At my first Thursday meeting with the doctor and dietician since the sessions stopped, I present my log of the painkillers I am taking as I have been forgetting what I have taken and when. My sleep patterns have been all over the place for weeks and I never sleep for more than 3 hours at a time, typically going to bed after 2 a.m. – a bit like being a student again. What wakes me up is the pain in my throat and I have to sluice it out with saline solution and then drink plain water – feeling normal takes about 5 minutes. I am asked to describe this in more detail – the mucous is clear but on a bad morning there is a lot of bright red in it. This is par for the course after having my throat cooked apparently. As I am on the maximum doses, I am given morphine as an addition but as this is a “controlled substance” the dosage is written out in words and figures and I have to sign for the bottles when I receive them. This brings the number of medicines I am taking to 5 – two painkillers, an anti-inflammatory, a gloop to line my throat before eating plus now the morphine to be used when the others are not sufficient.

I have lost weight – 2 kilos and they are not pleased. The effort of my system dealing with the RT increases my need for food calories by about 50 per cent so if I eat a normal diet, I will lose weight and the effects now seem at their maximum. I am given some more saline solution to sluice my throat and some high-calorie meal drinks of about 1,000 calories each.

Along comes the weekend and constipation is now a real problem rather than a mild annoyance. I drink a lot of water and stop eating and end up drinking a half pint of olive oil. I decide not to visit my daughter for Sunday lunch which I had been looking forward to very much. Eventually, it all clears early Monday morning and I spend Monday and Tuesday doing very little and hardly eating. I find out that I am not the only one to have this problem during cancer treatment. That Sunday is the worst day so far. I don’t bother with any painkillers and hardly notice the discomfort in my throat.

By Wednesday, I can think about eating and decide to catch up on my CPD (Continuing Professional Development). I spend 4 glorious hours going through anything and everything on pensions which leaves me exhausted. At least when I get back, I will be the most up-to-date adviser in the office but my voice may take longer to recover than than I thought.

My next Thursday meeting shows another 3 kilo weight loss and the doctor is worried. I have reduced my intake of painkillers and only take the morphine when I go to sleep but am told to take the two painkillers regularly to provide a background level of comfort and just to take the morphine when I sleep or when needed. Alarmingly, I am reminded that the painkillers and the morphine cause constipation so I am now given another medicine to cure that! I have been eating healthily and over the weeks, several people have remarked unprompted how healthy I look. However, while the proteins and vitamins are obviously sufficient, I need to increase the calorific content seriously and basically buy stuff I don’t like very much or that is really very healthy – life seems stange sometimes.

As an antidote to my cancer journey, I will leave some fascinating nuggets from the pensions study I mentioned earlier:

* a common question I get is “should I contract out” of S2P (formerly SERPS)? The concensus seems to be “No” as some insurance companies refuse to take this business any more, some like Norwich Union are unilaterally contracting their clients back in and some actuaries say that the the NI rebates need to be about 50 per cent higher for Contracting Out to be viable. It seems a strange way to encourage people to save for their pension and is another pointer that the State Pension will be means-tested at some point.

* The rate of return that the Government assumes when taking savings into account for Pension Credit purposes is over 10 per cent p.a. and where paying for care is concerned is 20.8 per cent! This is much more than the rates offered by the Government’s own National Savings http://www.nsandi.com/interest-rates/index.jsp?ccd=NEGIAA If I could offer these returns to my own clients, I could retire very soon myself.

* Staying with National Savings, the maximum holding for Premium Bonds is now £30,000 and the Annual Rate used to calculate the prize pool goes up to 4 per cent per annum on 1st August. This increases the odds of winning a prize per £1 unit from 24,000 to 1 to 21,000 to 1.

* The Pension Protection Fund imposed on the industry to protect people whose Defined Benefit schemes are insolvent actually has no State guarantee and is currently in deficit with an increased projected deficit for 2007/2008 of £675 million.

