In case you’re concerned about my apparent silence, fear not! a new post will go up shortly, which will explain it. But before I forget, I want to proselytize (will he never stop preaching?) about the ‘alkali’ diet, to which I’ve switched in the last month, to about an 85% extent (where I’m going to stop.) The theory is that cancer hates an alkali environment and finds it very difficult to establish itself in one or to continue reproducing. We all mostly have an acid PH because of the food we eat, which includes lots of things we are all brought up to consider healthy.
Now, as we all know, when we are in perfect health, we know we’re never going to get cancer. That’s for the unfortunate 40% 🙂
However, I urge all you healthy folk to at least find out about a bit about alkali diets. I’ve found it remarkably easy to switch and to find fully satisfactory substitutes for acid foods like wheat, pasta, ordinary bread, soy sauce, vinegar and milk products. You don’t have to be obsessive and never eat anything acid; apparently even a 60:40 % ratio is still very effective. You will probably find a find a book on the subject at your local health food / alternative shop or on Amazon etc. and / or from a clued up nutritionist. Even if you can’t face up to skipping your daily bacon butty, or slice of Black Forest gateau (he’s SO seventies!), you can do something very simple and effective. Take a shot of wheat-grass every day. The freshly-juiced form is prohibitively expensive but I’m taking a heaped tea-spoon of the dried stuff every morning mixed in a drink. It tastes pretty foul but you just knock it back. Wheat-grass is the most alkali food known to man….
Here’s something else. When I went for my pre-op assessment on Tuesday, I was measured in all sorts of ways, including my weight. To my astonishment, I have lost a stone (yes, 16 pounds) since I took my first tentative steps to rebalancing my PH. The flab has simply evaporated in the last month. Of course I’ve always had the body of an eighteen-year-old 🙂 Now it’s more like that of a sixteen-year-old. This could all be because the cancer is nibbling away merrily. However, my intuition (and it’s ‘only’ that) is that it’s being effectively starved and the weight loss is down to diet. Further, I am never hungry between meals, never snack, am never even tempted by the junkier stuff (muffin, biscuits etc) which I used to indulge in once a day as a treat.
So, dear healthy readers, please at least consider all this.
As you’ll have gathered from previous posts, various people with my best interests at heart have been urging me to give up any sort of political activity / agitation until I am fully well again, arguing that it wastes my rapidly-diminishing energy etc . One reason that I’ve been reluctant to do so until now is that I feel it’s been keeping me connected to the wider world beyond my own narrow little universe and concerns, where many people have far more difficult situations to grapple with than I do.
However, I’ve decided to follow this advice and am therefore abjuring any further commentary on the ills of the world after I make this one final appeal to you.
Let’s try to get the Establishment paedophile scandal sorted out once and for all. Please, therefore, for my sake – a sick old man with a beautiful three year-old-daughter, whom he may not be able to protect from the wicked world as long as he’d like – sign the petition (it’ll take you 1 minute) at
a) please post this petition on your Facebook pages and ask others to get involved (2 minutes work); these things can go viral in a very short space of time, and we could bring huge pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service to reverse their decision
b) please consider writing direct (5-10 minutes work) to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to put additional and focused pressure on her, as I have done, at
Amongst the matters I have raised with her, in the hope of making her change her mind on this crucial matter – and which you may wish to as well – are that to prosecute Janner will
1. ensure justice / closure for the many alleged victims of quite appalling abuse (or a chance to refute their allegations)
2. prevent the widespread perception of yet another Establishment paedophile cover-up
3. give the CPS a chance a chance to remedy the increasing disrepute it has fallen into in recent times (e.g. the Elveden phone-hacking fiasco)
4. even if he has dementia, about which there seems to be some controversy (see second link above), a trial will satisfy Lord Janner’s own keen sense of justice as expressed in the first link above.
I have also raised with Ms Saunders the issue of who decides what is in the ‘public interest’ in such matters (the reason she has cited as the basis for discontinuing proceedings against Janner). Given that there are currently 3 (at least) on-line petitions calling for him to be tried, it seems odd that her decision not to take proceedings (taken against the advice of her own senior legal advisor and the police) should count more than the perceptions of the 10,000 or so people who have already signed these petitions that it is, indeed, in the public interest. Let’s protect our children by making her change her mind…
That’s it, folks! No more Mr Angry! If you’d all just take 15 minutes from your busy lives to do the above, I’ll instead be Mr Grateful Ever After!
Hope my decision won’t make the posts which follow too bland….
We’re all on great form on Saturday morning. After a leisurely breakfast, Imogen and Rosa turn up to accompany Anna and Maddy to Arianna’s party. Each of the little girls is in their Arna costume. Contrary to stereotype, they’re delighted to be identically dressed, proclaiming they’re twins. Rosa’s missing her red cape and with the generosity she so often shows, Maddy offers to let her play-mate wear hers – at least until they get to the party! Their imagination fascinates me. Dressed up, these two really seem to become Arna; it’s way beyond pretending.
Maddy (left) at the party, entranced by ‘Elsa’ (second left) – still without her cape!
I spend the rest of the morning after they’ve gone doing the blog, catching up with household chores and nibbling away at the dross. I also print the opening chapters of my novel to have a final read through before I send to Clare. Having printed them off, I begin to the process over a somewhat ‘acid’ lunch at Il Molino (here’s hoping the rice will counter-balance the pasta.) I have my first-ever soya latte and it’s not bad at all. It seems to bring out the roasted flavour of the coffee more than milk does. I’m also pleasantly surprised by Between Camps, which I haven’t even looked at since the summer of 2013. The first few pages, at least, seem tightly-written still. But is it too much of a ‘slow-burner’? I’m a sucker for the leisurely majesty of novelists like Thoman Mann and Rohinton Mistry. But even Mann would find it hard to get published today, in the era of the shallow and easy readerly satisfactions represented by the likes of Martin Amis or Hanif Kureishi – let alone the best-selling but instantly forgettable – and forgotten – ‘literary’ thrillers / crime fiction which pollute our bookshops (there are honourable and enviable exceptions, of course). Still, perhaps I’m being too pessimistic. Mistry and Hilary Mantel have made it – not that I’m so egotistical as to think I come anywhere near them in the scheme of things.
It seems strange, given what’s happened to me, to be getting back into the world of Walter Bauer, my protagonist, and his traumatic experience of separation from his Jewish girl-friend when her family flees after the anschluss. Subsequently, an unwilling participant in the Occupation of France, Walter’s ‘liberated’ from his duties when he’s diagnosed with TB. He’s eventually cured by a mad French doctor in the Vichy-zone Pyrenees (he doesn’t want to go back to Austria for various reasons), where he’s sent to complete his death sentence.
Now look at me! I have the same intermittent, irritating cough which first alerts Walter to his problem. I’ve been diagnosed with a comparably deadly disease in my lungs which I’ve also been told is incurable. Like Walter, the therapies which appear to be under offer to contain it seem deeply unpleasant (at least he never has to grow breasts!) Like Walter, I have to adjust my life radically while being radically uncertain about what’s to come. Like Walter, I accept that the battle can only be won, if at all, by engaging mind and spirit as well as matter. Yet perhaps re-connecting with the novel’s a good omen, after all. Walter does finally get cured in 1943, very shortly before the TB cure was accidentally discovered in the US (I researched and faithfully adapted the ‘gifted amateur’ process by which it was, simply shifting events to France; that’s a quite amazing story in itself and someone should make a film about it!) So long as what befalls Walter afterwards doesn’t happen to me!
After lunch it’s to Anna’s. She’s expecting her father John, who’s bringing ‘meals on wheels’ prepared by his Lebanese partner Ahmad, a fabulous exponent of the cuisine of the region – which just happens to be my favourite! Before he comes, I play with Maddy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh so much ever before. It’s a brilliant sign, give our recent worries about her. First of all, I pretend she’s my mummy, mimicking many of the phrases she uses with Anna, and the physical gestures which accompany them. Despite pretending to be scandalised, Maddy can’t stop giggling.
‘Do it again, daddy, do it again,’ she exhorts each time I stop.
