Today was a day of bitter irony. In fact, there was more bitterness than in the whole of Schweppes and more irony in my life than in a Victorian foundry.
First of all, as I pulled back the curtains to my bedroom, a solitary magpie was hopping around on my driveway as if to say, "I know your PSA test is today and that you're a closet catastrophist but I'm still going to hang around anyway." His parting gift was to park his breakfast on my car as he flew off into next door's overgrown conifer which, over the years, has darkened my bedroom to the light levels of an Egyptian mausoleum.
Next, as I turned the ignition on, the car's tyre pressure warning light started to flash. There was no nail, no puncture. Just a conundrum of mounting stress to add to the day that had started with the one solitary and ominous Magpie. I chose to ignore it. Mrs C and I then proceeded to drive to the train station at 12 lunchtime (a usually dead time) only to find a queue of about ten people all waiting for the one out of the five ticket booths open. Smooth talking fox that she is, Mrs C went and chatted up the ticket inspector on the gate bypassing the queue and paying for our tickets directly; sadly, despite this, we missed our planned train by 30 seconds. After a further fifteen minute wait, we got onto the next train to take us into Guys in London and found the only two seats in the carriage only to be sandwiched between three screaming babies, a hoard of schoolgirls chattering about the their latest boyfriend, an old woman who had obviously no sense of person hygiene and a pensioner constantly rustling around in a seemingly bottomless packet of Werthers Originals like one of those annoying runts in the cinema with a packet of crisps.
Finally, at long last, we made it into Guys, a place that has become a second home these past six and a half years. As I entered the Urology department for what should have been a simple blood test, there was more humankind than at the Haj; each seat was taken and staff were racing around borrowing extra seats from the doctor's offices for the overflow. It was simply heaving with people on this, an ordinary clinic day. Cancer must be rife in London.
I surveyed my territory, my manor, checked in and filed past the newbies, their journeys mostly before them feeling a sense of ironic pride as I proudly wore my badge of honour in the Urology department. To my left, the good old flow test machine, to my right, familiar shelves of leaflets about PCa. In front of me lay the blood test ticket machine on the wall which I grabbed the ticket number, wait for it, 13. I opened the newspaper I'd found on the seat next to me. On one page was an advert about funeral plans, on the opposite page, pension plans. I was torn, unlike the newspaper. More irony. The old man next to me remarked on my shoes which had laces as well as a zip set up. He showed me his swollen foot and casually said, " I've got prostate cancer boy," as if I was in Urology for some kind of jolly. He was about 80, used a stick but was quite mobile aside from his swollen foot. "I was just admiring your shoes, where can I get some," he remarked. I didn't have the heart to tell him they were bought online from a high fashion retailer for people much younger than I and cost a King's ransom. The old man went on, "you wait till you get to my age son. Everything swells." Again, I didn't have the heart to tell the old boy that a) I will never enjoy the pleasure of reaching my 80's and b) my stage four cancer had already spread to my lymph nodes and it was only a matter of time until lymphedema affected me, probably in my leg, and that my high end USC trainers replete with lace and zip would be redundant and consigned to the bin. Finally, c) Since being on dual hormone therapy for the past two years, not very much swells these days!
And on that note the buzzer went off and the old man, ticket number 12, trundled in to have his blood taken. I thought it would only be a matter of time before I was in and out. I was wrong. The phlebotomist went on a jolly after taking the old boy's blood and it was only after an anxious half hour wait until my glorious number 13 was called out. As I entered the booth and sat down, I tried to break the ice with the person about to take my blood in the hope that they wouldn't tissue me or cause a DVT or extreme pain or some such by remarking on their accent. Desperately hoping that they would reply that they were from Poland (a place I've been to many times and know a bit of the lingo), they replied with a steely grey communist expression that they were Ukranian. Oh sh1t, the irony of it all.
After having my blood taken and walking out of Guys, instead of the wonderful sunshine that was before to greet me, the rain came down from a leaden sky as if to pour more woe on my day. The blood test results are on Monday. After a day like today, I'm expecting a northward spiral. Cancer, don't you just love it?
Edited by member 14 Oct 2016 at 07:56
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