some of the songs, definitely not the acts. Apart from the absence of the mighty Quo, of course:
My apologies, once again. It’s a bit inconsiderate of me to come on here, announce I have cancer, will keep you all updated, and then not post anything else for three weeks (a couple of fantastic Friday night mixes excluded).
Truth be told, whilst quite a bit has happened, very little progress has been made. I was referred for the further scan I mentioned last time around, which I had been told was to clarify the extent of the damage to my kidney, but which actually turned out to be an all-over body scan.
I am told this when I am called in for a meeting with the urology consultant, who begins the meeting with the words: “So, tell me why you think you’re here today…?”
I begin to explain that as far as I knew, it was thought that I have cancer in my right kidney, and that I’d had a scan to confirm that, and that was why I was here today, and to discuss the way forward.
“No,” my consultant says, “it is not confirmed that you have cancer.”
A volley of party-streamers explode to my side, followed by a fanfare from a brace of trumpeters. Glorious white light envelopes the room.
“I don’t have cancer!!” I exclaim, just about stopping short of pulling my t-shirt over my head and attempting a celebratory lap of the consultation room, which would have culminated in a knee-slide of epic proportions.
“No, you probably do, but it has not yet been confirmed.”
The room returns to artificial light. I tuck my t-shirt back in.
“There are still other possibilities. But at the moment, all of the indicators are that you do, indeed, have cancer in your right kidney. We just can’t say that as 100% correct yet.”
See, it transpires that the scan was to see whether any cancerous cells (not that we’re calling them that) had spread from my kidney to, well, anywhere else in my body, and so far it did not appear to have done. So even if we’re still not officially 100% saying it’s cancer yet, it’s good to know it isn’t spreading.
However, the scan had thrown up “an issue” with my lungs and chest which they were referring me for further investigation. Uh-oh. In the meantime, the referral to Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge (for the kidney) could now be done.
And so it was that a little under two weeks ago, I set off for my 09:20 appointment at Addenbrooke’s, and I am in a bad mood from moment one. The train I have to catch runs from Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport. It is September, it is rush hour, it is just as school holidays are about to end, and families are returning from their holidays in the sun.
And, to cope with this flood of holiday-goers, holiday-returners, commuters, students, and, most importantly, hospital attendees, the service provider had deemed three carriages sufficient to cope with all those passengers plus all of their luggage. I manage to squeeze onto the train and stood next to a mountain of suitcases all the way down; nobody could see that I walk with the aid of a stick so couldn’t volunteer their seat, which I’m sure at least one of them would have done, as they were mostly indigenous (shout back to an old post there).
I get off at Cambridge, get a cab to Addenbrooke’s, find my way to the section I’m due to attend and let them know I’ve arrived. Shortly afterwards, I’m invited into a consultation room, where I’m introduced to my consultant, a lady younger than I, who I would say came from Scandinavia, or maybe Eastern Europe. Bloody immigrants, eh? Coming over here, trying to cure me of probably-cancer, makes my blood boil.
We sit and the first thing she says to me is: “So, tell me why you think you’re here today…?”. I’m getting the hang of answering this question.
“I’m here because a scan has shown that I probably have cancer in my right kidney but nobody wants to actually say that for definite, so I’m hoping you will and will also tell me what the plan is….?”
She shakes her head. “No, but all of the indicators are that you do have cancer in your right kidney. We just can’t say that as 100% correct yet. There are other causal factors which need to be excluded first.”
Look, I get it. They need to be sure before they commit. I work in Insurance. If they were to tell someone they had cancer when they didn’t, then someone, instead of thanking their lucky stars, is bound to sue the NHS for the distress caused to them for a mis-diagnosis, even if it is one which turns out to be wrong in the right sort of way. Such is the world we live in.
“But”, she adds, like Columbo, pulling on his overcoat, about to ask the killer question, “we’re treating it as if it is. So the plan is: the kidney will be removed and then we will monitor and see how things go,”
The consultant leaves (she doesnât just say that and then walk off, she says some other stuff first, so do I) and is replaced by a younger Health Care Assistant, also Eastern European (cool it, Nigel!) who asks me that question again (“Tell me why you think you’re here today…?, which I’m now getting pretty bloody great at replying to, but which I’ve not worked out how to tease any further information from), who then confirms that she also can’t say that I definitely have cancer, but what she can do – and she does this with a hugely arched eyebrow – is hand me a load of booklets and pamphlets, most of which have the word Cancer on them in some way or another: ‘Surviving Cancer’, ‘Kidney Cancer’, ‘Cancer isn’t Very Nice’
It’s weird, I almost felt relieved. Not that I have cancer (or that cancer is the most likely diagnosis, given the information which is currently available), but at least there’s a plan in place for me now.
But, before surgery can take place, they want to minimise the risks involved in me having a general anaesthetic, and that involves a) establishing what the lungs/chest issue is, and b) me losing a bit of weight, so there may be a way to go just yet, unless I can convince my GP to prescribe one of the weight-loss drugs you hear them wanging on about now. Available on the NHS, but only to Type 2 diabetes sufferers…(Oh! Would you look at that….?), I have a GP appointment this week, where hopefully some progress can be made.