Then it’s what the two of us have christened ‘chin-work,’ which involves me tickling her under her chin, seemingly the most sensitive part of her body. Again, she can’t get enough, even as she tries to press her chin down onto her chest so I can’t get my fingers under. Finally, it’s raspberries on her belly-button. I have to pull her hands away each time, trying to make each blast successively louder and longer. I only stop when she’s getting too red in the face. I love this physical play with her, but I well remember how, at her age, I was sometimes tickled until I couldn’t breathe and overpowering panic set in.
Tea with John, who’s very affable, is enjoyable. I haven’t seen Anna’s dad since my diagnosis and he’s very kind and concerned, though perhaps a bit surprised at how ebullient I am (my energy seems to swing wildly from day to day). I drop a chance remark about ‘the big day’ and, to my great surprise, Anna confesses she hasn’t mentioned it yet.
‘I’m so pleased you two are getting married,’ John reassures her once the news sinks in.
‘I’m really sorry I didn’t ask you for her hand first, John,’ I joke.
We laugh further over the idea of him becoming my ‘father-in-law’ and again when he asks what sort of party we’re going to have later.
‘We want a really big one, John,’ I smile, ‘maybe a couple of hundred people, somewhere really swanky, endless champagne.’
He looks a bit startled at this unexpected evidence of my extravagant streak. ‘Yes, of course it has to be memorable,’ he affirms uncertainly.
‘I’m glad we’re agreed.’ I pause ‘Because remember that the bride’s father’s supposed to pay for everything.’
We move onto other things. John’s extremely well-informed, partly because he’s had a number of different political affiliations in his life, from the anti-apartheid movement, to revolutionary socialist microgroups and, more recently, to Zionism (he was an adopted child who discovered his Jewish roots later in life. Thereby Anna is half-Jewish and Maddy a quarter-, in case some idiot thinks I’m even remotely anti-Semitic, simply because of my opposition to the way Israel has always treated the Palestinians). We (instinctively, tactfully?) don’t really talk about Israel / Palestine but I know that he’s done progressive work there, for example teaching in Beir Zeit University law-school (John’s an academic lawyer); and he’s strongly condemned the suppression of the Southampton conference. His position as a Zionist, albeit not of the fundamentalist neo- variety, thank goodness, has exposed him to vituperation from both sides of the conflict and their proxies. Though I don’t really agree with much of what I’ve read of his analysis of the issues, I respect him as someone inhabiting a more difficult ‘in-between’ position than those of us who clearly privilege one narrative over the other.
And he’s a warm and gentle man, full of insights into all manner of things, from the surge in Ed Miliband’s electoral standing (John was against him becoming leader) to the establishment cover-up of child-abuse, another of my current bug-bears. Just this last week a group of seven ‘ordinary’ paedophiles were disgraced in public and received long, long sentences. They’d even been investing for the future by befriending pregnant women to gain their trust for later. Yet like the M.P., Cyril Smith before him (long dead now), Lord Janner, against whom very serious accusations are currently being made, will apparently not be prosecuted. The Crown (or should that, following the recent Elvedon fiasco, be Clown) Prosecution Service believes it wouldn’t be ‘in the public interest’ because Janner has been diagnosed (by whom, I ask myself?) with dementia.[1]
‘Father-in-law’ John
The police are so outraged, they’re apparently pondering legal action against the CPS. As that alone suggests, surely it’s in the public interest to rehearse the case, even if the man can’t be sentenced – or exonerated – not least because it might give satisfaction to his many alleged victims – or disprove their allegations. It might also provide explanations for why, as The Guardian also alleges in a related story, Janner was protected from investigation years ago, when the police were onto him and he was in full possession of his powers. Why hasn’t The Sun been after him? After all, it’s always encouraged all sorts of surveillance and vigilante initiatives against ‘ordinary’ paedophiles in the past. Yes, I wonder why not… Who’s been protecting Janner, if that’s what’s happened – why? Surely it’s in the public interest, if not the Establishment’s, to know?
Sorry to bang on about this – but anyone with a three-year-old child will understand my concerns. This is not to say that I think paedophiles are ‘monsters’ in the way they’re usually depicted in the media. I think they are ‘simply’ very sick people psychologically and much more proper psycho-medical research needs to be done into the problem and its remedies. Not least, because if more was known about it, psychological profiling could keep at least some of them out of the positions of trust they then so grievously abuse. Child abuse, as I’ve said in a previous post, is an appalling problem in our country. John wonders whether it doesn’t seem worse in the UK than elsewhere because we’re ahead of the game in terms of public debate and investigations – and the same litany of horrors may well come out in other places. But the best marker that we mean to deal with it seriously once and for all, in my opinion, would be to thoroughly and publicly investigate figures like Janner who many regard as untouchable because of their Establishment connections.
From Anna’s, I head home and start re-reading Ghassan Kanafani’s Return to Haifa, a searing account of the consequences for ordinary Palestinians of the mass ethnic cleansings of 1948 – just in case Robert Young goes along with my proposals about how to rejig my Introduction for his journal. I love Kanafani, one of the founders of modern Palestinian literature, who was blown up in a car-bomb in Beirut in 1972, an act of terror very widely ascribed to Israeli secret ‘security’ services. Much though I enjoy him, however, I’m relieved that it isn’t the novel I misremembered it as, but a shortish novella which won’t take long to read. I think it’ll work very well for my purposes.
Soon it’s time to head off to meet my friend and comrade Naomi Foyle, another hugely talented writer and committed activist whom I first met during my Information Tribunal action against Michael Gove. I was put in touch with her by someone because she was working on parallel lines to me, pressing the Department for Education about their gross hypocrisy in allowing London school-children to be exposed to Zionist propagandists like the Israeli Amabassador but imposing all sorts of impossible conditions relating to ‘balance’ in relation to their participation in (entirely non-Palestine related) writing work-shops – simply because these were hosted by the Haringey Palestine Literature Festival. She became one of my witnesses at the ‘trial,’ her evidence of bias proving completely unanswerable for the hapless DfE representative and we’ve been firm friends since.
Naomi: what a healing smile!
At about the same time, she published what proved to be the most enjoyable novel I read in 2013, Seoul Survivors. It’s a beautifully-written, zippily expressed, fast-paced. It offers a glimpse into a future world with a substantial resemblance to contemporary South Korea, a place so alien to the average westerner that it functions superbly as both a ‘real’ and futuristic setting. If you want a lot of laughs and some superbly-crafted characters, including some truly loathsome but compelling villains, add it to your list and enjoy! And look out for what she’s written since, particularly if you like avant-garde S.F. – not to mention her poetry.
Naomi’s up in London from Brighton, where she lives, for the History Matters conference, investigating the lack of history students and teachers of African and Caribbean heritage in the UK.. The first thing I notice when we meet in Whole Foods is the quality of her hug. Somehow she seems to envelop me top to toe, and transfer lots of positive energy. Not the hasty gesture I’m generally used to with British friends. We chat about things until she suddenly breaks off and tells me she’s persuaded her ex-agent to agree to read some of my novel. Heavens! Like buses, you wait forever for one, then they come in bunches! Anyway, I’m very grateful. The one unwritten rule I’ve learned since trying to be a writer is that you don’t ask anyone to introduce you to their agent. You have to find your own, you own way. We decide I’ll wait until I hear back from Clare Conville before going down that route.
After more chat, I remind Naomi that she’s agreed to do a brief Tarot reading for me. It’s one of her many talents and she supplements her living (she’s a .25 Tutor in Creative Writing at Chichester University) doing it in Brighton when funds are short. Knowing nothing about Tarot, but intrigued, and trusting in Naomi’s expertise, I’d been hoping to find out not about the future, but about the past viz. when this wretched cancer started. As she gets out her Crowley deck, unwrapping it carefully from a fine-looking brocade cloth, she says that isn’t possible. It’s best used for general questions one might have about one’s life.
‘I’d like to know more about what I need to successfully manage the situation I’m in.’
She directs me to shuffle the cards, before I ‘randomly’ select three, turning them over for Naomi to see. First, up, the 9 of Wands, also called ‘Strength’ on the Crowley deck; next, the 4 of Swords, or ‘Truce’; finally, the 7 of Wands, ‘Valour.’
