Benign out of ten

BC Pires

Last Friday, under the headline “Over the moon, cancer,” I told you all that a CT scan the Monday before had shown I was cancer-free. I was in the best mood I’d been in for a year. All the trouble I’d seen over the nearly ten months of my treatment seemed worthwhile if, in the end, I was healthy.

The worst parts of the experience – the bodily assault of major surgery (like being beaten with lead pipes by a gang of thugs), the pneumonia, the internal swelling that made it impossible for me to eat (causing me to lose 50lbs in two months), the weeks of being fed by stomach tube, the slow poison of eight bouts of aggressive, virulent chemotherapy, the deprivation of having nothing by mouth for six weeks, the nagging cough, the loss of two-thirds of my stomach (including the valves that stop digestive tract juices from rolling into your mouth if you bend at the waist), the transformation from man into scarecrow – all of it counted for naught, if I were well.

As I was. I was in such a good mood, I ended last week’s TGIF in a way I thought would make God chuckle, if he existed, with these two sentences: “And, to my religious friends who have asked, I would say a heartfelt public thanks to God for sparing my life.

“If He hadn’t given me the cancer in the first place.”

It turned out God did exist – and had a sense of humour we could call truly wicked.

My elation at being well lasted from Monday afternoon, when I got the CT results, to Saturday morning, when I did a lung function test.

The pulmonologist saw three possible causes of my persistent cough: 1. infection, for which she prescribed antibiotics; 2. something to do with the blood vessels that look like the sources of great rivers in geography textbooks, for which she gave me a space-age inhaler; and 3. cancer. She might as well have kicked me in the cojones.

On Sunday, she did a bronchoscopy and sent ballpoint-pen nib-sized sections of my lungs for biopsy, starting the whole cancer-worry ball rolling again.

All weekend, very many lovely people, readers and friends, sent me messages of congratulation and good wishes, they were so happy thinking I was well.

And I was now in reality waiting for test results that could take up to five working days that might tell me that, against the run of play, and despite the best possible treatment, I might be right back where I started, except with the cancer metastasised from the oesophagus into the lungs.

The pulmonologist pointed to the cigarettes I stopped smoking 35 years ago as the likely culprit, if the biopsy should come back to show malignant cancer.

After only four days of happiness in the open air, I was back in the valley of the shadow of death.

My wife and I told almost no one, not even our adult children; indeed, especially not our children.

The doctor thought it unlikely that the cause of my cough would be proven to be cancer – but, until the result came in, we wouldn’t know.

To avoid word getting back to my children, I didn’t tell even close cancer survivor (and/or fighter) friends how Jesus had pulled the rug out from under my feet.

Now, of course I don’t think Jesus would be so wicked. Jesus loves everybody. Like me. (For the benefit of that class of believer who takes greater offence than God, this is another joke; from a puny insect, okay?)

Now the rational part of my mind knew the chances of my being diagnosed with lung cancer in the same week I was tested as cancer-free were small. But not small enough to dismiss.

And the relief was huge when it did come on Wednesday. For the second time in as many weeks, I’ve been declared cancer-free by the best available science.

And, once more, I’m massively relieved and grateful to all you other insects who sent good thoughts into the void on my behalf.

Now if only God can resist what must be the almighty temptation to mow me down with a PTSC bus.

BC Pires is
definitely a cancer survivor