17th December

Another milestone: to the shops without pad, wary of any subterrannean trickles about to start, especially in the biting cold. Unsure whether these pads are more like babys' nappies or, for one wild moment, codpieces, since they do bulge out the front - ironic, given the inactivity within. Maybe like codpieces, but not so much a fashion statement as a protective device, which presumanbly they were as well.

Patience, patience - not for nothing are we called patients. But that seems to apply to anyone caught up within the NHS anyway - friend P's oncologist never has his notes, at latest visit, despite encouraging news about his tumour markers shrinking as a result of chemo, had to try and remember when previous visits had taken place and what antibios he'd been given, for c difficle that in fact oncologist now says the signs of in last stool test had disappeared. Thomas Stuttaford in todays Times points out that while the UK has outstanding individual doctors and research and treatment, we lag behind in league tables fro outcomes because pople get diagnosed late and there are delays before treatment as well; one might add, there ar also problems after diagnosis and treatment, the back-up seems haphazard, and must be so often near disatrous when you don't have a partner to battle for you. As P and I have.

In fact, as I said to myself at an earlir stage, when I was worrying over the possibility that I was riddled with cancer, I feel privileged, having wife and two children who care; not to mention friends who also think of me and are warm in concern. Even GH, surgeon from across the road, who is more an acquaintance - they come for a drink maybe once a year - called round with a bottle of Glenmorangie last night, breezily asking after me, and saying three fingers of that every night would see me right.

Maybe it would help me sleep - still wake three times a night, and go for a pee, M thinks it's old deep-seated anxiety of childhood, fear of wetting the bed. Certainly some of my memories have been going back a long way, not just to my illness-traumas, the blood-soaked bedclothes of when I was 5, or the drugged crawl along the floor when I was about ten, both instilling a permanent sense of suspicion about anything others, maybe even especially those close to me, recommend will do me good. Memories of father in hospital at the end, and of stepfather in his largactyl-filled last weeks, sliding his slippered feet backwards and forwards, smelling of urine, his eyes overlarge, his mind nowhere that I could tell, until he suddenly said as I explained I was leaving 'have a good trip'.