Following my success at traversing the NHS’s impenetrable ‘how to get a prescription’ helpline things started, once again, to move at pace. My PET scan was booked in at King’s and I arrived at the designated date and time for my appointment. Once issued with my single tablet, for sedation purposes, I was moved swiftly to the scanning area. Filling in another form (although interestingly one that was identical to the two forms and barrage of questions I had previously been asked at other locations) I was led through to my changing room so that I could slip into something more comfortable. (Note to the editor: hospital gowns, even when marked XXXL, are actually one size fits all and generally M). This has also brought memories flooding back of my various gowns worn following my liver transplant. I know that, to this day, some of my visitors are still having therapy in relation to what the gowns inadvertently showed. Once the nurse had double checked that it was OK to proceed with the scan due to having taken sedatives I moved through to the scanning room and the deed was done.
Within 6 days of the scan I moved to phase two. My appointment with my oncologist. Not that it is necessarily relevant but I think it worth saying, for the record, that whist my consultant is French he is actually a very nice person, comes across as very knowledgeable and has no apparent inferiority complexes. There were also no onions in his office. Following our initial sparring where he expressed regret that I had returned to his care and I suggested that he didn’t regret it half as much as I did we moved on. He then spent the next 19 minutes taking to me in medical speak which I mostly understood. He could have spoken to me in French but I didn’t want to show off my language skills. Without going over old ground again, I will remind the reader of my prowess in French, having failed my O level French with a D, retaking it following a further year’s learning and progressing to an E. Moving on, a course of action was agreed and plan B was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. The chemotherapy strikes back (or should it be the Return of the Chemotherapy)?
Before I move on and as an interesting aside, how long would it take the reader to walk from Guy’s to Buckingham Palace? In an attempt to gauge my level of fitness my Gallic consultant asked me if I could do it in 30 minutes. My initial thought was that I couldn’t run it in 30 minutes, let alone get a cab and accomplish this olympian feat in 30 minutes. On further research I confirmed my suspicions. At normal walking pace it would take an hour. Whilst I would trust my new best foreign friend with my life, literally, I will not be encouraging him to take up training arthritic ants carrying heavy shopping in the heavy shopping carrying competition at the next ant olympiad. Onwards…