I thought I’d split chronology with brief interludes to keep it fresh. So these stories are actually in the future, SPOILER ALERT

The (moderately) funny side of cancer:

hopefully you didn’t need to be there!

So as you’ll find out:

Firstly, my subcut syringe driver is in a plastic box similar to those waterproof disposable cameras you can get. On my birthday I was eager to get up and look sharp, so went showering for the first time without a relative. Asked a HCA to help me get my T-shirt off, handing her the driver. She then left the room and I got into the shower…. as expected… washed and dried. Went back to my bedside the driver was flashing and the battery was changed after 15 minutes it completely packed up. My nurse was in shock she’d spent most of the day before finding an available syringe driver. A “playful” blame game started when I told them I’d been in the shower with it, I did explain that it’s in a waterproof like box (Similar to those waterproof disposable cameras you can get.) they weren’t having any of it. It was the last in the hospital, due to my biopsy at midday I needed the pain relief, they had to get a taxi from Sutton around 9 miles away to get another one, thank god people pay their taxes.

On Tuesday a few of my old colleagues from Croydon were here as well as my brother, and some more friends. Not to name names but a friend and a huge fan of the ABG came in . After chatting for a while he noted that my hands were rather blue. I thought he may be lining me up for a bit more practice. But I compared them with my twins and they really were blue, brief panic, “P.E. P.E. P.E” rang in my head, but my hands were actually blue and not cyanotic. SW suggested we compare it with my feet. Was this a little known side effect of dabrafenib!?  Then someone pointed out that the bandage around my cannula (I’m not demented it’s the Marsden way apparently they don’t use tegaderms) was also blue. Then I looked down the bed linen was a shade bluer now, my new jogging bottoms my parents had got me for lounging around hospital were spreading cyanosis.

Last but by no means least, and definitely the darkest. So my Dad raced into the day room here on Burdett Coutts ward when the prof swooped in to see me on day one. All my relatives eyes were on the Prof and all the medics on me. Little did I know on the other side of a pretty small octagonal room, my Dad was having major chair issues, he’d side on the recliner chair which we didn’t know moved at the time, and he was slowly but surely being tipped forward while I was been given my prognosis and Dave frantically trying to help him find the control for the undomesticated chair. It was like Mr. Bean with a dark humour twist.