I’ve no real excuse for not having posted in a while, health issues aside. I’ve done a whole load of these mixes during my absence, some more indicative of how up-and-down-y I was feeling at the time (Still am, as it happens). And looking at it, this one more than most. Youâll see.
And if youâre in the UK, itâs a great Friday, because itâs a Friday which kicks off a Bank Holiday Weekend. No work til Tuesday, to misquote the Beastie Boys.
With apologies to those who get sent my posts via email, who will have received the first part of this when I accidentally pressed Publish instead of Saveearlier today,thereby removing much of the suspense/jeopardy element of the post.
So. My disappearing act. Where the hell have I been and, more importantly to many of you, where’s the next episode of The Chain? I know, I know, you’re right. I owe you an explanation..
Let’s start with The Chain. All of your suggestions are brilliant, obviously. I’m just finding it difficult to write it up in a way that isn’t just “Here’s X with their suggestion”. It was always much more than just that, I just need to get my eye in again. I’ve had a lot on my plate recently, as you’re about to find out.Â
Such as….? Well….Get comfy, this is going to take a while. And if you object to unpleasant descriptions of bodily functions, be warned: this post is probably not for you.
So, where to begin? Ok. Here: a few months ago, I had what I can only really describe as The Shits. Of course, I could describe it (like an adult) as diarrhea, but then I’d have to remember how to spell that, and its tricky, so The Shits it is.
Around the same time, an NHS advert started appearing regularly on TV. I’ve tried to source a copy of the advert in question to include here, with no success, so here, broadly, is what it said: if you’ve had The Shits for three weeks or more (they didn’t call it The Shits, they called it “an upset stomach”) then, it could be a sign of cancer. Go see your GP.Â
At this point, it hadn’t been three consecutive weeks on the trot (pun intended), there had been the occasional day of toilet-free dashing sprinkled amongst the plundering of my toilet roll stocks, but these were becoming fewer and closer. So I did what most blokes would do when confronted with a potential “downstairs” problem: I ignored it.Â
Besides, other than having The Shits, I had almost no other symptoms mentioned in the advert: blood in my pee or stool? Nope. Weight loss? I wish. Getting up to go to the loo more frequently during the night? I mean, it couldn’t happen any more than it already did, but I’ve been like that for years, so no change there. Permanently tired? Apart from falling asleep in meetings, you mean…?
And so back into the sand I buried my head.
But those adverts kept on coming, as did the dashes to the toilet.Â
And then one night I was searching for a new podcast to listen to, and, on the BBC Sounds app, I stumbled across this:
Here’s Jon being interviewed on BBC Breakfast, explaining why he made this series, and doing it way better than I can:
The podcast includes lots of interviews with famous cancer survivors: Stephen Fry. Richard Herring, Mike Peters (sadly, no longer a survivor), Mark Steel, Jeremy Bowen, Eric Idle, to name but a few.
The first episode deals with what prompted the interviewee to go get checked out, and pretty much all of them say they were symptom-free, went to have something else checked out and the cancer was discovered.
Wait a minute…symptom-free? Like me….?
I got in touch with my GP, who sent me for a prostate-specific antigen test (PSA) – a blood test that measures the amount of PSA in a man’s blood. PSA is a protein produced by the prostate gland, and elevated levels can indicate various prostate issues, including prostate cancer. It’s a key tool for both screening and monitoring prostate cancer. It is not a diagnostic tool, rather it flags if further investigation is required or not.
Generally, a PSA level of 4.0 ng/mL or lower is considered within the normal range for men, though this can vary with age, and it’s important to note at this point that having a higher than normal level of PSA in your blood does not mean you have prostate cancer. It means further investigation is required.
My score was 6. Off for further investigation I was sent.
And that further investigation was a colonoscopy.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, a colonoscopy is a medical procedure where the lining of the colon (large intestine) and rectum (arsehole) is examined using a long, flexible tube with a camera attached called a colonoscope. Fun times.
I was swiftly referred for the procedure, and instructed to take some extremely powerful laxatives before hand, to clear my insides out, so they had a good view once the camera had gone *swallows* up. Like I said: Fun times.
Laxatives guzzled, unintended seepage mopped up, I rocked up at the hospital one Thursday evening, had a canula fitted into the back of my hand (so that an anesthetic could be administered easily, if I opted for it), was given one of those sexy gowns they give you in hospital, where your arse is exposed for the world to see, and was ushered off to a discreet changing room to sort myself out.
Unfortunately, when putting the gown on, I got my canula caught up in it; it got wrenched out and blood started gushing out of my hand, like a fountain.
Specifically, the noise my blood made was me wandering out into the waiting room, arse exposed to anyone who cared to take a look, blood spurting from my hand splattering all over the walls and floor, calling out “Um…Nurse! Help….!”, a sight which must have reassured those still waiting to be seen that they were in safe, capable hands.
