Wednesday and Thursday passed in a blur.
Following the advice of people around me, I spent much of those two days doing things that felt simultaneously necessary and surreal. I sorted out a Lasting Power of Attorney. I updated my will. I built a document listing every password, every login detail, every account — from savings to the kids' gaming devices — so that Lucy would have everything she needed, whatever happened. Morbid doesn't quite cover it. But responsible does, and responsible felt like the only gear I had available.
I also started a critical illness claim. It turned out I was eligible, and if the paperwork came together, it would provide meaningful financial support — not just immediately, but potentially long term. It could even cover private physiotherapy if I needed it down the line. One practical thing at a time.
Friday arrived.
We dropped the kids at school as usual. They still didn't know the full picture. We didn't want to tell them anything they couldn't hold yet — not until we had something concrete ourselves.
Our appointment with Dr Ranatunge was at 10:20am. We arrived in good time and made our way to the Oncology Department. Like the Acute Assessment Unit, it had its own particular atmosphere — though different in character. Some people there looked further along in their treatment, perhaps a little more settled, a little more positive. Others were clearly right in the middle of it, visibly struggling. I didn't feel like I belonged there. I didn't feel ill — not really, other than the weakness down my left side. I didn't feel like I had cancer. And that disconnect made the whole thing feel even stranger.
We were soon joined by Sharon, who had been there on day one. Dr Ranatunge offered to take us through the brain scans.
I was reluctantly keen to see them.
There they were. Six lesions. Two slightly larger than the rest — one around 1.8cm, positioned near the optic nerve behind the left eye, and one around 2.3cm near the motor cortex at the top right of the brain. The other four were smaller. Dr Ranatunge explained that the larger lesion near the motor cortex was almost certainly responsible for the weakness on my left side. It was significant in size, but at 2.3cm it still fell within the range that radiotherapy could treat — the upper limit being around 3cm.
The recommended treatment was something called Gamma Knife radiosurgery. A highly targeted form of radiotherapy, to be carried out in Sheffield, that would deliver a concentrated dose of radiation directly to each lesion — aiming either to kill the cells entirely or to cause a clot that would cut off blood supply and prevent further growth. The success rates were high. She wanted to start as soon as possible.
Following that, I was told that I was both young enough and healthy enough to be considered for double dose immunotherapy — a combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab. The principle behind it was remarkable to me: rather than attacking the cancer directly, immunotherapy works by unlocking the body's own immune system, which doesn't currently recognise melanoma as a threat, and teaching it that it is. Training it to seek out and destroy the cancer cells itself. Less a cure, more a biological education.
I had half expected to be told I'd need chemotherapy. The idea that these treatments existed — that this was what modern cancer care looked like — stopped me in my tracks.
It made me think of 2012, when I ran the London Marathon and raised just over £2,500 for Cancer Research UK. My motivation then was two of my closest friends — Kate and Owen — both of whom had lost parents to cancer. John was around forty when he died. Jane was in her early fifties. Both of them were extraordinary people who had shaped my life in ways I hadn't fully appreciated at the time.
John was the reason I support West Ham. He used to take me and Owen to matches when we were growing up — coaching us, encouraging us, getting us into the Beatles along the way. One of the warmest, most generous people I've ever known. Jane was my head of year at school — one of those teachers who genuinely sees the person behind the pupil.
I ran that marathon for them. For Kate and Owen. Little did I know that fourteen years later, the money raised might in some small way be contributing to the treatment now keeping me alive. I choose to believe it is.
The rest of the appointment was harder going.
Dr Ranatunge and Sharon moved through the potential side effects of the treatment in careful detail. Immunotherapy, in rare cases, can cause the immune system to turn on the body's own organs — rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, other autoimmune conditions. When I asked about the percentages, the answers were consistently below one percent. The lesion near the optic nerve carried a small risk of visual disturbance — not blindness, more the kind of thing that might eventually require glasses.
I understood why they had to cover all of it. I genuinely did. But it felt, at the time, like an oddly counterproductive conversation. There was no version of events in which I was going to decline immunotherapy because there was a one percent chance of developing diabetes. The alternative wasn't something I was willing to entertain.
I left the appointment feeling like I had a good plan but had endured a difficult meeting. Realistic, measured, thorough — all the right things. But I found myself craving something I hadn't yet found: someone who would look me in the eye and tell me, with genuine conviction, that we were going to go after this.
That person, I'm glad to say, would come the following week.
