Take care!

[Retrospective: 18th June 2004] Four days after the operation, Mr. Smith comes to see me. The full biopsy on the lump of muscle he's taken out shows that it's not cancer! Instead the lump was something called Myositis Ossificans which is steadily turning one of my leg muscles to bone. I can't quite believe it, they got it wrong! Whatever it is, it's not life threatening, hurray! Now that the muscle has been removed and I've been prescribed a course of weapons-grade anti-inflammatory drugs, apparently I'm cured.

Then what? Well, I'm discharged on Friday and D's parents pick me up from the hospital. There's a slow recovery to get through first. I'm on crutches for several weeks because I can barely move my left leg, but who cares?

For a few weeks of my life, my own personal event horizon moved horribly close, and although I'm not sure that it's the kind of thing everyone should experience, it has led to some extraordinary developments in my life. Just over a year onwards and it's possible that the process has only just begun. The main effect so far has been to brand the message on my soul...life is precious and I must make better use of every day!

If you haven't had children yet...don't! It's unbelievably hard. I'm not talking about giving birth because I'm a bloke. Obviously that bit must smart a bit. No, I'm talking about the bit after the child is born, when you have to keep it alive, clean it and feed it. I'm talking about the bit when you have to wake up one-hundred and twelve times every night for two years to keep it alive, clean it and feed it. There simply isn't any way to describe that feeling of crushed exhaustion to you if you haven't been through it, and for a long time, you get very little back.

So, why did I allow D to talk me into having three children? Of course one of the main reasons is because I love her so much, but also, somehow, it all becomes worthwhile. "No!" I hear you shriek, or "You've gone soft in the head!" Can it really be that I've allowed cold, hard, implacable logic to be driven into hiding by sheer woolly-mindedness? Why would anyone voluntarily choose a life of poverty and exchange nights out for nights up, swap holidays for more-looking-after-children days?

Actually, yes. I have gone soft in the head. Fatherhood has changed me, and the first inkling I got that a huge mind-shift was underway was a few weeks after our first child was born. Have you seen that drawing of an old witch? The one that, if you squint at it for long enough looks like a beautiful woman. Suddenly, you realise that some people are looking at the world from a totally different perspective. Until that moment, I had never understood why countless artists through the ages have wasted their time painting the Madonna with baby Jesus in her arms.... HUGE yawn! But then I saw D, holding J in her arms, gazing down at our little child with a look of absolute, planet crushing love; the kind of total, all encompassing love that only a mother can ever experience. So finally I got it! These guys had been using the subject of Madonna and child, but what they had been trying to capture was that moment when the bond of love shines stronger than a thousand suns.

The other big clue that my brain had melted is this...you know the film Aliens? The one where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) goes back for the kid, facing certain and horrible death to rescue a child that isn't even hers. Well, I must have been twenty-two or thereabouts when I watched that, and to me, that scene was ridiculous. "Get the f*#k out of there!" I screamed from row H. It just stretched my credulity too far. I knew, with absolute certainty, that faced with the same situation, I would have saved my own skin.

So now here's the really scary bit. Now that I've got children of my own, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would go back inside the alien nest to rescue them. Furthermore, I'm pretty certain I'd even do it for someone else's children.

[Retrospective: 14th June 2004] I'm lying on a hospital trolley and the nurses are wheeling it towards the operating theatre. As we reach the doors, D grips my hand tightly; she's very brave. Big fat tears roll down my cheeks and I try to say "I love you" in a bold voice. It comes out as sobs, then the trolley rolls into the prep room.

For three days as I lie in bed in the hosital room, I think what the consultant said when he phoned me the Saturday before, "It's cancer." I wonder if when he's going to come back and tell me about the chemotherapy course. I want to know what kind of cancer it is and what the prognosis is likely to be, life expectancy etc. I want to know how many of my three childrens birthdays I will see. I wonder at all the things I wanted to do but hadn't got around to yet.

I also think about the wonderful things that I have seen and experienced. D is the most wonderful person in the world to me and I've been so lucky. I have three children and I am humbled by the wonder of seeing them grow up to be seven, five and two. It's been hard at times of course, but so rewarding. I've snorkled over coral reefs. I've been rock climbing, canoeing, windsurfing, white-water rafting. I've read some great books and seen some wonderful films. I've got some fantastic friends. I've visited Hagia-Sofia in Istanbul and seen the ruins of Ephesus. This is beginning to sound like Rutger Hauer's swan-song in Bladerunner! I've been skiing. I've overflown Angel Falls in Venzuela and trecked up a river gorge into the foothills of the Ayantepui. I've seen the street markets in Thailand and the Philippines and smelled the tangy, earthy aroma of the food stalls there. I've been bungy-jumping and I learned to ride a unicycle.

Perhaps (as Roy Baty says) it's "Time... to die!"

Americano from Caffé Nero this morning and it's good! It's sunny and the busy smells of London conjure up images of happy people waking up to a day full of potential.

It's not really relevant whether it will happen to you or not. What you should try and imagine is that it has happened to you, after all, cancer strikes one in three of us apparently. So try harder, close your eyes and see yourself lying in a hospital scanner, the hum of the powerful magnets and whir of the motors, the scent of hospital cleansing products. You can't be certain, but suddenly, the world of possibilities that lay ahead of you constricts.

How important will the petty concerns at work seem to you? Will you be bothered by the fact that you can't afford a five bedroom house? You're still alive, and maybe, when you get to the other side of this illness, you'll breath deeply of the still morning air, close your eyes and listen to the birdsong. Perhaps, you'll breathe thanks that another wonderful day has dawned for you to experience.

Imagine if you woke up one morning with a lump somewhere in your body. You see the doctor and after tests, it seems you have cancer.

There's a wakeup call! What have you been doing with your life, 'cos it might just be over. You haven't climbed Machu Picchu, you haven't been water skiing, you haven't told you children that they are your sunshine, you haven't told your parents how much you love them.

You might be cured. You might not. Just now you don't know, and you don't know how many more of your children's birthdays you will see.

Rage at the world and if you believe in God, rage at him or her! It might not do any good. This might be the beginning of the end.