Blues

21/10/10

Lots of travel in the offing - just been to Italy for the D Telegraph and they want to send me to Toulouse in early December. Also have Venice on the horizon for Private Banking Magazine. Physically I have no sign of cancer in my blood or on the last scan. I should be really happy now, but the doctors have taken away my hope.

My GP was so concerned about the views of Mr Agerwall, who told me that the chemo was unlikely to work, that he rang the hospital. He Spoke to a doctor today who said only a tiny percentage of people don't go back for more chemo and it is likely to come back within six months! This is worse than Agerwall who said within two years. How does one live with this? They don’t give any advice.

Doctors like to speak of ovarian cancer as a "chronic disease," no one ever seems to get completely cured, that would be tantamount to a miracle.

I don't look forward to a life like where chunks of the year are taken up by intravenous drips and nauseating drugs and how many rounds of chemo can they give before they call it a day I wonder?

This illness or rather the threat of it, seems to highlight that part of my life which has been a complete failure. I spent years worrying about not having a man, aching for love, yearning for a mate, “my other half,” envying people their weekend breaks and companionable summer hols, now that tumour on my soul has been replaced and largely shoved out by ovarian cancer in the groin. One nail drives out another nail, so strengths by strengths do fail – as Shakespeare put it, in his pessimistic play, Coriolanus.

The future looks bleak; no choice but to live from day to day to day, not looking ahead or envisaging the future and not looking back to such a short time ago, when life jogged on in a normal, hum-drum way, and there is no way this situation will ever change.