‘What do they mean?’ I ask.
Naomi considers a moment. ‘Well, you haven’t drawn any of the Major Arcana – the cards with Roman numeral – you might have seen them? So although you’re going through a great change, this spread isn’t proposing any great change is needed in the way you’re dealing with this turn of events. More some shifts of emphasis.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Look at “Valour.” It suggests there’s perhaps too much Mars going on – male aggressiveness – or anger. And the Leo symbol in the bottom right-hand corner suggests too much Ego. That doesn’t mean stopping the blog. Maybe it’s a warning about trying too much to be in control of events.’
‘OK.’ Interestingly this latter advice echoes Gabi’s yesterday.
‘”Truce” suggests, as you might infer, that you need to strike a better balance between the various aspects of how you’re dealing with this, though the balance in the number of swords also suggests you’re making a fairly good fist already. It also signifies “convalescence.”’
Extraordinary coincidence? or something else?
‘In that sense, you perhaps need to address what’s over-active in the Mars department, and get yourself in the right, peaceful, frame of mind for what’s coming.’
‘And “Strength”?’
‘Lots of wands is a positive signal. They’re already strong, but keep nourishing your networks of solidarity and community.’
The spread
We each take sip of our drinks.
‘According to Louise Hay [a very well-known ‘alternative’ healer, at least one of whose books I read years ago] kidney stones are associated with Mars, and therefore aggression and anger.’
I’m taken aback. Even if I have kidney cancer, rather than kidney stones (though that was the first diagnosis) and don’t think of myself as a particularly angry person, it makes me wonder, however, if there’s any guilt by association. Perhaps I’m too quick to take offence sometimes (for example, at my ‘friend’s’ comment yesterday) and can be stubborn in not sorting out misunderstandings (for example, as suggested in an earlier post, with my brother Lindsay.) At work, I’ve certainly had a (very) strong sense of grievance on occasion; this (partly) prompted my decision to go half-time in 2008 and (largely) to take early retirement this year. I very, very, very rarely blow my top (honestly can’t remember the last time – perhaps at school?) Instead, however, when it comes my anger takes two forms. The first icy and vengeful and unforgiving. The second obliterates the object of my anger out of existence. The people concerned simply cease to exist for me. There, I’ve said it! (I told you this blog would be warts and all.) And as I do so, I can see neither way is a healthy one for expressing an emotion we’ve all been given for some obscure purpose. In fact, they sound a little too Mossad-like…
So perhaps anger has been a problem for me, even though I don’t feel it’s in any way ‘caused’ or even contributed to my disease (but is this simple denial?). Indeed, I think I’ve always been able to express my views and emotions pretty clearly, including to those in authority over me, whether self-important line-managers, bureaucrats, politicians etc., often rather too forthrightly for their taste. At another level, beyond my little universe, injustice has also always made me angry, whether it’s the class-ridden nature of British society, tax-dodgers, the poisonous influence of lobbies, Big Business, racism, our super-vile and corrupt Establishment; or, further afield, ongoing neo-colonialism and the appalling way the Palestinians have been treated. Again, I’ve usually tried to do my mite (not nearly enough and what I’ve done has, frankly, always been from a position of relative privilege) to address these issues when opportunity arises. Isn’t that kind of anger energising and mobilising – and, above all, necessary – for initiating the myriad tiny steps we can all make to change the world a tiny bit for the better?
I need to think about this issue more. Still, as Naomi reminds me, the cards aren’t there to give answers or solutions, but to make one reflect on matters pertinent to the question I asked at the time the cards are dealt – not for all time.
‘So no more anti-neo-Zio for the moment?’
She’s as committed as I am to the cause, so I know she’s thinking of what’s in my best interest when she nods.
‘Not for the moment.’
That was Haim’s advice, too. Leave it to others for now. Same with Establishment cover-ups of child-abuse. I feel a little guilty. But perhaps I’ll be much more effective in the end if I let myself heal properly over the next few months.
On my way to Anna’s, I think about Ego. Perhaps my meeting with Naomi has exactly illustrated this problem. It was mainly about me. After a few preliminary questions asking how she was, I banged on about matters Naomi’s already well aware of from reading the blog. Only towards the end, after the Tarot reading, as the impatient workers were stacking chairs and mopping the floor around us, did I press her about what’s going on in her own life – love, work, accommodation and career, all of which, I know, have been giving her cause for concern. There wasn’t time to talk everything through properly, partly because by then I was also beginning to ‘fade’ rapidly, as is my wont around 8 in the evening. Nonetheless, I recognise with a stab of shame, perhaps I could have made more effort to conquer my tiredness. I feel I’ve let my generous friend down, taken too much and given too little. My only consolation is that (I think) I’m open to (self-)criticism and a quick learner. Time will tell.
It’s nice to relax at Anna’s, just the two of us. Maddy’s having a sleepover at Caroline’s where Gemma, Georgia-May and Tara are entertaining her. It’s been a very full day emotionally. Whatever upheaval all this commotion has caused, I nonetheless feel I’m learning some useful stuff about myself which is going to serve me well in the future.
Not too much to report about Sunday. It’s a horrid cold day, for a change, and I take advantage of a gathering of the wider clan in Balham to sneak away and get on with stuff. It takes me quite a while to write up the account of Saturday because I’m still working through some of the issues. But I have a renewed sense of how useful, the exercise of writing is for me, even if I’m boring others senseless! Through it, I really pin down my concerns and emotions, making them (I hope) easier to work thorough.
Afterwards, I read the rest of the opening of the novel which I’m going to send to Clare. That, too, reads much better than I remember. There’s very little to do beyond changing a word here, ironing out a clumsy phrasing there. Then I gingerly try some Pilates exercises. I’m getting stiffer and stiffer by the day and really have to do something about it. Sitting at my desk so much isn’t helping. At Google, or Apple, they now all work at their stations standing up, their mantra being ‘sitting is the new smoking.’ Perhaps they’re responding to the extraordinary research which investigated why bus conductors live on average five years longer than their drivers. But I’m not able to do much stretching before I get very tired.
I head to Anna’s in time for tea. Maddy’s had a great time in Balham, spoiled by her adoring extended family. Anna’s well, though just as tired as I am by her exertions. At about eight, I start to feel bad, really bad this time. I’m utterly drained of energy and have to sit there, head in hands, to recuperate long enough to get into the bath which Anna runs for me as soon as Maddy’s in bed. Was it the Pilates, little though I did? The emotion of working through some of the Tarot pointers? Since I’ve fallen ill, the bath is where I feel physically at my best. It’s the closest I can get to the thermal baths which Walter Bauer enjoys during his own illness! I do some pranayama breathing and some visualisation exercises. I revive long enough to fall into bed, cuddling Piglet, whom Maddy’s so thoughtfully installed for me. As I smell her gratefully on my companion, I realise that I’m not yet anywhere near the point Gerard Manley Hopkins got to in Carrion Comfort; and I draw on his resolute defiance:
‘Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist – slack they may be – these last strands of man
‘Upside down you turn-a me, Inside out…’ goes the Diana Ross song and it’s the theme tune of these two days. They begin on a down note. We’ve all slept badly. I’m really tired, after a night broken by lots of night sweats and a record number of trips to the loo. It’s as if both kidneys are working overtime, to remind me that my renal function is fine. Worse, Anna has had a bad dream. She interprets it as signifying her fears that she may not be able to cope further down the line. Worst of all is Maddy’s behaviour en route to nursery. The whole way (a good twenty-minutes walk), she clings to Anna’s leg, saying she’s sad. Despite Anna’s best efforts to coax it out of her, our little girl can’t – or won’t – explain why. Our suspicions are confirmed. Maddy has cottoned on to the fact that something’s amiss. Her routine has changed dramatically. No more day looking after her on Tuesday evening s while mummy’s at work; no more sleepovers at daddy’s on Fridays so Anna can have a break and we can spend time on-to-one; no more expeditions with daddy on Saturday mornings to visit places in London or team up with friends. I’m gutted. What to do?
