The past week has been a milestone week for me on a
couple of fronts.
Firstly on the 9th of January it was exactly a year since
the end of my course of chemo and radiotherapy treatment for throat cancer. Whilst the effects of the treatment continued for several months, I still hold this date vividly in my memory.
On that day in 2017 I was an in patient at the
Churchill hospital in Oxford as my depleted immune system was struggling to
cope with a bit of man flu.
I can remember shuffling along the corridors to the
torture chamber thinking thank god that this is going to be the last time I
have to be pinned to the table, held perfectly still by the custom made head
and shoulder plastic lattice mask.
The second pivotal event of this week was on the 10th
January when my beautiful, if a little cheeky, daughter George turned into a 1 year old.
Looking back again a year, I recall how amazing my
equally beautiful, and more than a little cheeky wife Emma had handled her
pregnancy.
Can you imagine, you wait until you are well past your
sell by date looking for Mr Right to show up - he never does. So with your 40th birthday speeding towards
you like a runaway train and with your ovaries equally quickly shrivelling up
like a couple of prunes, you panic and decide the old guy who has been showing
more than a passing interest in you will have to do.
Within three months of being married you are pregnant and
you find out that the man of your, he'll do, dreams has throat cancer.
How Emma dealt with this and apparently sailed through
her pregnancy whilst supporting me without seemingly batting an eyelid is
beyond me.
I recall last year how disappointed I was that this was
going to be my only daughter whose birth I was not going to be in attendance.
Again it was like water of a ducks back to Emma.
This past year has flown by, the first half was a real
blur and still to this day someone will recall a story, a meeting, an incident and I have
to ask, "did that really happen? I don't remember".
As I look back and contemplate what went on, I genuinely
think that the effects of this life event were in fact harder for my
family and close friends than for me.
I was in a drug induced haze most of the time and had
things to do - daily trips to hospital and sleeping being the primary ones. But family and friends didn't have Morphine to numb the
mind and stop them from worrying and contemplating worst case scenarios.
I know that whilst the support that Emma and my daughters
showed me was amazing, the whole experience has impacted them and if I had one
wish (other than not having contracted the disease) it would be that I could
take away the pain and upset that my family suffered.
So let's finish off by bringing you up to date. I am
currently on 4 monthly checks, the last being in December which was a
physical examination with a camera being inserted into my throat via my nose.
All looked OK and so with one year down, hopefully I am well on the way to successfully proving the 2
year rule, which says that this type of cancer is unlikely to come back after two years of being
clear.
Thanks for reading the blog and for all of the good
wishes, likes and comments given during my treatment, it really did help. Also look out for my next cycling adventure with the Swede - Marlow to Morzine is in the early planning stages for later this year.