* Funds in an Alternative Secured Pension which are passed onto the next generation on death of the pensioner, will pay tax at a rate of 82 per cent so the much vaunted Family SIPPS is effectively dead. Old Labour is alive and well it seems – IHT is “only” 40 per cent by comparison.

* The current State Pension Age (SPA) of 65 is due to increase in stages to 68 under the Pensions Bill 2006. This is too little too late as the SPA needs to be increased by about a year each decade just to keep pace with increases in life expectancy. See my previous blog on Pensions and Bismarck http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=30

I am taking a short holiday in Germany, so back in two weeks.

The buzzing stops and I hear footsteps – my 33 RT sessions are over. The mask comes off and I can see again. Feeling like a turkey that has changed its mind about Christmas and climbed out of the oven, I get up off the bench and walk over to the mirror. I put on some gel as a one inch strip across my lower neck from collar bone to collar bone. This stings a bit at first but it forms a protective barrier against infection, should the skin crack and break. For the skin which is not so red, I use the larger tube of Aqueous BP which I put on the 5 inch square patch centred on my Adam’s Apple.

My dose of Greys has been administered over 6 and half weeks but it will be a week or two before the side-effects start to subside. It is also Friday 13th, a date which has usually been good for me. On the way home, my throat gets sore and I am sipping water all the time. As a parting gift for the completion of my treatment, I am offered my green mesh mask which has kept me in position on the bench – it will make an interesting trophy for the wall at home.

I will have some reiki healing by my sister who is a master practitioner. Interestingly, this can be done remotely, so I will be in Muswell Hill while she will be in South London and should take about an hour. She has recommended a course of several weeks.

After that, another daughter has a steak lined up for a family dinner. I won’t have any wine as it still tastes funny – something I found out on Fathers’ Day.

It has been a strange and interesting journey. I have got used to people with red patches on their faces, people coughing up white sputum or retching in the loo, and shy ladies with headscarves when they have lost their hair. The kindness and professionalism of the doctors and staff has been heart-warming as has the good wishes and help from three lovely daughters, family, friends and colleagues. There have been e-mails from other cancer patients who have had their treatment and got on with their lives again – like this one http://my-bladder-cancer-journey.blogspot.com/ I am told that I have coped well but I feel sad for those who seem not to be so lucky. Once I pass a young guy in a wheelchair in the corridor with target marks on his neck who is being comforted by a lady – he cannot be more than 20. Sometimes I see a little girl with a bald head who seems sad in the midst of her family. I try to cheer her up when I am leaving, as her sessions are usually after mine.

The feeling that the worst is over does not last long. On the last two journeys back home, I notice that the irritation from the RT kicks in sooner. Sleeping becomes more difficult and the 3 painkillers do not last the 6 or 8 hours they are supposed to at the maximum dose I am on. I have got myself a spittoon for when I am in bed but dread getting up in the night with a sore sticky throat. On two nights, rinsing out my mouth with a saline solution results in a coughing fit with a lot of bloody mucous. I am also forgetting when exactly I have taken some of the medication so start writing down the exact times. The increasing discomfort feels a bit ironic at times with the get well messages that assume that now that the RT is over, the recovery will begin immediately.

Eating is no fun. As the mucous is sticky, some food particles inevitably stick to the back of the throat. The natural reaction is to cough and then spit these out. Not a problem if eating alone, but rather embarrassing in company and I have to turn down one dinner invitation. The following week, I can only eat sloppy mashed potato and yoghurt. One food I have been able to enjoy all the way through is…….raw eggs.

The only visible improvement seems to be in the skin on my neck which is now a uniform deep crimson rather than two shades like a week ago. The skin has aged a lot and is baby smooth – no need to shave there.

