I'd been asked consistently, throughout every medical appointment, about my balance and my strength. And consistently I'd batted the question away.
I'd had sciatica before all of this started. A bad shoulder. I'd even booked myself a sports massage, convincing myself the wobbliness was muscular — something kneadable, something unrelated to whatever was happening in my brain. It's remarkable what the mind will do to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion.
But as the days passed, I couldn't keep the two things separate any longer. I was close to falling several times. The connection between what was inside my head and what was happening to my body became impossible to ignore.
We decided to phone the number I'd been given for health concerns — partly because something genuinely needed addressing, and partly, if I'm honest, just to see how it worked in practice. My steroids had finished, and I wondered whether their absence was making things worse. I called that evening, around eight o'clock.
There was no chance of a new prescription at that hour, I was told. Come in tomorrow morning for observations and an assessment. That's what we did.
By this point the children knew. On the Friday evening, after our appointment with Dr Ranatunge, Lucy and I had sat Flo and Albert down. We'd kept it as light as we could while still being honest. We used the word cancer. Flo's face showed exactly what you'd expect from a thirteen year old hearing that word about her dad — a flash of real fear, quickly steadied as we moved on to the plan. We told them about the radiotherapy, the immunotherapy, the high success rates, the strong treatment plan. We told them I'd be tired. That I'd spend a little time in hospital. That things would look different for a while. But that there was a plan, and the plan was good, and we were going to follow it.
We kept it short. We kept it calm. And both schools, I should say, were absolutely fantastic throughout — understanding, flexible, giving us the space we needed without making a fuss.
So on the Tuesday we were able to drop Albert off early at breakfast club and head into Castle Hill. Blood tests first, then blood pressure and observations, then a wait of around an hour and a half for the results.
Dr Khan — Nice Doctor — called me in. My blood test had shown high calcium and low phosphate. Almost certainly contributing to the balance issues. We'd need to restart the steroids, and I'd also need phosphate and zoledronic acid — both to be administered by drip.
How long would that take? I asked.
Six hours, he said.
Lucy and I both laughed. We assumed he was joking.
He wasn't.
It ended up being closer to seven or eight hours, with an MRI scan fitted in the middle just as a precaution. I was supposed to be running football training that evening. That wasn't happening. Lucy had to leave to collect the kids — there wasn't much either of us could do about it — and I was left sitting in what I can only describe as an incredibly uncomfortable chair, hooked up to drips, watching films on a laptop she'd brought back for me.
It was a long, awkward, stiff, tedious day. The drips were fine. The chair was not.
Around nine o'clock, our friend Adam came to collect me and drive me home. I walked to the car, felt reasonably okay, and got home in one piece.
We needed to go back two days later to check that everything had worked as expected.
It had. The follow up bloods showed that my calcium and phosphate levels had returned to normal. The drip had done exactly what it was supposed to do. I was as ready as I could be for the following Friday.
Gamma Knife was go.
