The Positive Side of Cancer Part 9 – which nostril Sir?

Seven weeks after the RT finished http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=87 I am back at UCH for a CT scan, Ultrasound and Laryngoscopy. The CT scan is done again at the “polo mint” machine. I take my shirt off and lie down on the bed which is raised to the level of the hole and am asked if I have any metallic objects, as these can be deadly with the strong magnetic fields around machines like this. Smoothly I slide into the big mint until my neck is at the innermost edge of the opening and I see whirling bits spinning round. A little amber light comes and a recording of a lady’s voice tells to me take a small breath and……hold it. The bed slides out and I am told to breathe normally. This is repeated and after checking with a huddle of people in a tiny room next door, the operator tells me the images are OK.

I am guided round the corner to Ultrasound where I take off my shirt off again. The doctor puts the gel onto the sensor first one side then the other. The readings are all there from my previous scan and I am spared needles in my lymph nodes. I ask if he can see anything but am told that as the larynx in men is heavily calcified, he cannot see inside – that will have to be done with the laryngoscope. Things look OK and after worrying about missing my appointments, I find myself with an hour to spare before my final one.

This is in an older building nearby and two doctors from my team are busy with the general clinic. My weight is unchanged and I am given a small sticky tab with the figure on, to give to the doctor who sees me 10 minutes later. This is another doctor I have only met briefly at the start of my treatment and he asks me if I would mind if he shows a new colleague how an examination of the larynx is done. First, I am given the local anaesthetic by spray “which nostril was it?” and told to inhale. Thoughts of any jokes about Bill Clinton swiftly disappear as the awful bitterness of the anaesthetic hits the back of my throat. I have to spit out some phlegm a couple of times.

Standing in front of me, the doctor picks up the wormlike implement and in we go again to my left nostril. As the colleague has not done this procedure before, she and I are given a roller-coaster guided tour of the inside of my head with live commentary. “Right, here we go….that’s the septum there on the left….then we go in a couple of inches….past the bottom of the Eustacian tubes…..along the floor of the nasal passages….and I can go two ways here…up or down into the dark space….Now we want to go down into the dark bit, so if I hold it up….and….we are going down…there’s the Uvula – the dangly bit.” Other bits of my throat get mentioned but no tonsils since I had them out at the tender age of 5 – and “yes, here we are at the back of the tongue and….I am not in the epiglottis….” It is both fascinating and surreal, like taking your driving test while watching the film Fantastic Voyage http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060397/

When we reach the larynx, I try to keep as steady as possible as I can feel the worm inside my voicebox which makes swallowing uncomfortable. My throat is still tender and my voice is still hoarse. A couple of times I want to retch but I know it is important for the doctor to have a proper look and I manage to avoid bringing up my late breakfast. On the third retching fit, the worm is thankfully removed and I am told that the tumour is no longer visible.

My progress seems good but my stamina is still down and they seem slightly surprised when I say I am working 3 or 4 half days a week. My next appointment is made for November and I meet the voice therapist again who says he will contact me to arrange an appointment.

My next appointment is at The Institute of Directors in Pall Mall with the friend I mentioned in my earlier blog Insurance for Business http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=91. He wants a seven-figure sum to make a media purchase and makes a very good pitch. The principle of my friend paying an upfront fee to get any concrete help from the people I introduce him to, has already been agreed in advance, so the meeting goes well. However, they cannot proceed without a business plan. At this point, I mention that expertise to write business plans is widely available and it turns out that he could get a mutual friend to do it anyway.

Meeting over, we take a short walk down Pall Mall to the Reform Club, a place I have always wanted to see. Like the Travellers’ Club next door and the Carlton Club round the corner in St James’s, there is no plaque to tell you that you are there. There is a number but that is all. The logic here of course is that if you are the right sort of person, then you will naturally know where it is and of course, it helps keep out the riff raff as Basil Fawlty might say. Standards of dress have to be maintained of course, which in our case means that gentlemen must wear ties. Before I can point out neither of us have bothered with this, my friend informs me that the club thoughtfully have a supply of them which forgetful members and guests can borrow, for their visit.

The Reform Club has many politicians and writers as members and during the year there will always be a few articles in the Press where journalist x casually slips in that he has had lunch with politician z at this famous institution. Few members are there today, so I do not see any politicians I recognise and no huddles of people exchanging gossip and rumour – next time maybe.

Looking across Carlton Gardens from the first floor of the club I recognise one of my old offices from my banking days – my first proper job. Then I worked for Lloyds Bank International before getting promoted and sent up to the City Office then in Queen Victoria Street. One thing I never forgot there, was seeing snow in London on the first day of June. It only lasted minutes, the sun shone two hours later but it snowed in June in the days before global warming became an everyday topic of conversation.

The day finishes with dinner with my daughter and her Italian fiancé at Al Parco (2, Highgate West Hill, N6 6JS near Parliament Hill Fields) with its lovely thin crust pizzas.

They are eating out as she is representing her college at a consultation the next day called Building Bridges about integrating refugees into the workforce organised in parallel to similar initiatives from the Mayor of London. Her original job was teaching medical English. It has not just been a case of showing them what to say, more how to say it, as there have been some very interesting cultural differences. From only teaching refugees, her role has now been expanded to cover all types of health professionals that wish to work in the UK.

Regarding the wedding which will be in Italy, I am told that part of my speech will have to be in Italian as few of my future son-in-law’s family speak English. But Italian weddings do not have bridesmaids or father of the bride speeches either it seems, so it will be an interesting mix of cultures. Although we all attended church regularly when the girls were young, attending Italian church weddings of various cousins recently seems to have put them both off having a church ceremony altogether. It is customary for the priest to deliver a talk to the couple after the vows have been exchanged, but in Italy these seem to last around 40 minutes and are very traditional. With my daughter, the last straw seems to have been a comment along the lines of “the silent woman is the perfect one” which even made me smile, and is a reminder that Italian priests do not marry.

It seems I pay for all the above activity next day as I have no energy and spend most of the day in bed in a series unrefreshing naps. My energy levels only perk up in the evening after I make myself a salad with a dressing of flaxseed oil and balsamic vinegar sprinkled with nuts and buffered Vitamin C – thanks again Dilys.

During the week, I view on-line the two programmes by Richard Dawkins The Enemies of Reason about alternative medicine shown on Chanel 4 a couple of weeks ago. http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1556,Enemies-of-Reason,Google-Links I find myself in a bit of a dilemma here. On the one hand, my life has been saved by conventional medicine and very high technology while on the other hand my own father’s life after his cancer and RT, was extended by 16 years when conventional medicine offered a rather brutal surgical solution which offered only a 50:50 chance of success. When my father said that he preferred to examine the complementary medicine route, his own GP agreed saying he had nothing to lose.

I like the programmes but find Richard Dawkin’s attitude rather dismissive and the people featured who practised complimentary medicine do not put their case very well. I get the disctict feeling that his main gripe is the lack of testing in non-mainstream medicine rather than whether it worked or not. If this alternative medicine switches on a self-healing mechanism, then what is the problem?

No mention for example, was made of the late Harry Edwards who became a world-famous spiritual healer with thousands of documented cases where he cured people conventional medicine could not help. His work carries on http://www.sanctuary-burrowslea.org.uk/ and Patrick Holford the nutritionist, would have made a good adversary too www.patrickholford.com Each programme is about 47 minutes long and of course, one never knows what was edited out.