A good cancer

I walked with no discernible legs. Grateful that I was within stumbling distance of home, with shoulders back, eyes ahead I attempted to appear normal; the man with the giant, cancerous stick up his arse was struggling past a hundred oblivious neighbours. Sipping coffee, laughing into mobile phones, feeding meters, kissing cheeks, walking dogs, these are the people in my hell. This is my nightmare, get out of my way!

Back in the apartment, I waited for my head to reconnect with my spinal cord. As my surroundings began to take shape, gradually, a far more frightening dilemma emerged; my mother. The thought of breaking this news to her was far worse than the news itself. A constant and ridiculous worrier, my mother was one to make a sniffle into pneumonia and a headache, a tumour. To actually have to tell her that I had a tumour, was something which I never really believed I would ever need to do. She had to know, sure. But buggered if I knew the right way to go about telling her. And as a woman in her seventies, I was also sincerely concerned about the impact this news would have on her mind, body and soul.

The doctor who performed my colonoscopy (his name I've chosen to forget) had told me that most people recover completely without any loss of longevity and furthermore, that if you are going to have cancer, bowel cancer is a good one to get. Truly. Although he was almost certain of his diagnosis, the results would not be official for another seven days. I decided to wait until that time before telling my family. When the results come back, one way or the other, the prognosis itself would create the catalyst for moving forward. I eventually realise that I am breathing again, the room has slowed down, my heart rate is back in double figures and I may even be able to sleep.

Predictably, the next seven days go by like seven weeks. ‘Results Day’; and my doctor is not wearing the warm, comforting face I’d envisaged and my heart rate increases. ‘Michael, please come in’. He looks dour. He looks sorry.

‘Please sit down’. Is he pausing for dramatic effect? ‘Tell me Michael, are you married?’.

‘No’, I mutter.

‘Do you have kids?’ he asks.

A barely audible ‘no’ leaks from my lips and I wait for the worst.

He lets out what seems to be a ‘small mercies’ sigh of relief, and I am wondering if I have 6 weeks, 6 months or if I’ll see Christmas? He pulls his shoulders back and grittily announces that his initial prognosis was correct, it is cancer.

‘And...?’ I ask.

‘That’s it. Just like we spoke about’, he smiles and rubs my knee.

It took every fibre of my being not to leap across that desk and strangle that smug son-of-a-bitch. This ‘doctor’ who had remarkably had his ‘bedside manner’ surgically removed sometime during med school was now serving me copious quantities of his churlishness.

So now I knew. Next step, ‘Operation: Tell The Folks’.