Available Light

A photo I took when walking into the hospital on my first day of treatment .  I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2008, more than 11 years ago. After a radical prostatectomy and a lengthy period of radiotherapy we found that the cancer hadn't gone and that I had stage 4 of a particularly virulent variety of the disease. A radical change of diet, a renewed commitment to meditation and some excellent medical advice meant that I beat the odds, and instead of the expected short sharp decline I have, since then, lived the best 11 years of my life. But I knew the cancer hadn't gone away. We were using some pretty effective tools to keep it at bay but down there somewhere the disease was lurking and waiting. Last year it seems that the cunning little bastard had found a way around my best defences and, although still small, it was going for gold, making an impressive near vertical acceleration on the chart which measures its presence. On the advice of the medics I ...

Yesterday I lay under the machine and counted the buzzes for last time. I took off my baggy hospital shorts , put them in the laundry bin and didn't choose a new pair from the pile. Then I drove home and sat in the drivers seat of the car for a long time, not quite sure if I had the energy to walk from the garage into the house. Then inside, sleep for a while and go gently into that good day. Because I had been remarkably OK for the past few weeks, it was a bit surprising to be so tired yesterday. I guess that when the whole process was finished by mind was able to let go of the effort required to maintain equilibrium and gave my body permission to zonk out. I keep forgetting how body and mind and spirit are an integrated whole, and are not three separate things sitting inside each other like Russian dolls. I am a trinity, not a tiumvirate. Now it's wait and see. On March 25 I'll see the oncologist and he'll examine the entrails - my entrails - and tell me whether all...

I'm about 2/3 the way through the radiotherapy, have managed to get my innards and tiredness levels under quasi control and have got emotional space to start thinking of other stuff: most notably the trip we will make in the second term of this year to replace the one we didn't take last year. Things have changed. Apart from the obvious stuff about a sadder and a wiser man he rose the morrow morn there is a shift in global economics and safety. Israel seems like a marginal idea right now, and the drop in the New Zealand dollar has made St George's college a more difficult proposition anyway. So, we are looking at leaving our suitcases with our friends Nick and Louise in Neuchatel, Switzerland and heading off on several small expeditions.Assisi for example. And Taize. Another of these will be to spend some time walking part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela - the ancient pilgrimage route through Northern Spain. The whole thing would take a month, which is probably a ...

8 down. 25 to go. It's the same routine every day. Eat. Drink. Crap. Drink some more. Drive to the hospital. Undress. Put on the weird gown and the shorts with no elastic. Lie on the bed with the new fresh paper covering and the small blocks for knees and feet. Watch the machine and the green lasers. Lie still. Stare at the white ceiling. Count the whirrs as the masks are set and the whine as the doses are delivered. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11...12...13...14. Dress. Go home. Spend the day getting bladder and bowels in order for the next one. I feel OK, sort of. There's nothing to feel when it's happening, but there is a continual dull sense of unwellness that is creeping over me day by day. Nothing I can put my finger on - metaphorically or literally - but a feeling some where down there like a mild hangover. A feeling like the last spoonful of Lanes' Emulsion is still sitting pretty heavy in your stomach and your Mum wants to give you another one. The...

The good thing about going to Hospital outpatients is that you get a parking permit for the hospital carpark. It saves $2! Woohoo! Who would NOT have cancer when you can get deals like that? I got my $2 worth yesterday. I was there at 8:00 am bright eyed and bushy tailed, well maybe bushy is not the word. There's details about bowel preparation I will spare you. I changed into one of those hospital gowns that someone has spent an entire post graduate design degree on getting to look as unflattering and to fasten as puzzlingly as possible. Then, with my human clothes in a plastic bag, I went into the waiting room. A waiting room is a waiting room is a waiting room. They all have a look about them: neat rows of chairs bought from a catalogue; cheery posters on the walls advising you in 3 languages to get a mole map done; and magazines. Piles of magazines. I read the only two copies of Classic Car in the heap and then reflected that there were 33 more visits to go and only Women...