Since we’re on this track, let’s get the rest of these two days’ downers out of the way (though they actually inter-leaved with the good stuff described below.) First up are my scans from C and W. I asked for a copy in case we ever need a second opinion and on Thursday I went to pick them up. Here they are, stored on a c.d., in an innocuously discreet jacket. Yet from the moment I leave the X-ray department, it seems to be burning a hole in my backpack. I suffer a miniature version of the tsunami of fear which overcame me in C and W a week ago. At once, I decide the best way to conquer it is to force myself to put some of the images up on the blog. That will oblige me to first examine each one in turn, in order to select the best 2-3. Best? The thought of looking at any of them again makes me feel sick. And what of the readers of this blog? Some might welcome a chance to see what things look like on the inside and thereby get a truer insight into what’s at stake when someone gets cancer. Others, I suspect, will be horrified, even if I post a ‘health’ (the irony of it!) warning ahead of time. But if I just let the c.d. sit there in its jacket, won’t it mean that my fear has conquered me. What to do?
Dread… no natty about it
I also get the first negative comment on the blog. Even though I’ve had so much positive feedback, it jolts me. It’s from an old ‘friend,’ whom I’ve seen maybe twice in ten years – and neither time by an arrangement we’ve made. I can’t work out how he could possibly have found out about the blog. The apparently ever-widening ripple effect? The main objection he makes is that I’m indulging myself, obsessing over my illness; he compares me unfavourably with his brothers, each of whom have had cancer diagnoses, which they’ve allegedly responded to in the ‘proper’ fashion, button-lipped and treating the condition as if it were, as he puts it, ‘a scratch on the knee.’ He also complains of being bored at times by the narrative and that I make too much of Maddy’s ‘tantrums.’ Having no children himself, and a being a singleton since time immemorial, he again measures me by his experiences of his brothers – or rather their kids, when surely everyone knows that other people’s children’s behaviour is far less concerning than one’s own. I just smile encouragingly when Rosa or Isi or any of Maddy’s other friends throw one. There are several other wounding remarks.
When I show Anna his comment, she says she’ll punch him on the nose if she ever has the misfortune to meet him. Rereading it later, I try to be objective. I did ask readers to say if they were getting bored, so I can’t complain when they do. As for the rest, I conclude from his self-complacent description of how he’s sitting outside with a bottle of wine, listening to Elgar and watching the sunset, that he must have been drunk by the time he got down to writing his piece. Let it go, I tell myself, move on. (Please folks, don’t be inhibited from criticising – I mean that sincerely – but please do so in an email first.)
Then there’s all the dross, which despite my best efforts, seems to be mounting by the day. Equity transfer documents and the lawyer’s meetings these will entail. Negotiating with USS, my university pension provider, to try to find out what’s in my (family’s) best interests given the current situation. Trying to work out the mechanism to set up a fund for the ‘Palestine Prize.’ Fine-tuning the will. Re-arranging next Tuesday’s diary so that I can attend the pre-op assessment to which I’ve been peremptorily summoned. How far I seem to be drifting from my idea of a perfect day: breathing-space to write the blog in a more leisurely fashion; breathing-space to read and listen to music; breathing-space to spend more time with friends and my beloved family. Marvell summarises where I am in his usual pithy way:
But at my back I always hear.
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Desarts of vast etarnity…
(Yes, that’s how he spelled the last line, so the long ‘a’ would slow things down, make the meaning resonate even more.) Gotta just keep going with the crap…
But all this is outweighed by the positives the two days bring. First of all, I get a great boost in terms of my concerns about (my puny) intellectual ‘legacy.’ Robert gets back to me from New York and agrees to read the Introduction quickly and, if he’s happy with it, to expedite it through the editorial process. Let’s hope that Haim and Yosefa were right in their comments. Then I get a very sweet email from the agent Clare Conville, who agrees to read the opening chapters of the novel I mentioned in the last post. She wants it in time for when she goes away next week. I’m doubly grateful. She’s not just responded positively but it sounds like she’s going so far as to add it to her holiday reading. In the same vein, my old friend Caroline Pick, from Durham undergraduate days, writes to ask if she can do a bust of me. Funerary sculpture or not, I’m hugely flattered. She did a full-size head before we graduated and it’s among the biggest regrets of that period of my life that I wasn’t able to carry the heavy, but delicate, clay sculpture away with me when I left the university. She caught my personality perfectly and it would have been a wonderful thing to have all these years. But with all the other stuff I was burdened down with, I just couldn’t see how I’d manage on the train. I’ve often wondered who’s been hanging his or her hat on ‘me’ all these years. We arrange to meet to take some photos she can work from during the preliminary stages.
I’m also boosted by further lovely responses to the blog, including one from a complete stranger, which makes me feel better about my ‘friend’s’ comment. Having issued stern invitations to ‘follow’ me, I now have several people I don’t know on the case. Two have the same family name. I wonder if one of them, or a member of their family, is going through the same thing as me. If so, I really hope this blog’s providing some help and useful information. Word seems to spreading apace. I’m getting more and more emails from people I used to know who, bafflingly, have somehow found out. I appreciate the messages but direct everyone to the blog for fear of feeling further overwhelmed.
It’s also huge fun to get the honeymoon booked at last. Thanks everyone for your great suggestions, which might become week-end destinations in the future, d.v. We’ve settled on a rather grand-looking hotel in Bournemouth, somewhere eI’ve never been. It has a stone stair-case straight down from its front garden to a beach of golden-looking sand. The receptionist promises a large quiet room with sea views. It has lots of amenities, including indoor pool and spa, in case it rains. And if not, it’s within easy range of some apparently wonderful walking, with sites like Hengistbury Head (what a wonderful Saxon name, straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel!) a short hop away. My friend Lori, who lives down there, sends us a comprehensive list of good places to eat, from funky whole-food cafes to Michelin-starred restaurants. (I think I might give the alkali diet the week-end off.) And it’s all less than two hours on a direct train from Clapham Junction. I think this will suit Anna and me perfectly and we’re both getting really excited now.
Equally inspiriting is a Friday afternoon visit from Sally (see earlier blogs) and our mutual friend Gabi. Years ago, when I lodged at Sally’s house in Fulham, Gabi lived up the road. She’s a beautiful Rumanian woman who’s been through a lot since we first met. Now remarried, her equally striking daughters grown up, she’s been working as a counsellor, part-private, part-NHS of which, ominously, she rather despairs. Generous as ever, Gabi has brought me lots of little treats, some of which are unfortunately forbidden by my new diet. Maddy, no doubt, will want to tuck in. I see less of Gabi than I’d like. The last time was for New Year’s eve. But she’s one of those people that, however long the gap, you take up from exactly where you were before and with whom you can be completely open.
Gabi: multumesc for your advice and support
Over tea, hoping to exploit her professional knowledge, I ask for advice about how to tell Maddy what she needs to know without overwhelming her with what can wait – or never needs to be told. But it’s Sally who comes up with what seems like the best way forward (see below) – and Gabi endorses it. She, in turn, drawing on her long experience with cancer sufferers, stresses the importance of ‘mindfulness’ and living in the present as much as one can. However understandable my fears about the future may be, and doubly so in relation to Anna and Maddy, she insists that worrying about imponderables will do no good. To that end, she’s brought along a c.d., ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer,’ which she uses in her practice, and offers to come back to guide me through it. Later, I align perfectly on top of the scans disk. They also offer very useful advice about the dreaded scans, reassuring me that it’s alright to feel frightened and not to feel the need (unless I really want to) to put myself through the ordeal involved to post them. I’m persuaded that there’s no need even to look at the bloody things again, let alone put them up on the blog. Nothing like very old friends to gently help one put things in perspective…
They’re finishing their tea when Anna arrives with Maddy for tonight’s sleepover. The atmosphere immediately becomes less charged as Gabi shows Maddy some video footage of daddy making a fool of himself in fancy dress on New Year’s Eve. Anna has bought a new Arna outfit for the birthday party Maddy’s going to tomorrow morning. So sweetly, she surreptitiously passes it to me, saying I should tell our girl it’s from me. Maddy’s delighted. Her nursery clothes are off in a trice and soon she’s parading round, making princessy remarks which have us all in fits.
