Cop a feel for Christmas
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I forgot about the cancer thing. Over the last three months, I managed to pack away the worries into some sort of personal attic. I even stopped playing the cancer card to win refunds from unwilling websites – the outcome being our back room now has a corner dedicated to clothes that will never fit and technology that doesn’t quite do I decided it promised.
It’s a New Year’s resolution waiting to happen.
And then, I found myself once more with my trousers round my ankles. A young guy with a beard told me to lie down, and it all came back to me. With a jolt.
… I was having my annual CT scan, for avoidance of doubt.
The truly brilliant thing about having treatment for cancer (go with me on this) is the surveillance. My demographic (men in their 50s, overly fond of the sofa) is prone to ignore anything but an actual limb actually hanging off. If we think we’ve found a lump, bump or anything untoward, we’ll rarely endure the deep psychological trauma of waiting for someone to answer the phone and grant access to a GP. The thought of being asked to bend over and cough fills us with dread.
But that saves lives.
My recent battery of tests – bloods, scans, health questionnaires – confirmed when the shock of having cancer dims, a team of professionals does their best to stop it happening twice. And if luck isn’t on my side and it does, they’re there at the start … when the problem involves nothing more than a few rogue cells.
I’m nine months into ten years of ‘surveillance’. The word sounds ugly, but ‘cancer’ itself won’t win any beauty contest. There’s comfort in knowing that someone who knows what to look for will keep an eye on my insides.
If you haven’t done your monthly inspection, start now. Don’t kid yourself that testicular cancer only hits younger men. There’s another statistical spike around the age of 50.
Unlike Tinder users, cancer doesn’t discriminate.
Cop a feel for Christmas.
How to check for Testicular Cancer
