“What are you doing here?” rang out as my oncologist and I walked across the foyer of the treatment centre. The enquiry came from a nursing acquaintance who had not expected to see me. It was an unanticipated visit; my blood levels were accelerating skywards. My oncologist quietly answered for me - “Sailor’s been misbehaving”. Later that day, unsure as to what would happen, what tests were to be done, what treatment would be offered - that statement rankled. It seemed my cancer had returned, that was not my fault, I was not guilty. I had not been misbehaving! Three years had passed since my initial treatment, everything had gone well - as far as I was concerned I was well on my way out of the five-year square and into survivorship. Sure my blood marker level had gone up, but then it came down. There was a term for it, “the bounce”. If you had that it was a good sign - you were into long-term remission, some would even whisper that forbidden word ‘cure’. Yet there it was, the blood levels reaching for the moon, if not the stars. It was not my fault, I had done everything asked of me - good diet, taken all my pills as prescribed, exercised regularly, been positive - no, I had not been misbehaving! Some years later I re-read some of the works of that dilettante, lawyer and divine, John Donne who bridged that transition from Elizabeth I to Charles I, and ended as Dean of St Paul’s. He married his 17 year old bride without her father’s permission and was flung into the Fleet prison, where he inscribed the words “John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone” - at least we know how he pronounced his name! Towards the end of his life he wrote “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions”. Hemingway used one of these in the title of his book “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. My cancer is not foreign to me for nothing has invaded me. It is my cells that are aberrant, not another person’s, not a bacteria, not a virus. I am not battling an invader, so metaphors that belong to the military are not appropriate. What is growing in me are Sailor’s cells - they have changed, mutated, forgotten how to stop growing, but their DNA is my DNA. If my heart misbehaves and stops, will not I stop? If I my leg is cut off, will I say I fought a battle with my leg? No it is part of me that is lost and I am the poorer for it. If my brain misbehaves and I become demented, will not people still address me as Sailor, and perhaps say, “Poor Sailor, he used to think a lot”? For there will still be a flicker of me left in the husk of a body. I cannot separate Sailor from the myriad parts of me, the millions and millions of cells that in some mysterious way form me. So if some of my cells changes and mutate and do abnormal things, is it not me who is doing those things? My cancer is now part of who I am. It is not foreign, but truly it is part of what makes up Sailor. In a sense I have become my cancer and my cancer has become me. So if my cancer misbehaves, is it not me misbehaving? Yes, Sailor was misbehaving! Sailor No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne ... View more

What a statement, and that coming from an oncologist! 2004 was not a particularly remarkable year. Two thirds of the way through I sacked my surgeon, retained my radiation oncologist and found myself in the hands of a medical oncologist. Somewhat of a surfeit of oncologists that year – nothing remarkable about that. That year I decided that the Good Lord was clearly an architect and not a plumber. Only an architect would run the main drain something that could enlarge and block things. Any plumber will tell you that they have a machine that goes up drains and unblocks – ouch!! That was not the reason I sacked the surgeon – he was a good plumber but had the people skills of a demented cockatoo. My first surgeon was a wonderful gentle person with great people skills. Listened carefully, took into account what you told him, considered your lifestyle and situation before proposing treatment. Unfortunately he died of cancer and when the drain stopped flowing I had to find another one in a hurry. Two years before I had been to see gentle man on Easter Thursday, clutching a CT scan, vomiting, hallucinating and in pain. The vomiting and hallucinating were from pills the GP had prescribed to cover the pain while I had a scan and got to see the specialist. It was then I fully realized how I just don’t do opiates. But, there it was – a big ugly lump of tumour pushing up and blocking off the kidney. Result, excruciating, paralysing pain, too awful to want to remember. Chemo to shrink the tumour then my radiation oncologist judges me to be suitable for experimental treatment. Seventy hours flat on my back connected to a machine that danced a tarantella to a drum beat every-hour. People came in and fussed over that machine. Checked all its inner workings. Made sure that the ‘hot’ bit of it was safely in its lead kennel, except when it was in me. Then it was running up and down the tubes inserted under anaesthetic that had worn off. They had put me out to it, to wake up later in this pale room, hooked up, an extension of a machine. When the machine did its drum beat was when the lead lined walls of the gated room ensured that I kept my own company. Nurses, faithful nurses came and rolled me every fours hours and rubbed my back and bum with lotion. Sometimes the gentle night nurse would use baby powder – sensuous and soothing. Bags of fluid ran into my veins and out through other tubes into a drainage bag. Volumes in and out carefully recorded for posterity Specialists had dreamed this up, computers had done calculations, technicians had set it up, nurses had been trained, physiotherapists had advised – a team had worked and planned this - for me! Two years later demented cockatoo had ordered another scan which eventually found its way to my radiation oncologist. The big ugly lump of tumour was no more, disappeared, vanished, as if it had never existed. Sailor, you are remarkable, was the comment. No I was not remarkable, but that team of people were – everyone of them. Sailor If you want to build a boat, do not instruct the men to saw wood, stitch the sails, prepare the tools and organize the work, but make them long for setting sail and travel to distant lands. ... View more

At long last results arrived Dorovitch did not send to specialist Specialist 'phoned! Verbally undetectable Written results were waiting On arrival home quite late, late enough to take taxi! Written undetectable. All other test within normal limits Some things a bit low or a bit high but acceptable! Perfectly acceptable. Sailor They that go down to the sea in ships: And occupy their business in great waters; These men see the works of the Lord: And his wonders in the deep. Psalm 107 ... View more

Sitting by the Thames, behind me the brutalism of Scott's Bankside power station. It is a warm autumn day in London. Twenty four hours earlier I had sat in the humidity beside the Singapore river, drinking beer and watching the bumboats talk tourists past the old warehouses. In London the old warehouses were no more - gentrified, reconstructed,chic - as in docklands in many old cities. Thriving activity; proud technology of another age had all gone - where? Still in London the barges throbbed up and down. To what destinations? The beer in London, still the measures of another age, tasted good, as good as it did in Singapore those twenty four hours ago. Behind me the power station had also been gentrified and become the Tate Modern. The mighty cathedral to past technology was now the stunning gallery of all things modern - well, whatever that might mean. To me the highlight was the Epstein's - mighty pieces of stone turned into fantastic figures, beautiful, sometimes haunting, evoking powers from another age. Yet they in their time had travelled as sideshows to a circus. How could you keep your integrity and that of your work when it was treated with such disdain? I hope that never happened to 'Ecce Homo' standing now outside the Cathedral of Coventry - that squat haunted figure constrasting the height and grace of the archangel Michael in the glass of the epinonymous building. Then the bookstore and the discovery of the 'Atlas of Experience', mapping the human condition. Sitting in the warm sun it was good to be alive. Six months after salvage radiotherapy, in a time when you could dare hope that you might be cured. Life was simpler then. It was another country. Sailor The past is foreign country, they do things differently there. L P Hartley ... View more