Best of all is what happens at bed-time. She listens with real concentration as I join things up in the way Sally suggested. I begin by enumerating all the things we used to do together, one-on-one. Maddy nods solemnly.
‘Well, sausage, it isn’t because I don’t want to do them any more. You know how much I love our time together. We’ll do everything again very soon, I hope. But I’m a bit unwell at the moment, that’s the only reason we’ve stopped for a bit. Do you understand?’
She considers a moment before stepping forward and giving me a kiss on the lips, followed by a hug. I’m so moved, I feel myself about to well up. Perhaps she senses that, too, because she suddenly cracks her gorgeous smile.
Dear all, thanks so much for your many honeymoon suggestions. We’ve now settled on somewhere (shhh!), so please don’t feel the need to send in any more Lots of xx Bart
Can anyone suggest a really nice hotel or similar, preferably by the sea (or a big lake) and within two hours max train-ride from London for a week-end (8-10 May) honeymoon? Neither of like over-the-top luxury or pretentiousness, but somewhere comfortable, quirky, welcoming, reasonably quiet, with good facilities and access to good (beach) walks and a variety restaurants would suit us very well. Could be in town or country (but not too far from a station) We’ve had some excellent suggestions so far, but want to cast the net wider…
Insurance and medical concerns limit us to staying in the UK, especially with the op coming up on the 12th, otherwise we’d head abroad.
If anyone has any tips, please let me know. Probably email’s best…
If yesterday was a little short of laughs, today makes up for it (for me at least!) They begin with an early morning email from my friend Jim who finishes with:
‘Just noticed your next post, so I’ll break off here. It’s compulsive stuff: like awaiting the next episode of “Homeland”, minus the explosions.’
Don’t know why precisely, but that really tickles me and sets me on the path to a very positive mood. So keep those gags coming, folks!
It makes the more serious stuff easier to deal with. Given my ‘pessoptimist’ strategy, (remember that I’m proceeding as if I have only six months, while fully anticipating a great many more.) To this end, yesterday I began thinking a little about my public ‘legacy,’ puny though this will be. First off, I want to place what I’ve written so far of my Palestine / Israel book in journals, just in case. So I write to my old friend and colleague Robert Young, now at New York University, who edits the most influential journal in my home field of Postcolonial Literary Studies, proposing that I adapt my Introduction as a manifesto, a call to arms for PCLS to engage more whole-heartedly with Palestine / Israel. There are many reasons why it hasn’t done so, notably the neo-Zio (a label I’ve pinched from Haim, which usefully distinguishes between today’s perverted varieties and some of their more honourable historical predecessors) persecution of scholars in other fields who’ve tried to do so. In the US this has led to people losing their jobs, or being denied tenure, or having appointments they’ve been offered revoked. Still, whatever the power of the neo-Zio lobbies, it’s high time that more of us in Postcolonial Literary Studies stand up in solidarity with their victims.
Complementary to this, I make a direct approach to a very powerful literary agent, whom Richard Skinner introduced me to, to see if she’ll read a novel I completed a couple of years ago but which I haven’t managed to get anyone in the business to even agree to read. As I said earlier, the environment for literary publishing in the UK’s very hostile at the moment, as the industry faces up to the challenges of competition provided by the spread of new (self-)publishing technologies – as well as the Tory-induced recession of the last five years. If it ain’t obviously commercial, forget it – at least if you’re a newcomer. For apprentices like me, addicted to the detail and slow-burn majesty of writers like Thomas Mann and Rohinton Mistry, the odds are even longer.
Fortunately, the three of us had dinner at the Chelsea Arts Club in the last week of February and Clare Conville, of Conville and Walsh, and I got on well – not least because we discovered that we’re near-neighbours in Battersea. I didn’t make any reference to my novel, though Richard did kindly puff up the critical reception of The Setting Sun for her benefit. So now, with nothing to lose but a rejection email (you should see my file for the memoir, the moral of which is ‘if at first you don’t succeed’…), I fire off a message asking whether, in the circumstances, she could give me a quick opinion.
Together with small bequests to a couple of charities I’ve been supporting long-term, I also want to put aside some money to set up some sort of prize to encourage greater engagement with Palestine by humanities students – perhaps a reward for the best essay of the year on the topic within London University or ‘The Goldsmiths Palestine Prize,’ or something similar. Given zero interest rates, however, I can’t see how such a fund would be anything but very rapidly depleted, and quickly becoming unviable. So if anyone reading this has any ideas, I’d be grateful…
From the vanities of ‘legacy’ and the practicalities of legacies, I move on to more mundane stuff. I finish the tedious task of getting ‘Lasting Power of Attorney’ for the moment, but still have to draft the new will. Besides, I have an increasing tide of messages to deal with. News of my illness is rippling out further and further afield, to colleagues, friends of friends, others I’ve lost touch with, and so on. Some of the (literally scores of) emails I’m now getting every day make me feel bad. Perhaps I should have contacted many more people than I did with the news. But as I said yesterday, I can’t ever remember being busier, just as my energy is depleting (I estimate I’m losing 1% capacity a day at present; it doesn’t sound much, but as the days pass and so much dross accumulates… Yet I can’t just ignore people’s kind concerns. How would I feel if the boot was on the other foot?
Perhaps I’ve made a further rod for my own back by contacting a couple of cancer charities to see whether they might be interested in posting details of my blog on their web-sites. I did so on the basis that my experience might be useful to other (new) sufferers and their carers, by detailing, for example, the kind of steps one goes through, both in terms of diagnosis and how one might respond. Not to mention all the administrative drossy which has to be dealt with subsequently. A very nice message has come back from the James Whale charity that they’d be delighted to do so and outlining the services they offer which might, in turn, help me. Do I have a recent picture to front their link? I certainly do. I came across it earlier this week while I was comparing photos where I look healthy with ones where I look sh**, trying to work out when this wretched thing might have started.
Rudish health (I think) even last Christmas…
Then, while I’m looking at possible places by the sea for our honeymoon, my mobile goes. It’s Pippa from C and W, Mr Khoubehi’s Registrar, confirming arrangements for the operation in the wake of this morning’s multi-disciplinary meeting. The radiologist and oncologist have concurred with Mr K’s prognosis and seconded the way forward he proposed. I ask some of the questions I asked before and one or two others.
‘We’re optimistic about how long you have,’ she assures me, ‘but now it’s in the lungs, you have to take on board that we can’t cure you.’
I like her directness, though I struggle to understand exactly what the words signify. Does it mean they can at least spin things out for longer than six months with ‘biotherapy’?
‘I hear there’s a special event coming up, she interrupts my thoughts. ‘Congratulations.’
When I confirm, she asks if we’ll be going away after the wedding. I tell her I was researching destinations just as she called.
‘If it’s glorious beaches you’re after, I really recommend Jersey.’
It’s somewhere I’d have considered. But once she’s hung up, I start googling and soon fall on a cracking-looking hotel right on the edge of what seems like miles of beach. It’s a one-hour flight from Gatwick. Before I book, better check how events may have impacted my travel insurance. I phone the company and explain the problem. The woman who answers is very encouraging as she goes through the medical screening questionnaire. Kidney cancer is OK. Has it spread to the lymph glands? Even that’s OK.
‘Anywhere else?’
‘Into each lung.’
I can almost see her face fall.
‘I’ll have to have a word with someone.’
She’s soon back with bad news. In the event of any incident attributable to the cancer, I won’t be covered.
The result of the call is to suddenly plunge me into despair. Insurers make decisions based on actuarial science. Cancer in the lung, even if it’s kidney cancer, is evidently a step too far for them. Pippa’s warning echoes in my mind, as well as Mr Khoubehi’s assertion that they may (not will) offer me ‘biotherapy’ after the operation. Suddenly Ames’s offer to come and nurse me takes on a sinister aspect. Does he, as a trained professional, know something about my diagnosis I haven’t – or won’t – fully face up to? Is he actually coming to see me though the final stages? Before my illness, I’d certainly always understood that once it’s in the lungs, there isn’t a lot of hope – even if some of my friends insist otherwise. Am I a goner? Will I make it even to six months? For a while the questions crush me. I’m so relieved to fall asleep in my arm-chair, where I’ve been sinking into ever deeper gloom.
