"It's Only Skin Cancer"

Bringing Things up to Date

2026-11-02T10:45:17Z

Today is Monday 2nd November 2026 and this is my first post in real time. It's an opportunity to slow things down after a multitude of memories competed for a place in the previous posts describing my personal experience up to this point. Perhaps...(read more)

The Fourth and Fifth Nurses

2026-11-01T13:51:05Z

I met the fourth and fifth nurses less than 48 hours later. They were a double act and deserve a special mention in this story. They were the theatre nurses whose wonderful compassion kept me going through one of the worst ordeals of my entire life. ...(read more)

The Plastic Surgeon

2026-11-01T12:23:17Z

Surgery on the skin leaves obvious scars, hence the involvement of a plastic surgeon. My son came with me to the appointment the following morning and the third nurse met us with the good news that the surgeon would be able to see me. He seemed in a ...(read more)

The Third Nurse

2026-11-01T09:23:14Z

I visited the clinic several times and usually found it busy. The reception staff were front and centre of visible operations and the coffee in the waiting room was superb. Behind the scenes, the back office staff were always hard at work. Based in a...(read more)

The Third Dermatologist

2026-10-31T11:14:31Z

My first contact with the private dermatology clinic was in the middle of August 2026 when I emailed some initial queries to them. There was no mention of a lab on the website and I wanted to clarify their arrangements for the analysis of biopsy samp...(read more)

Waiting . . .

2026-10-30T09:34:51Z

As everyone knows, the NHS is in a mess in all four countries in the UK. Too much demand and too few resources. Aside from 'resus' care, there are even waiting lists of several days before assessment in some A&E departments. The power-sha...(read more)

The Fourth GP

2026-10-29T12:03:53Z

By the end of January 2026 my four months on Solaraze had proved ineffective and I therefore phoned the surgery and requested the promised Efudix. I left my call until late morning so that the receptionist could hear me. She mentioned the third GP ha...(read more)

The Third GP

2026-10-29T09:54:17Z

By this point it was October 2025 and as I waited in the surgery for my dermatology review with the third GP I reflected on our previous encounter almost a year earlier. On that occasion, I'd requested an appointment to discuss my colorectal heal...(read more)

The Second GP

2026-10-28T10:43:41Z

The rest of 2023 went by in a bit of blur because I left England to join my son and his family in Northern Ireland. What a beautiful place it is and you wouldn't find friendlier folk anywhere on this planet. Then 2024 left me equally dazed but I ...(read more)

The Second Dermatologist

2026-10-26T09:54:23Z

The next NHS letter I received came as quite a surprise. It hadn't come from the bots. Instead, I'd been given a Dermatology outpatients appointment, where presumably I might even encounter an actual dermatologist. Things were looking up. Was...(read more)

The Second Nurse (again)

2026-10-24T11:12:47Z

The bots must have been keen to see me because I had an appointment with the second nurse in no time at all. The small hospital in the rural market town was just as quiet as I remembered it. I checked in with Reception and took a seat to watch the wo...(read more)

The First GP

2026-10-24T10:13:01Z

The new year started off well but when the euphoria of my new scalp wore off I spotted some imperfections. A couple of months post-Efudix and I wondered if it needed a repeat performance. I'd registered with a different GP practice that was close...(read more)

Efudix

2026-10-23T09:55:47Z

I think that Efudix, the chemotherapy in a tube, isn't as readily available nowadays as it was in 2022. In their letter giving me my diagnosis, the bots had mentioned the treatment was going to hurt and I needed to keep going for four weeks. Apar...(read more)

The Coordinator and The First Dermatologist

2026-10-21T12:27:14Z

A few days later the electronic prescription from my GP whizzed through cyberspace to the local pharmacy and I was able to pick up the Efudix. According to one of the links I'd been sent by the bots, this magic cream was going to sort everything ...(read more)

Actinic Keratosis

2026-10-21T10:53:38Z

By this time I was intrigued to see what else the bots wanted to help me with, so I had a browse through some of the information they'd sent me. What about my diagnosis of actinic keratosis? AK to those in the know, but not to me. I still couldn&...(read more)