Apologies one and all. My blog has of late become a woefully abandoned and unfrequented phantasm of it’s former self. I intend to address the issues by posting less “eye-bleedingly” huge posts in favor of shorter commentary post haste. However, today indulge me if you will and I will spin a yarn about a subject rather more sedate than my usual aimless ramblings.
Let me tell you about how I had cancer for 24 hours. Or if you prefer less of a tabloid sheen to it how I feared I had cancer for 24 hours. I am thoughtlessly ruining the punch line for you all right here by telling you that I don’t, in fact, have cancer.
So yesterday lunch time the school nurse approaches me, and contrary to her usual “cheerful- in-the-face-of-anything-complete-with-bad-English” demeanor she very gravely explains to me in Japanese that I have to go to the hospital for an X-Ray and CT scan because the people at the Wakayama board of health say something was amiss in my yearly X-ray. I think, like most people who have had some experience with smoking, it is understandable that the first thing that popped into my head in big red letters was; CANCER! They always said it could happen to you! And you didn’t believe them! Fool!
After a minute or two of reading the irritating letter and the even more infuriating instructions that said “details of inspection in envelope: not to be opened by anyone other than a Doctor under any circumstances”, I calmed down and realised, I’m young, relatively healthy and basically a non-smoker bar a 3 year variable blip and the occaisional blip elsewhere. But even so, I have never been a 20 a day man. However, it’s still not awesome news, and the fact that I was the only member of staff to not come back clean suggested this wasn’t a hugely common occurance, so the thought of cancer was never far from my mind. Helpfully, the nurse made me an appointment at the local hospital for the following day, and wrote a letter for me to take with me to save any misunderstandings (something I’d usually stubbornly battle through myself, but considering it was potential cancer I figured I would err on the side of caution).
So today I trotted down to the hospital and waited for my CT and X-ray to be taken ….and waited….and waited… and waited. It’s true, waiting is by far the worst part. Especially when no one is willing to venture an opinion, the best I got was from a nurse who had seen the “mystery letter of doom that I wasn’t permitted to open” was that we would definitely need an X-ray at least (it’s always difficult to know where to put the italics in Japanese speech, I’m still not sure which parts are being stressed and what those nuances are). Eventually I get ushered into a room and chat to the doc, my blood pressure and heart rate are normal for a guy who’s scared shitless he has cancer and the Doc can’t feel anything obvious from around the area, but it still could be early stage cancer apparently, on the lower part of my right lung. The fact that it’s treatable if it’s caught early doesn’t seem like a huge consollation prize – small graces be damned, its still cancer.
The merriest part of the journey was the CT scan, if you’ve never had one, it really is just like the movies, it’s a big expensive looking circle machine that makes you feel like “Shit. If they’re using this I must be pretty fucking sick“. Whilst making me feel like I really did have some serious illness it also at least felt like I was throwing money at the problem to make it go away.
So anyway, after more waiting and X-ray visits the Doc says: “Nothing to worry about, you have a scar on your lung from where you had a bad cold or a chest infection and that’s all, we’ll take the blood tests just to be safe but there’s no need to worry”.
When I think about it, I know there are a hojiilion and one things a shadow on an X-ray can mean, and given my family has no history of cancer there wasn’t really much cause to be concerned. But, if I can be melancholy for a moment, whilst I was sitting waiting to find out if I had cancer, it made me think a lot about mortality and taking care of myself. What was just as bad was sitting in a room of people who really did have cancer, seeing the despair and pain it was causing them. Without meaning to give into hyperbole, I swear you could honestly see the worry and fret etched into the faces of those suffering from cancer (one at least was suffering from lung cancer as I overheard the discussion from the Doctors office). On top of everything else, the one thing that kept ringing over in my mind was “All this could have been avoided for god knows how many people by the simple act of not smoking” .. just not doing something, not even doing something.
I think my point is, whilst I don’t have cancer, I could have done. Until you are faced with the reality of it up close and personal, it all seems like “something that happens to other people” and it’s not possible to understand the terror of it all. This is almost certainly coming over far too melodramatic, but if you are a smoker, I would very much like you to stop, and I know A LOT of smokers. You really don’t want to put yourself through the pain of waiting to find out (nor others around you). If you are feeling any of the symptoms, don’t do what I would do and leave it alone in the hope it goes away, get an X-ray. In fact, get an X-ray anyway, as a smoker you should get yourself checked for that shit, you catch something like lung cancer fast then it can be dealt with, go when you’re coughing up blood and it is much less likely. I don’t care how “live fast and die young” your personal philosphy is, it’ll still scare the holy fuck out of you.
This was all epiphany and shit.
Stop smoking!
