Birthday Blues

Thursday, 29th December 2022

Today I am 61 years of age. All of the times my parents gave me a joint Christmas and birthday present, it’s a rubbish time of year to have a birthday, go through my head, but these I gloss. I am alive, I am breathing. My friend Tracey is coming to pick me up later, it’s the first time we will have been together on my birthday. Other, she later reminds me, than that time when I completely and utterly — and quite unreasonably — lost my rag. Seth and Alf were there too; she went home. What a pain I was. I can understand the source of my emotional pain that made me such a pain for other people, but my stuff isn’t their problem and they don’t deserve to have it made so. When I think reflexively on all of the adjustments I’ve made in terms of mental attitude and approach to life since D-Day (Diagnosis Day) — idiot: all of the changes that life has thrust upon me, they had little to do with me — I believe myself to be an infinitely more chilled and easy-going person now than I ever was before. ‘Know Thyself’ the precious wisdom as inscribed above the entrance to the Oracle’s cave at Delphi. In Ancient Greek, though, obviously. I can think of half-a-dozen people who would disagree, but they didn’t know me before. It would be idiotic to say I was grateful for a diagnosis of Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, but that’s somehow often how it feels.

I obviously didn’t learn well enough, though, or embed the lessons deeply enough. Because now along comes a pretty life-arresting diagnosis of prostate cancer to finish off the process. Hopefully not to finish me off too, we’ll see. This time I can almost feel the changes in me, in my attitude, adjustments being made in real time; I don’t have to look back in retrospect. And they seem to be happening fast. It is as if my body is tuning my mind, preparing it in the processes and chemistry it is going to have to mix in order to think through to maximise my body’s chances of survival. Or maybe my brain’s worked that out for itself: no body, no brain, after all. Unless there is such a thing as reincarnation and it’s readying itself for me to come back as a prince. Or a slug, perhaps.

Tracey’s coming to take me to the scanner. I’m to have a CT scan, called a ‘cat’ scan. This one is to check the degree to which the cancer may have spread out of the prostate into surrounding organs and tissues. Sharing the good will. It’s what friends do, after all. Later I’ll have a bone scan to check whether it’s migrated to my, as it says on the tin, bones. The consultant has told me that if it’s spread to other tissues there might be stuff they can do. If it’s spread to my bones, I‘m toast. Pretty sure those weren’t his actual words, but there again, he isn’t a poet.

I’ve been in many many scanners since 2018, and started my MRI collection years and years ago when I had a couple of knee ops. The CT scanner (Computer Tomography, tomography coming from the Greek [of course] for ‘slice’ or ‘section’, the computer puts all the slices together to form the holistic image) uses X—rays to build a three-dimensional image of the insides. With a CAT scanner the ‘C’ and the ‘T’ are the same but the ‘A’ stands for Axial. Clear? The PET scanner, Positron Emission … I’m sure you’re losing the will to read on, I’m losing the will to write it. Just noticed the language, ‘losing’, ‘will’, let’s talk about something else. Although I am going to lookup why a Will is called a will. Last ‘will’ and all that.