On a lighter note, it seems I have many months to prepare my father of the bride speech so that should give me plenty of time to get my voice back. I must not get back to using it a lot too quickly, if I want to avoid permanent damage to my vocal cords. But as long as I don’t have to do the speech with PowerPoint or sign language, I will be happy. And there will be a few days in August with my brother and his family in Germany, which will be a very welcome break.

Wednesday finds me at one of my favourite networking groups www.3Cscommunity.com hosted by solicitors Collyer Bristow www.collyerbristow.com in Bedford Row or solicitors’ gulch. The normal format is rather like Dragon’s Den with three or four pitches and time for questions but this evening it is an open meeting with contributions dealing mainly with killer business plans.

The first speaker is Martin Tate of Decision Evaluation Ltd who quotes many sources and two books any budding entrepreneur would do well to read: Ruthann Quindlan’s Confessions of a Venture Capitalist and Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start. Colin Allison a former assessor at 3i and co-founder of 3Cs also spoke about these and both offer checkists. If anyone wishes to get funding for an existing or new business please contact me for details.

Common mistakes in business plans include:

a) no figures at all – just blurb

b) lack of research. A simple market analysis using Kompass would show what competitors are in the market already. A lot of information is available at Reference Libraries, for example. There is little point in investing lots of time in a presentation and business plan when the service or widget is already available from Argos at £14.99 – this has happened

c) no disclaimer on the front page stating that the document is intended for wealthy individuals and sophisticated investors only. Omission of this is a breach of the FSA rules.

d) quoting irrelevant statistics e.g. the market for xxx in the USA is US$ 5 billion a year when your first years figures are in £000 and your business is in Essex

Another common source of error is market research of all things. The Sinclair C5 electric car was launched with very strong market research and was a disaster. Tesco.com was launched against the advice of other leading market reseachers – they just listened to their customers and have never looked back. See http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=book&op=tv&file=mms://www.qmsstreaming.com/e2004/enjan04johnbrowett.wmv

Depending on the type of project, the ratio of accepted business plans to plans seen, varies from 1 in 25 to 1 in 400. In 3 years, 18 projects presented at 3Cs have received funding which is much higher than the average. One of the better known ones was James Barnham who appeared on Dragons’ Den which I wrote about last year http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=59

The interval is quiet for me as I can barely whisper. As a result, there is no point in my going over to the pub afterwards to continue networking.

I have just two treatments left and the effects are certainly cumulative. I seem to sleep a lot but wake up feeling as if I have swallowed a spoonful of sand. Unfortunately, a quick gulp of water makes things worse and causes a coughing fit. The only way back to a wet mouth is to gargle very carefully with saline solution for a couple of minutes until the very sticky mucous has been sluiced out. Then I can have some small sips of still water and feel normal after a few minutes. Now I take my medication every six hours and take all four together – I really can’t be bothered to wait for the food to take with some of them. If I forget to take my medication, the discomfort in swallowing soon reminds me. One of the nurses gives me some special dry mouth toothpaste and a very soft toothbrush which helps alot.

The skin on my neck has settled down except for two hotspots on my collar bones where the skin is bright red – the parts of the target area furthest from my voicebox. The other red patch above this and round my Adam’s Apple is baby smooth with no whiskers at all. Tuesday evening leaves me too tired to go to ceroc after I got home, so instead I play one of the CDs which I have loaded into my laptop.

Then like an angel appearing out of nowhere, I receive some wonderful news – one of my daughters is now engaged – so I had better start working on my father of the bride speech.

Thank you Suzan St Maur of ecademy http://www.suzanstmaur.com for the tanning room bit. Emerging from the tube, I battle my way past the free newspaper distributors and enter the hospital after passing a row of between 1 and 20 smokers outside the hospital. One day I meet two lost American tourists who have somehow ended up at Warren Street when they wanted to get to the FT building in Southwark? I suggest a tube and then a taxi ride.