I wake up feeling better, a trajectory accelerated by a phone call to Anna who, not for the first time, pulls me up by the boot-straps.
‘I don’t think they’d take out the kidney and lymph if they definitely thought you only have six months. Why put you through all that and waste a month of what you have remaining doing so?’
‘I guess. But what about what Pippa and Mr Khoubehi said?’
‘He didn’t say you wouldn’t get ‘biotherapy,’ he said you may not need it for a while. Could be years,’ she emphasizes, ‘if the lungs stabilise over the next few months.’
‘And the insurance people?’
‘No-one insures cancer sufferers on standard policies. Maybe you have to pay extra for specialist cover, but loads of sufferers travel. And so will we.’
She’s right. Several of my friends have told me of such cases. I’m so lucky to have Anna at my side in this. Had I been on my own, how would I have got out of that spiral of doom-laden decline?
Confidence largely restored, I turn my attention to a series of pictures which Yosefa, Haim’s wife, has just sent. Maybe you have to know Haim, but I’m soon in fits, I find them so funny. For me, this is a new side to Yosefa, which I’m delighted to discover. This couple is going to get a post to themselves in due course. Aside from the extraordinary love and support they’ve shown me, they’re something much more old-fashioned – comrades. As well as friendship, they offer unstinting solidarity, derived in the first instance from our shared political struggles, of which more later. Sumud is their watchword and has become mine, even if I falter from time to time.
Haim and his double? Toulouse airport, 2013. Courtesy Yosefa!
I head to Anna’s for the evening. Her step-dad Jonathon and Maddy’s cousin Tara are there, tucking into what our little girl calls ‘jam cake’ (aka Victoria Sponge.) My former craving for sweet things seems to have entirely disappeared and I watch indifferently as they demolish one of my former ‘most favouritest’ treats, as Maddy would put it. Once they’ve gone, Anna produces a lovely alkali meal: avocado starter, broccoli smothered in the sesame paste which I made earlier, adapting one of Elena’s Ottolenghi recipes (mine tastes a bit like halva because I’ve used too much Manuka), a salad of chopped red peppers and cucumber. A sweet potato provides a bit of acid ballast. Is it the shift to alkali which has so blunted my sweet tooth?
While Maddy gets ready for bed, I catch myself in the mirror. To my mind, my face is undoubtedly gaunter. Illness or the new super-healthy diet? Hardy’s poem comes spontaneously to mind:
‘I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, ‘Would God it had come to pass
My heart had grown so thin…’
For many years I’ve been telling my students that you can only really appreciate Hardy’s poetry when you’re older and life has knocked you about a bit. I only began to get the full range and nuance of his tones once I was in my mid-forties. Ever since, I’ve regarded him as one of the greatest in the glorious tradition of English poetry, one of the few things which gives me unalloyed pride in my country. His alleged ‘gloominess’ isn’t that at all; it’s a kind of honey-sweet melancholy at what’s inexplicable about life but has to be accepted; and if you read him in the right spirit, he always, in my opinion, consoles. Besides he does an occasional wicked turn in black humour which I’ve always enjoyed.
Once in her pyjamas, Maddy’s in jolly teacher mode. Anna has to be her and me Edward, another nursery classmate, while she’s the ballet instructor. We ‘kids’ are taught to bow and curtsey properly, some basic twirls, and then we have to march round the flat, following our girl while she exhorts ‘Knees up! Knees up!’
‘Thank you, Miss Kirsten,’ we end, adopting the slow distinctive sing-song of nursery gratitude.
Before getting tucked up for tonight’s episode of the adventures of Kaa, Maddy presses her giant Piglet on me for company in the night. Another great honour, after getting Elsa and Arna two nights ago? Or a sign that she realises something’s up and daddy needs spoiling?
In bed, I remember how Hardy’s poem goes on:
‘For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.’
My ‘equanimity’ (such as it is), I recognise with profound gratitude, comes from quite opposite causes. So many hearts surrounding me are warm – and growing warmer; except for relatively infrequent (as yet) moments like this afternoon, loneliness is the least of my concerns. Then I remember Yosefa’s pictures and I’m quickly cackling again.
yesterday, this site had 193 visits (!!) – far more than the number of people ‘following’ me. Please, please, please, whoever you may be (the more the merrier!) help me to manage things more effectively by ‘following’ me if you are not already doing so. It’s so easy. Just follow the instructions on the April 15 post about ‘following.’
The morning starts perfectly. Maddy’s at my side of the bed, shaking me gently, quizzical face angled the same as mine, strands of uncombed blonde rendering her particularly waif-like. I’ve been dozing after reading and re-reading the myriad messages I’ve received since the ‘bad news’ post on April 20th, trying to take them all in.
‘Daddy, can I get in for a sniggle?’
‘Course you can.’ She knows she doesn’t need to ask. ‘Get right under,’ I respond, shaking the duvet over her. ‘Your arms are cold.’
‘How are my people?’
Last night she offered me not one but two of her gang to cuddle up to – Elsa and Anna (for some strange reason pronounced ‘Arna’ in Frozen; probably just as well given Maddy’s mother’s name. Think of the possible confusions: ‘Daddy, can you help me get Anna’s dress off? ‘Daddy, Anna needs to use the potty.’ ‘Daddy, Anna’s marrying Kristoff)
‘We all slept well, baby. The fox cubs behaved.’
Her face is so close now on the pillow that those huge china-grey-blue eyes are out of focus. I swim right into them. I inhale the smell of her, the best in the whole wide world, as if it’s an elixir.
‘Let’s talk about the day,’ she suddenly suggests.
It’s something we used to do at bed-time, a way of encouraging her to remember, reflect and find her own voice and ways of narrating.
‘Which day, baby?’
‘Today, silly-billy.’
Her breath is so sweet, even after a night’s sleep. When we’ve finished talking about what we might both be doing later, she gives me a kiss, before hopping out from under the duvet.
‘Mummy,’ she calls out to a sleepy Anna, ‘time to put Milkshake on.’
Once she’s gone, I start crying quietly. It’s not just her potentially unthinkable future, stomach-dropping though that is. I’m overwhelmed again by the incredible love and support in the messages I was looking at before she came in. It makes me wonder. Is it adversity bringing this generosity of spirit out in everyone? Or have I just been blind to what was already there before my misfortune? And, if so, why? How did I learn such blindness?
But once I’m up and washed, these difficult questions fade in the optimism and energy which accompanies another in this long sequence of perfect spring days. Kissing good-bye to Maddy on her way to nursery, I stride up Lavender Hill, barely aware of the gradient. It’s not long before Anna’s arrived at ‘mine,’ after dropping our little girl off. We ring Wandsworth Registry Office. By law, May 7th is the earliest we can do things. We’ve decided that Friday the 9th – four days before the operation – would be best, allowing us to slip off for a honeymoon week-end. Why does everything in life now have to be so abbreviated? The only slot they have left, unfortunately, is 9.30 am. But we accept gratefully.
‘So you’ve got exactly seventeen days of singledom left, wifey,’ I joke to Anna, as we hug, ‘don’t waste it.’
It’ll mean brunch rather than the lunch at Gordon Ramsey’s that we are hoping to treat Elena and Tim (and ourselves) to, but there’s nothing for it.
‘So where to for the honeymoon?’
‘Paris, please. Eurostar.’
If I was well, I’d be very happy with that. ‘It’s a lot of travel for two days away.’ But I’m more concerned that my insurance won’t cover a foreign trip now. ‘Anywhere in England you fancy?’
‘Brighton?’
It’s too familiar. ‘Bognor Regis?’ I’ve never been there, but the name always makes me laugh, and the place must have vestiges of Georgian grandeur.
We discuss other possibilities before deciding to consult Elena and Tim. They quite often go away for mini-breaks and are sure to know somewhere suitable.
‘Are we going to take Maddy?’
Something else to think about. I don’t think Anna’s ever been away from her so long.