Canula refitted, floors mopped, I was escorted back to the changing room. Shortly afterwards, I was called in for the procedure. Showtime!
Laying on my side, gown parted to allow unrestricted access, I was offered an anesthetic, which I declined, but was given the old gas and air mask in case it got too much. And then, with a load of very cold lubricant applied to what would usually be described as the exit point, but on this occasion was very much the entry point, we were off.
The procedure lead to three polyps being snipped off and the staff reassure me: nothing to worry about, they weren’t thought to be cancerous, but they would be sending them off for testing as a precaution. This was two months ago; this week I finally received confirmation that I don’t have prostate or bowel cancer.
Hoorah!
All of these tests had identified other issues: I am now advised that my cholesterol is too high, and that I have type-2 diabetes (the one where it’s my own fault), so on to even more medication I went.
But still the upset stomach continued. And so I contacted my GP again. “If it’s not prostate or bowel cancer causing it, then what is?” I asked.
Diverticulosis was the response; a clinical condition in which multiple sac-like protrusions (diverticula) develop along the gastrointestinal tract. Yummy.
My GP was so sure, they prescribed me some more meds there and then, but also referred me for yet another scan, which I went for a couple of weeks ago.
A few days later, my GP called me. The scan had identified an issue with my right kidney, and they were going to refer me for another scan, specifically of the problematic kidney.
And so I attended the urology department of my local hospital.
“Do you know why you’re here today?” the consultant asked me. With the benefit of hindsight, I now see he was checking what my GP had told me.
“A recent scan flagged up an issue with one of my kidneys, I’m here to have a scan so you can better identify the problem?” I replied in a “I’ve got this covered” kind of way.
The consultant shook his head. “No. No scan today.”
He then launches into a load of questions about any symptoms I might be experiencing, pretty much the same as at the start of this: blood in pee? etc etc but with a query about whether I had any pain in my kidney (I don’t) added in. Symptom free, that’s me.
And then I hear this word: Malignant.
Hang on a minute. That’s a word that you only ever hear when cancer is being discussed. But nobody’s mentioned cancer, have they? Has he said cancer and I’ve missed it?
“Sorry”, I interrupt him, “did you just say malignant?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s cancer, isn’t it? Are we talking about cancer?”
“Yes.”
He swings his monitor around to show me the scan from a couple of weeks ago.
“Here,” he points at the screen “is your left kidney. See how the colours change as it does its work?”
I can. I can see that. It’s like a weather map, all swirly, like when Tomasz Schafernaker is demonstrating a rainy front coming in from the west.
“And here,” he (the consultant, not Schafernaker) points at a different part of the monitor, “is your right kidney.”
And, apart from the outline, it’s just black. No swirls, no incoming front. Just black.
“I’ll be sending you for a further scan, so we can be sure. Once we have the results from that scan, we will discuss the way forwards.”
This week, a phone call, from a different consultant. They would be referring me to Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where they have the best resources to deal with kidney cancer. This is to get a second opinion from the best that the NHS has to offer, I’m told. It transpires my scan has already been discussed in a weekly consultant’s meeting, and the agreement is that it’s cancer. So, it’s actually a third opinion (and treatment) that I’m being referred for.
At the moment, I don’t know what that treatment will be, but I imagine it will involve the removal of the right kidney, and then a course of either radiotherapy or chemotherapy or both.
I intend to use this place as a kind of diary, and I hope to be able to find the light in the dark.
To restart, a classic, from a sub-genre I’d never hear of until I came to write this.
“Countrypolitan”.
Not a type of ice cream, here’s what Wiki has to say about it:
“In the early 1960s, the Nashville sound began to be challenged by the rival Bakersfield sound on the country side and by the British Invasion on the pop side; compounding these problems were the sudden deaths, in separate airplane crashes, of Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, two of the Nashville sound’s biggest stars. Nashville’s pop song structure became more pronounced, and it morphed into what was called countrypolitan: a smoother sound typified through the use of lush string arrangements with a real orchestra and often background vocals provided by a choir. Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets, and its music sold well through the later 1960s into the mid-1970s.”
It’s a very AI explanation, that, isn’t it? It’s funny how Wiki is still often derided as a source of knowledge, whilst we’re supposed to be quite happy to accept the helping hand AI gives us.
Wiki goes on to list artists who typified the countrypolitan sound: Tammy Wynette, Charlie Rich, Charley Pride, Lynn Anderson and Glen Campbell, all of whom have featured here before. Except one of them. And it’s not to them that I’ll turning today either.
No, instead we’re going here, to 1973, and this lovelorn beauty:
Right then. Letâs get this show back on the road, shall we?
Iâll explain the reason for my long absence shortly, but for now, a new, slightly longer than usual, mix for you to enjoy/hate/completely ignore (delete as applicable).
There were nearly sleeve-notes for this one, but having decided to come out of hibernation, time still managed to catch up with me. What I will say is this: Purists, fear not about Paul Oakenfold getting his grubby hands on The Cure at Track 1; it’s magnificent.
Oh, and of course, a song each from two of our recently fallen heroes appear.
A History of Dubious Taste 