The lift takes me to the Basement two floors down and after buzzing, I am let in. The receptionist knows me by now and he taps on his keyboard that I have arrived. A few minutes later one of the radiographers, calls my name and we have a long walk to the scanner which for me is usually the one right at the end of the corridor – it reminds of of an airport where your plane always seems to be the farthest one away. Sometimes I am sent straight in, but usually I wait for the previous patient to come out and there is one couple I have met a few times now.

Every day, upon going in the the actual scanner room, I am asked my date of birth and my address. In case I forget these essential details, they are invariably displayed on two screens so anyone could read them out. Why anyone would want to submit themselves to this treatment instead of me is baffling and the mask which holds my head in place would only fit an identical twin anyway. One wall of the room is filled with shelves where the individual masks, head cushions and wedges are kept, rather like you would expect Madame Tussauds’ workshop to be.

Since my voicebox is being radiated, I strip off my shirt and vest and lie down on the bench which can be moved up/down etc. I have a red pad with blue putty for my head and another block under my knees which keeps my body still. For some strange reason, the set up reminds me of pictures of the space capsules of the 1960s – maybe it’s because I always wanted to be an astronaut…..

After 5 weeks of RT, the skin on my neck is raw and two colours of red like the contours in an atlas for land below sea level. Some clingfilm is put over this and I get a tissue for my eyes. The mask is clipped on which means I can see nothing but hear OK and holes have been cut for my nostrils and mouth. The bench is then raised and moved toards the scanner. A strange little dialogue then goes on between the radiographers “I’m a bit supe/post/ant” or whatever as minor adjustments are made to my position next to the scanner.

This bit of kit takes up the whole of one wall and apparently costs about £1 million for the basic machine. Extras include an imager and a collimator which controls the shape of the beam. This can be any square or rectangular shape as there are two sets of shutter leaves which can be adjusted. The collimator also has “feathers” which can further adjust the shape of the beam from the basic shape according to the treatment being given. A stream of electrons aimed at a heavy metal produces the radiation beam which is then bent by magnets and the size of the emerging beam is adjusted by the shutters at the output end. The beam diverges and can be made to cover a small area or the whole body if necessary. In my case, the treatment is every weekday, but it can be 3 times daily which of course makes the treatment period much shorter. The philisophy seems to be largely governed by how much the patient can take and how likely they are to be affected by its side-effects. My own side-effects are the red skin and my voice is now a whisper.

In my early sessions, I tried to count how long the doses were and mentioned that the time seemed to vary slightly. The actual dosage is measured in “Greys” and the machines are recalibrated each morning. These space age machines surprisingly are affected by the weather i.e. changes in humidity, temperature etc so the time required to deliver each fixed dose varies.

Apparently, children tolerate cancer treatment surprisingly well, which reminds me of my swimming teaching where children often learn more quickly and adapt more quickly than adults.

Once my bench is in position, the radiographers tell me and disappear round the corner. The walls are lead-lined and as radiation travels in straight lines, these units are always built with bends in the access routes so nobody would get zapped in the corridor in the event of an accident. Once I am in position, the radiographers go round the corner and set off an alarm which lasts for about 10 seconds.

As it is a Monday, extra images are going to be taken. I hear a buzzing noise on my right for about 2 seconds as one image is taken and it goes quiet. Then from somewhere higher up is a louder buzzing which is the first dose and lasts about 20 seconds. During this buzzing, the imager is being folded away which is another whirring noise. Right side done, the unit swings round to the left and I get my dose and picture from that side. There is no sensation while being radiated, the effects appear later. My treatment is veiwed from the control room and I am the only one who cannot see anything.

A short while later, I hear the patter of feet and the huge clips on the facemask are released. The bench is still a few feet off the floor so I resist the urge to jump off until it has been returned to its original position. By now, I have got quite used to the mask as the team said I would. Then I can carefully put some cream on my neck and go home – these days wearing a cravat rather than a tie. It makes me look like a retired thespian but some people say it suits me – what are friends for after all?