Once my wife-to-be has left, I return to my desk. So much to do to get my affairs in order if I’m serious about living as though I may only have six months. Getting Anna Power of Attorney in case I go gaga. Getting her name onto the property deeds at ‘mine.’ Getting a fresh will prepared to reflect our newly honourable estate after May 9th. Transferring into our joint names any manky old ISAs which have been steadily dropping in value over the years at the bottom of my filing cabinet. Turning my threadbare bank account into a shared one. Even with the help of my legal friend Nick, who’s so kindly offered to get some of this stuff signed off for me by a colleague at his swanky firm pro bono, the list of ‘to dos’ seems endless; and I somewhat resent the time and energy they’re going to sap from me. Still, what has to be done…
Just as my resentment peaks, I get the most astonishing and amazing email of support yet. My brother Ames writes from California. I’d forgotten he’s a qualified nurse, amongst his many other accomplishments, probably because he didn’t practise long. He’s offering to come for a whole month, immediately after the operation, to take the burden of care off Anna. He reminds me that he knows what he’s doing, he’s physically strong (much more so than me) so he can shift me about if needed, enjoys cooking and even offers to do any necessary d.i.y. Does he know what he’s letting himself in for, I wonder, before bursting into tears again. Later I write back that he hasn’t made me cry since we were at kids, more than fifty years ago. I have to discuss it with Anna. I don’t want her to feel she’s being muscled out of anything to do with my care.
Big brother Ames (far right)
We do so over lunch at ‘hers,’ to which I stroll down through the gorgeous sunshine. Even dirty old Lavender Hill looks transfigured and there’s a spring in everyone’s step, including my own. I even overtake a couple of youthful dawdlers. Anna met Ames and his wife Nancy a couple of years back when they came to stay with their lovely daughter Sophie en route to Africa for a look around the old places. Sophie was awarded her PhD in big mammal ecology just two days ago. Clearly, something of Africa’s come down through her genes. I’m so pleased for, and proud of, her. They all got on very well with Anna, who’s very touched by Ames’s offer and fully sees the sense of accepting, though she insists conditions are placed on it – like paying his fare and ensuring he takes proper time off to enjoy London. There’s an additional reason why I’m glad to have her enthusiastic approval. Ames is the most elusive and enigmatic of my three brothers and over the years I’ve seen less of him than the others. Perhaps a month together will make up for that.
In the afternoon, I get back to the blog. I’m doing this the wrong way round. I shouldn’t waste the morning, when I’m at my most furiously energetic, on dross. But it isn’t dross, I remind myself. If anything untoward happens, Anna will have quite enough on her plate to deal with, without having to sort out ancient Premium Bond parchments and such like. I want to have a clear list of everything, all sorted, just in case.
Later, darling Elena drops round with a meal she’s prepared for me. Mince (which isn’t alkali), smothered in turmeric and with lots of finely cut vegetables. She’s with her new baby, Lucia, who gazes quizzically at me from her buggy. I smile at her, envious.
I eat my friend’s meal-on-buggy-wheels in the early evening. I’m staying at ‘mine’ tonight because poor Anna is back teaching at Birkbeck in the evening and Caroline has kindly offered to take over my normal Tuesday 5-10 pm teaching cover Maddy care. It’s a good job she has. I’m whacked. It’s a full-time business being ill. Can’t remember when I last felt so busy. The food is quite delicious, as I’m coming to complacently expect from Elena. But it does give me pause for thought. Mr Khoubehi told me to carry on eating normally. Should I be going any way at all down what my Californian friend Victoria mischievously (she’s a believer herself) calls the ‘woo woo’ path? Today, in Whole Foods’ extensive complementary medicine section, I overheard the woman who runs it telling a customer that Manuka honey is brilliant for fighting MSRA. My ears pricked up at one. After all I’m having open surgery and I’ll be at least five days in hospital. I ask for a jar. Ouch! Nearly £50 for the strength and size she advises. Still, if it’ll prevent MSRA…
On the one hand, The Guardian has just reported that taking nutritional supplements can actually increase the risk of cancer[1] (though it doesn’t say who, if anyone, funded the study.) Moreover, when I went into Whole Foods,’ they told me they don’t stock B 17, claimed by some to destroy cancer cells, because they’re not allowed to. On the other hand, so many people swear by these remedies, not necessarily as an alternative to conventional medicine but as complementary to it. And it’s absolutely clear on all sides that mental attitude is key to conquering the disease. So if you think it’s going to work, surely that must count for something, placebo or not? I decide to compromise. I’ll go for a 60 (alkali): 40 (acid) diet, with no chocolate (boo!), sugar or wheat. I’ll keep on taking turmeric and wheat-grass but push the Vitamin D to the back of the cupboard – it’s primarily for liver functions, after all.
And so to bed, after a call from Anna reassuring me that the class went very well, even if she’s whacked, too. It’s a real relief. I’d been worrying that the stress of being back in the seminar-room, on top of everything else, might be too much for her. On the contrary, she laughs, it provided a great distraction from everything else that’s going on.
I’m aware I haven’t offered too many laughs today. So I’ll leave you with this, from our walk in Battersea Park on Monday.
Battersea Park 20 April
‘Blue-bells spring eternal in a young man’s heart…’
I’m back, dear reader! You didn’t think yesterday’s post was the last you’d hear from me? Oh ye of little faith…
The prognosis, strangely, has made me determined to continue the blog. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so motivated if my surgeon had simply said: ‘OK, kidney out in May, then get on with normal life in July.’ Now the blog seems more than ever a life-line. Perhaps I should call it Life Lines if it ever appears in a different format? Much more appealing than His Autothanatography, by Bart Moore-Gilbert? Writing has been central to my life for so many years now that to give it up would be conceding to the tumour and its treatment. No way for the moment I’m headed back to academic writing to get my fix. Besides, this morning I’ve received a beautiful message from my dear friend Carla in Hanover, which includes the lines:
I just wanted to thank you, your blog is absolutely inspirational. In your last post, you asked your friends to stay positive and strong for you, but I must say, it is you that gives me strength.
Can’t let my public down 🙂
So, I’ve recovered sufficiently from yesterday’s news (I’m writing this on Tuesday 21st), which I so didn’t want to hear, to try to put it into some sort of context. After the apparently good omens of Sunday, I had another, in the form of a wonderful, uninterrupted night’s sleep. No sweats, no grumbling pains, only one trip to the loo and a crystal clear stream. I woke on Monday morning full of beans, somehow convinced that turmeric, wheat-grass and almond milk were already doing the trick. It was such a kicking feeling to get the last but one blog up and be caught up to the present just in time!
My mood then dipped for a moment when I opened an email from Yosefa, informing me that the Zionist lobbies are now going after The Lancet, the world-respected British medical journal, because of its alleged bias in reporting on the medical effects of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, particularly on its children?[1] How can you be ‘biased’ in discussing wounds and trauma caused by white phosphorous bombs, for example, which Israel – in contravention of international law – liberally sprinkled on the captive civilian population its imprisoned in the enclave for nearly fifty years? Or in pointing out the willful and deliberate destruction of Gaza’s pathetic medical infrastructure, including its one mental asylum, with so-called ‘smart’ bombs and shells? When I have the time, I’ve got to follow up this latest outrage and threat to free scientific research.
But I have to leave that to the side for the moment. Today’s for other things. My mood brightens again during a visit from my friend Richard Skinner. We first got to know each other at Goldsmiths, which he joined as one of the creative writing tutors. We got on well from the beginning. What I particularly liked about him was that almost from the off we were able to discuss pretty intimate details of our emotional life in a way I’ve generally only been able to do with the same lack of inhibition in the company of women friends. His great powers of sympathy and empathy have made him a very interesting writer. I was blown away by the technical savvy of his first Faber-published novel, The Red Dancer, a fictionalized rendition of the life of Mata Hari, the legendary World War One spy. Since then, Richard’s written further novels, the most recent being The Mirror, as well as a Handbook for writers, based on his long experience of teaching creative writing, several volumes of poetry and a book of essays. He’s no longer at Goldsmiths, alas, having defected to Faber to direct its Academy, which since his arrival has turned out one new published author after another and several bestsellers. On top of all this he runs a monthly programme of readings for budding writers, entitled Vanguard, which is held in a pub near where he lives in Camberwell.
