I’ve been putting off writing this post for lots of reasons. However, I now want to start writing about the impact of the news I lay out below. I can’t do this until I say the dreaded words, “I have cancer”, because otherwise the posts I want to write either become too convoluted or don’t make sense.

Back in mid-November, I started getting brutal headaches and visual disturbances. At the time I thought it was a progression of the MS. I managed to get an MRI scan relatively quickly.

I didn’t want to hear the news that I was having a relapse, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear that it wasn’t a relapse, but a tumour pressing on my brain and optic nerve.

I was booked into surgery and went under the knife within a week. For emergencies like this the NHS is brilliant. I really want to recognise all the staff who treated me. They’ve only just come out from the pressures of Covid and are currently in dispute with a government that won’t recognise how low their pay is. Despite all this, my treatment was exemplary.

I’m currently undergoing radiotherapy for 6 weeks (the subject of the blog post that has been brewing and prompted this one), and then a bit of a break before I start 6 months of chemotherapy.

I don’t want to sound panglossian, but things aren’t as bad as they sound. Or at least there are some positive things we’re holding on to. They found the tumour early. There were two benefits from having MS. First I was in the system and could get a scan relatively quickly. Second, there is a historical set of scans. A bit like Brexit, the bonuses of having MS are somewhat bitter.

As a result of the previous scans. we know the tumour wasn’t there 6 months before it was found. So I’m being treated early which makes a huge difference. Secondly, the type of tumour I’ve got rarely grows more than 2cm away from where it was found, so it’s unlikely to spread.

I don’t promise to blog regularly – there are enough cancer blogs out there already; this is one of the things that has stopped me blogging until now. However, if I’ve got something I want to get off my chest, or think I’ve something interesting to say, I will come back here.

17 February 2023