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‘Fuck.’ ‘I’m so sorry.’ ‘Is there anything we can do?’ My most frequent response to this is: ‘Don’t lose touch.’
17 February
    The great thing (there are so many!) about having cancer is the retail therapy. I had my Christmas-money-copy of
Pink Moon
on when
Made to Love Magic
arrived. It’s like having a rather talented but otherwise monosyllabic older brother busking in the drawing room. I played it the morning of going to see the consultant, suddenly spooked by Drake’s barehanded admission of his need of others. ‘Black Eyed Dog’ didn’t exactly improve things later on. I’m still glad to have it around, though. That Larkin thing about a good poem/song about despair being better than a bad one about happiness.
     
    Last night we lay in bed reading the literature on the study I’m being invited on. Its title is ‘A Multicentre randomised clinical trial comparing Rituximab and CHOP given every 14 days with Rituximab and CHOP given every 21 days forthe treatment of patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.’ Pithy. Acronym: ‘R-CHOP 14 vs. 21’. Basically they want to know if the life chances are better if they nuke you every two weeks, compared to the more standard three.
    Even if I’m in the trial, I still may get it every three weeks, as they have to have a control group. And it’s a computer that picks me, just like on Goal of the Month.
    It’s a chilling list of side effects:
    sore mouth
    diarrhoea (mild)
    nausea and vomiting
    low blood count (increased risk of bleeding and infection)
    loss of head and body hair
    numbness or tingling sensation in hands and feet only
    Well, not so chilling actually. But that’s just the CHOP effects. Rituximab takes it to a whole new level:
    fever
    chills
    headache
    achy muscles and joints
    itching
    redness of skin
    nausea and mild drop in blood pressure
    Most of these go after the first treatment – phew – or start to decrease. They were at pains to tell me if the side effects are really bad, then they have drugs for those too. I pick up my first patch of anti-uric-acid tablets today.
    The thing which scares me most is knowing that to get better I am going to have to feel shit for a while: a long tunnel approaching, the sides of which your headlights don’t fully illuminate.

18 February
    Sitting propped up in bed while Tatty plays with her new mobile. There’s a lot to be grateful for. Wes and Allie and baby Olivia passed through last night with fizz and hugs and banter. And finally a good phone call, Gill, the Research Nurse at Haematology, saying yes I have been accepted onto the trial and it will be every two weeks instead of every three, making the treatment more intense, but shorter. We got the diary out last night and I put luminous green C’s and R’s on the days of treatment and recovery, two weeks apart. If all goes well the chemotherapy (CHOP) finishes on 2nd May and the Rituximab on 30 May.
     
    On the way back from hospital from our meeting with Gill we passed an old-school electricity station on a side alley, with yellow warning signs of flashing lightning. Next to it, in plain black felt tip, another sign in clear handwriting: ‘The Door to the Other Life.’
    ‘Weird,’ said Tatty.
    ‘How did they know?’ I said.
     
    Gill said the hair might come back curly and a different colour.
    ‘As log as it isn’t red,’ I said.
    ‘You never know,’ she deadpanned.
     
    Tatty describes the Haematology unit as like being in the business class waiting room at an airport. It’s very hushed, with curvy walls of different colours, a yellow one meeting a blue, and the chairs are a kind of mottled pink which probably goes under the name of ‘frosted heather’. The magazines are better quality, too: no Heat or Angler’s Monthly; it’s all Country Living and SAGA. I was reading the latter as we were called in for our first chat with Felicity. It was an interview with Ned Sherrin, who said the three