Richard’s popped over to drop off a couple of c.d.s of music he’s kindly made to keep my morale up. He has wide-ranging and eclectic tastes and I’m really looking forward to hearing them. He’s also brought a copy of his latest book of poems, the fourth thing he’s published already this year! I haven’t read any of his verse and look forward to doing so. I’ve already asked one of the administrative staff at Goldsmiths to raid my office and send me my copies of my volumes of Hardy, Marvell, Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I look forward Richard alongside my all-time favourites over the next few weeks. No pressure then 🙂
We catch up over a cup of tea, traversing our usual diverse terrain of topics which includes how we’re both feeling physically (Richard’s been in and out of King’s with blood pressure problems), our affective lives, the art(fulness) of blogging, football, literature, the latest establishment paedophile scandal (child abuse seems to be systemic from top to bottom in British life, a real stain on us all for not having taken it seriously for decades) and the forth-coming election. Like Anna, Richard’s lovely partner Jacqueline has signed up to work for Labour. When I complain they’re Tory-lite, he rightly reminds me that that’s better than Tory-heavy and that however corrupt and rotten I think the whole system might be, until the revolution comes, I have to do my duty. Prevent the Tories executing the next phase of their war on the poor and disadvantaged.
Richard with his latest tome!
Richard leaves after an hour or so. Whenever we part, I’m left with the feeling that there was still so much more to talk about. However, I’ve got lunch with Anna to look forward to in the other branch of Il Molino on Battersea Park Road. We’ve chosen it because of its proximity to the park, thinking that a leisurely stroll through its spring-time finery will relax us nicely before the big meeting with Mr Khoubehi.
Lunch is fun and Battersea Park at its majestic best. It’s long been my favourite park in London, not just because of its proximity. The Thames flows down one side and it’s astonishingly varied in amenities and topographies. But today we’re here for the blue-bells and blossom – and neither disappoints. In the bright, increasingly warm sunshine, the colours are simply dazzling. I’d have missed all this if I had gone to Palestine / Israel. We spend a good hour strolling slowly round, pausing at the wonderful Peace Pagoda built during the height of the Cold War in the early 1980s, astonished at the abundance and variety of flora. (I’ll spread some pix thru this blog for ‘uplift’ and keep others for for tomorrow’s blog cos I don’t have any illustrations!)
Forsythia on fire in Battersea Park
We’re anxious not miss the appointment, so we arrive on the Fulham Road ridiculously early and have a drink and a scone in Maison Blanc. No more of this kind of stuff after tomorrow…
Then it’s the Urology department of C and W. The waiting room’s full and there’s a distinctly horrid smell of bowel which makes me pray Mr Khoubehi won’t keep us waiting. He doesn’t. We’re ushered into his consulting room in the company of a senior-looking nurse. Mr Khoubehi’s well-groomed, of middling height, in his forties, with a Middle Eastern complexion. He’s pretty brisk, which suits me, no introductory pleasantries, asking if I’m currently having any symptoms. Then he breaks the bad news I posted yesterday, going over each of the scans in turn. Anna is distraught. I feel I’m keeping keep pretty calm until I realize that my legs won’t let me get up to go over and comfort her properly. The nurse, however, is offering paper hankies and sympathy. Mr Khoubehi continues on his bustling way, discussing the alternatives and reluctantly coughing up an estimate of how much time I’ve got. Despite my legs, I remain calm, unlike when I was first told about the tumor and had to cover my face when he came to see me. It’s not such a shock to me as for poor Anna. Ever since they asked for further CT scans to be done on April 02, followed by the MRI and bone-scans, it’s been pretty clear to me that they’ve had grounds for worry. Perhaps unconsciously, I’ve built in the possibility of bad news even as I’ve continued to try to be as positive as possible. As my brother Patrick advised, ‘hope for the best and prepare for the worst.’
Could it be worse? A couple of things Mr Khoubehi says unnerve me, apart from the revelation that the tumour’s spread into the lymph glands and each lung. First of all he asks if I actually want to have the kidney out. I infer that he might be suggesting there’s perhaps no point now – it’s done the damage and I really don’t have more than the six months he mentioned at the lower end of his reluctant computations. Then he suggests that chemo and radiotherapy won’t work on the lungs, which will be scanned after the operation to check their current state. I may, however, be offered ‘biotherapy,’ he says. ‘May be?’ Biotherapy’s bad enough, but far worse might be inferred if I’m not offered it. Finally, I don’t much like what he says about open surgery. Not only will recovery time be much longer than key-hole, but there’s the risk of infection (the dreaded MSRA) and of damage to the liver, bladder and lungs from the invasive procedures. Sounds like the cure could be worse than the disease …Mr Khoubehi’s tight professional smile relaxes only when we leave his room. ‘Is that an Iranian name?’ I ask, nodding at his identity tag. Finally his eyes warm up. ‘Indeed.’ I suppose he has to say the dread things he’s told us time and time again over a several decades; and he’s consequently developed a manner which will allow him to conserve his emotional energy for the more important duties he has to perform. I appreciate his direct, no-nonsense manner. And have every confidence in his professional skills.
Afterwards, we hang around the hospital, unsure what to do. Anna reminds me that the comment about ‘biotherapy’ may indicate the opposite to what I’ve inferred, that what’s in the lungs may not be a threat for a long time. I cough skeptically. But there’s nothing I can do but wait. Grandma Caroline’s picking up Maddy and Rosa this evening so Anna can be with me. We discuss the implications of the revelations all over again but neither of us is able to add much to what we’ve already rehearsed. So we decide to head home – me to post the news everyone’s been primed for; and Anna to confer as best she can with her mother, out of the little ones’ hearing.
After winter, spring…
I head over to hers in the early evening. Caroline and Maddy’s cousin Tara are still there, but our little girl’s in a terrible strop. ‘Mum’ has plaited her hair ‘wrong.’ It’s Friday night’s behaviour all over again. I wonder where this run of tantrums is coming from. Has Maddy intuited something’s wrong, despite our best efforts to protect her? She’s a little animal as well as a little human, after all. Certainly her routine’s changed significantly recently and we no longer spend time together on our own as we used to do. I’m still too nervous about the possibility of an attack while I’m out with her. Perhaps I just have to pluck up courage and try picking her up from nursery as a first step.
Like a summer storm, Maddy’s mood passes quickly enough. She’s exhausted and lies on the sofa watching Lazytown. Soon she’s her old affectionate self. In the bath-room, she returns to one of her favourite topics, the age difference between Anna and me.
‘Daddy, you’re the same age as Rosa.’ There’s no irony in her assertion.
‘Yes? You mean I’m four?’ I’m loath to correct her.
‘I’m going to be four soon.’
‘That means we’ll be the same age?’
She nods. There’s no incongruity for her. ‘And mummy’s thirty-six.’
‘Indeed.’
‘So she should be your teacher,’ she pronounces sagely. ‘And daddy, that means you’re going to have a lot of birthdays before you catch up with her. You’ve got lots more birthdays.’
God, I hope you’re right, my little golden darling, I murmur under my breath.
When she’s in bed, I tell her the next episode of Kaa’s adventures in New Orleans. She listens open-mouthed with that wondering look I adore, as if asking herself what on earth I’m going to come up with next.
‘You can make a story out of anything,’ Anna’s told me more than once. ‘Maddy says I’m rubbish,’ she adds glumly.
‘Nonsense,’ I encourage her. But I don’t offer any advice. She’s supposed to be my teacher, after all.
We have an emotional evening once Maddy’s asleep, up and down, up and down, again going over the various possibilities, remembering questions we were too paralyzed to ask in the afternoon. But despite the occasionally dismal elements of our conversation, one thing strongly impresses me. Adversity’s bringing us closer and closer, encouraging even deeper levels of trust and intimacy. Together, all three of us, we’re going to smash this tumour, macerate it, pulverize it, liquidate it, terminate it….for once I run out of words.
oftherightkidney 