Buenos días, this is Elda Hospital

Last June, that’s June 2023, I went to the doctor and said that I had the sensation of a lump in my throat. She felt around a bit, said it was probably nothing, but asked for a consult with a specialist from Ear, Nose, and Throat. In Spanish, that’s otorrinolaringología, and I’ve already got into the habit of saying otorrino, so that’s what I’ll probably use from now on. The request for the consult was ordinary priority.

It took nearly a year for the otorrino to see me - May 28th this year, in fact. He shoved a camera up my nose and down my throat and recognized the potential for throat cancer straight away. He dropped some pretty broad hints to me as well. Doctors though, very seldom, give bad news until their experience is backed up with test results. He set the ball in motion. He ordered an MRI scan, a resonancia, and things started to move. 

For the resonancia, the thing where you lie down in a big tube that makes a lot of noise while you try to stay stock still, the state system bumped me down to the IMED private hospital to speed up the process. That happened on June 26th, and I went back to the otorrino on July 18th. He had the results from the resonancia then and he showed me the images - lots of little tadpoles and shapes moving around on a screen - but he didn’t have the technical report to go with the images. Even reportless he knew what he was looking at. He told me that the otorrino department had some pre booked slots in the operating theatre for biopsies and that he would get the biopsy done on July 31st. Before then, I had to go to the specialist centre in Elda for blood tests, an ECG to check my heart and a couple of x-rays. In fact he booked those simple tests in for the next day, the 19th. A few days later, on the 23rd, I was back with the monocolour pyjama people for pre-op stuff, to talk to the anaesthetist. She told me that my blood pressure was high - dangerously high. I started to worry that my brain might spring a leak before the cancer got me. The blood pressure problem opened up a whole new swathe of appointments at the local health centre which have been running alongside the cancer stuff. Now I take blood pressure tablets.

The biopsy was on July 31st at Elda hospital. Despite being a small operation it was done under general anaesthetic. I had to take off all my clothes, put on some sort of over-feet covering made from a blue plastic sackcloth and a sort of shower cap as well - also blue. I was expecting one of those gowns that are open at the back but instead they gave me some sort of plastic underpants to wear - maroon coloured I think. Then I waited, for what seemed quite a while, my modesty and saggy belly, covered by a white sheet. In the next bay a young person screamed bloody murder. Eventually I was wheeled to some operating theatre. They put a mask over my face and the next thing I knew, Maggie was by my bedside, and I was back where I’d started. They said I could go home. I chose to get dressed first.

The next day, I met the otorrino again. He explained that the meeting had nothing to do with the biopsy. It was simply that he was going on holiday the next day and he had just got the resonancia report which showed some sort of abnormal growth, not only at the base of my tongue but also in a lymph node. It was time to pass me across to oncology - the cancer people. The unsaid became said. He stressed that it was still possible the biopsy might show the growth to be benign, but his experience told him otherwise, and that if he didn’t set things in motion before he went on holiday, it would delay things by weeks.

I went to oncology on August 14th. The doctor seemed like a solid sort of bloke. He made it very clear that I have a malignant tumor at the base of my tongue, at the entrance to my throat, with some extension into the lymph node on one side. He outlined a treatment using radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He described the horrors that this would entail - the vomiting, the closing up of my throat, my hair falling out, etc. He told me that I would be unable to eat, and so they would put a catheter in my stomach so I could be fed directly. He told me how I would lose hearing and may well go deaf. He managed to explain, without brutality, that small things like mouth infections and particularly infection around the catheter could be life threatening. The best bit was yet to come though. He explained that the treatment, with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, was about a potential cure but there was a corollary to that. If the cancer had spread, then the radiotherapy would be pointless, and instead of looking for a cure, they would simply be trying to hold back the time that I would die.

And that’s about where we are. I’m going to talk to the radiotherapy people about their treatment, which is going to be every working day for the whole of September. I also have to speak to a dietician, presumably to talk about how to keep me from starving when I can’t eat by putting things in my mouth. I’m also waiting for the date for the TAC, CAT scan in English, the test that will show whether there is metastasis, whether the cancer has spread to my lungs or bones for instance. I’ve talked to the ambulance service about taking me down to Alicante every day, and I’ve told a few people how this is all panning out. Now I’m telling anyone who reads this blog.

At the moment, it’s all unreal, of course. I feel no worse today than before I first mentioned this to a doctor thirteen or fourteen months ago. They have not yet attached the leeches, poured poisonous chemicals into my veins, or zapped me with lethal death rays. All that’s to come. I can’t actually imagine the horror of it all. I can't imagine how this is affecting Maggie but I did write a short email to the town hall asking what the process is for getting married. The grim reaper will reap but maybe the taxman can be held at bay for a while. And still, there is the possibility that the TAC will show that the reasons I’ve been hobbling and grunting when I bend my arm too much is because I have cancer in my bones. Then the radiotherapy will be pointless, and I’ll be on a more certain and quicker road to the death that awaits us all - our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Not that it's exactly a plus, but I am getting to see lots of medical installations and talking a lot of Spanish, both on the phone and in person. Although I suspect that my language learning may soon be terminally truncated by forces beyond my control.