Lets start at the beginning of the end. Just like the textbooks said it would, my ocular melanoma spread to my liver within 5 years of diagnosis. My last appointment with my consultant was bleak - 80% of my liver is now affected and there's nothing more he can do for me.
"Surely, with his six figure salary and decades of tax-payer funded education, he can do more than hold your hand and say he's sorry?" says my husband. "He's not Jesus" I reply.
Thoughts on the motorway home turn to Ian Dury's Reasons to be Cheerful (1,2,3).
1. I'll never get Alzheimer's, MS or Parkinson's.
2. I'll never end up in a care home doing compulsory art therapy.
3. I won't need to depend on my children.
4. It's likely that I'll enjoy relatively good health till shortly before I die.
5. I know it's going to happen, so I can spend all my money now.
I'm already beginning to think that an early cancer death isn't really that bad after all.
Back at home, I write the usual thankyou and goodbye letter to my consultant. I emphasise the positive things (which are significant), and then give constructive feedback on how, in my view, he could have saved me but didn't. I hope he appreciates it.
Thoughts turn to The Funeral. "I think I'll have an eco-funeral" I tell my husband. "You don't know what an eco-funeral is - you just like the sound of it" he says - which is quite true. Long car journeys can be spent discussing choice of funeral music - maybe Guns & Roses 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' and 'November Rain', the Stones 'Paint it Black', Dolly Parton's 'I will always love you' or should it be something more subtle like Neil Young or Bob Dylan? Definitely not anything by Coldplay. Husband's suggestions are distinctly naff - "Crikey", I think, "I'd better put daughter in charge of the style decisions".
A few weeks later I attend the Macmillan Cancer Voices conference. Everybody there seems to be what they call a Cancer Survivor, and there are rousing stories from the platform from people who've been through every kind of cancer you can think of and have lived to tell the tale. There is so much hope in the room, it feels like Lourdes has come to Gatwick Airport. I feel like a complete fraud, and don't tell anyone what's happening to me. "What's happened to the End of Life Care agenda?" I think. "Isn't this one of Macmillan's key interests?" I slink off home to drown my sorrows in Strictly Come Dancing. I'm glad I'll never be as old as Bruce Forsyth.
