The Art of Waiting...

Since last week I've been waiting for the results of my CT scan. This is the last scan that I'll have before my operation, which I think will happen in a month's time.

I've decided that CT machines were probably designed by an engineer who really wanted to be a special effects guy on a Hollywood blockbuster. No, strike that. Maybe he once was a special effects guy, lost his job, decided to retrain, but couldn't let go of his dream. I say this because every time I enter a room where there's a CT scanner, I suddenly feel like I have the lead or supporting role in a 60s science fiction thriller. First there's the control room, which often consists of a glass cubicle, a sea of knobs and buttons and a human being dressed in scrubs staring intently into a monitor. All is white, all is man-made. From the circular white tube with its inner revolving, red flashing lights to the computerised voice that orders you to start and stop breathing, there is nothing like a bit of surreal technology to remind you of how serious your illness is.

I often think this as I lie on the narrow, tissue-covered bed and watch the radiographer insert the canula into my arm. When I feel the warm liquid course through my veins, followed by an intense feeling of warmth and wetness around my tummy and groin area, I think of all the interrogation scenes that I've watched on TV that start like this. As the machine moves across my chest towards my stomach and I try and try to sychronise my breathing (so that it stops and starts at exactly the same time as the strange woman's computerised voice) I wonder what this scan is seeing. Will its results change my life forever ? Will I look back on this day and wonder how blissful ignorance can be ? My mind doesn't stop chattering away like this until the needle is removed from my vein and I'm free to go.

And then there's the waiting.

The other day I watched a film called 'The Bucket List' with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Both are exceptional actors who can often turn a mediocre script into a masterpiece. Yet both were struggling. The film-makers' idea of a cancer patient was someone with a bald head who spent most of his time crouched over a toilet bowl. Where were the anti-nausea drugs ? When films or books depict the experience of cancer, most focus on cliches like hairloss, terminal illness, vomiting and being bed-ridden. No-one mentions the sheer boredom of cancer. The days and weeks of waiting - for results, for scans, for operations, for doctors to see you, for the 'all clear' ... I could go on. I guess it's not easy to portray the experience of waiting. After all, who would pay good money to see this ? But beyond the baldness, here lies the true experience of cancer - but what do I know ? I only have the disease...