Infection

So I was ready for chemo. My holiday was cancelled, my sperm banked, and the operation distant enough for me to be healed. Or so I thought on the latter.

The night before I’m due to go to the chemotherapy ward for a run-through of what to expect, I’m getting ready for bed when I notice a small wet patch on my boxer shorts. I go through the possibilities: have I done a little wee wee by accident? Nope, too old for that. Or not old enough. Have I got a little excited at something or other? The sight of a pie maybe? No, it’s not quite in the right place.

I took off my boxers and had a look at my scar. There at the bottom of it was a small area that was a little gungy. The rest of the scar had healed perfectly, but right at the bottom was a small patch of sticky clear liquid. It was hardly worth talking about. Just a tiny bit of seepage. But I instantly knew it was going to be a big problem.

I saw the chemo nurse the next day. She was Mediterranean-looking, thick accent, short and pudgy. She wittered away like a bird, constantly repeating herself. She was nervy, worried she was going to forget something. But I don’t think she was new. She seemed to know what she was doing, just that if she didn’t keep going over it, it was going to escape from the clutches of her memory never to return. She drove me mad.

She went over everything Dr Laurence had told me already, enhanced with much of the stuff I’d read in the leaflet he’d given me. She’d even go over stuff that was only relevant if I was having more than one dose of chemo, ending it with “But that’s not the case for you so that’s okay.”

Just when I was about to scream at her that I knew all this stuff already what the hell was the point of this you mad bitch, she would give me a nugget of information that was useful. Like I should use a baby toothbrush when cleaning my teeth as my gums were likely to bleed from vigorous brushing. “So I can’t use my electric toothbrush then?” I joked. She laughed but looked horrified. “No!” she squealed. “Just a baby toothbrush.”

Eventually I managed to get a word in edgeways and asked her about the puss oozing from my scar. She put on her serious face but failed to cover up the fact that she had no idea what to say to me about it. She didn’t even ask to look at it. She just said I should speak to my oncologist.

I phoned the nurse practitioner, Nurse Kathryn, and left a voice mail, trying to make it sound as innocuous as possible. I had thought about not saying anything. The last thing I wanted was to delay the chemo; I needed to get it over and done with as quickly as possible so I could get back to normality. But that need also fed my decision to ’fess up and ask them about it. If I had chemo and it made what was looking like an infection worse, then my return to full health could be delayed even further. It wasn’t worth the risk.

It was an infection. I saw Dr Laurence the next day – the day I was due to have chemo. He looked at it, took some swabs, and put me on antibiotics for a week. I was going to have to wait a whole week. He confirmed my fears – if I had chemo then there was a risk that my dilapidated immune system would allow the infection to fester and grow worse.

A week. A whole fucking week. I was angry. Angry and frustrated. To add insult to injury it looked like the day I would now have chemo was the day we were supposed to be going away. It wasn’t the holiday itself as such - we could go down to Cornwall any time, although it would have been nicer at that time of year. What made me angry was the demanding, unreasonable, inflexible nature of this illness. You dance to its tune, not the other way. There’s no give at all. I’m not used to being properly sick I guess. But if I want to beat it then I have to play by its rules. I can’t take it on and still live my life exactly the way I want it. I’ve had to put certain aspects of my life, bits that make it fulfilling, enjoyable and, if I’m honest, manageable, on hold a bit while I take care of it. And I hate it for that. I really hate it.

Yesterday I went back to the hospital for them to check my infection. It looked like the antibiotics had made little difference to me. It doesn’t seep as much I guess, but it’s still infected. Dr Laurence was more positive however. He felt it had improved enough for us to go ahead with the chemo, but he wanted to get a second opinion just to be sure and called in a urological surgeon to have a look.

It wasn’t the guy who operated on me, thank god. This guy was unexpected – a big burly man, very muscular, his hair cut in an army style. With his thick Eastern European accent he could have been a bad guy from a Bond movie. It was hard to imagine him doing something as delicate as surgery, but I trusted in Dr Laurence that this was the man to give a second opinion.

I lay back on the bed again, trousers dropped and boxers down enough to reveal the scar. I wasn’t getting my dick out again for anyone, that was for sure. He asked me some questions about the surgery and how long I’d had the infection then bent over to take a look. He pressed his meaty fingers onto the scar and pushed into it. It was very uncomfortable. He pushed some more. And more. He kept pushing until I thought my pelvis was going to snap. I cried out in agony and pushed his arms away.

“What the fuck are you doing?” was my immediate response. He responded apologetically, saying he was trying to squeeze any remaining pus out. He bent over to have another go. I sat up and pulled my shorts up. “No fucking way, you’re done mate.” He looked a bit mortified. He started jabbering away, saying he was just trying to see how much of the infection was left. I said I didn’t care what he was doing, but he should at least give a bit of warning.

He kept apologising and trying to get me to let him look at me again. I wasn’t having any of it. I’d been so upset by my last run in with a registrar that somewhere in the back of my head was a voice going, ‘Never let that happen again.’ I wasn’t a piece of meat he could manhandle however he liked and I let him know it.

He got me to try and push some pus out of my scar but nothing really came out. Either I wasn’t doing it hard enough or there wasn’t much there. I did my trousers up but he wouldn’t go away. He kept apologising, at which I would just stare stonily at him. Then he started asking me questions about children and sperm banking. Unbelievable.

“Do you have any kids?” “No.”
“Do you want kids?” “I’ve already sperm-banked,” I cut in, not wanting to get into the conversation with him. I wanted him to go.
“Did you give a few samples?” “No.” I stared at him. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll have plenty of kids.” Wanker.

He apologised again and I nodded. This seemed enough of an acceptance for him to finally leave. Dr Laurence had tried to mediate a bit during this exchange, to no avail: he’d been determined to apologise and I’d been determined to let him know he was out of order. He sat me down and said some soothing words. I told him about the first registrar and he conceded that there was a certain type of personality drawn to that job, and that they saw so many patients that in a way they lost sight of them as people.

But down to business. He reckoned the infection had cleared up enough now that by the time my immune system started to be affected by the chemo, it would be long gone. It was time to book me in. He had no spots free today – imagine that, all those people needing chemo – so tomorrow it is. Just one dose then I’m done. Sounds easy right? How hard can it be?