Author: Richard Epworth

Brain operation booked for Monday July 31st, with high res scan a few days earlier. I’m delighted with progress.

Today I met the neurologist at Addenbrookes hospital, Cambridge, and he suggested (and I agreed) to surgically remove the main tumour. I will soon have another MRI to precisely define the location & shape of the tumour, followed by surgery in 2-4 weeks time. The tumour will then be biopsied to determine the subsequent treatment.

This is good progress within 15 days of my initial diagnosis. The steroids have dramatically reduced the symptoms, so I currently have reasonable mobility.

Monday:

Frightened by my worsening condition, I booked an emergency MRI scan on my lumbar spine at a private clinic in London, and with Lavinia’s help I took the train. The scan was quick, and I had the emailed report by the time we got back home. I was exhausted!

I had expected the report to identify which spinal spur or disc was pressing on the nerve, and hence which would have explained my symptoms, but none was evident. It was suggested that a spinal surgeon might spot something missed in the report, so I urgently booked to review the scan with one for the Thursday.

Tuesday:

Some time ago I had booked to attend The Human Mind Conference, 27-29 June at The Møller Centre, Cambridge, and had been very much looking forward to it. So despite my increasing difficulties in walking, I took the train and a cab to the first day of the event. The talks were excellent, all broadly supporting the ideas in my book Bottleneck – Our human interface with reality. Walking round the venue was difficult however, my conspicuous dragging foot making noisy squeaking sounds as it scraped along the polished floor. I was clumsy and slow, and must have appeared odd to many.

What has happened to my writing?

A Break-out session had been arranged (to discuss important areas for future research). Each group of half a dozen delegates sat round a table with lists of topics on which to score and comment. As I attempted to write I was shocked to see that my usual untidy script was almost completely unreadable, and my hand began to shake unusually. One of the group suggested that we needed a scribe for the flip-chart, but that their own writing was too untidy so we needed a volunteer. At this point everyone else, including me, insisted that ours was worse, but I clearly had won the race to the bottom that day. I enjoyed the interaction but was very disturbed by my inability to write, based on the assumption of a trapped nerve in my lower back.

By the end of the day, I felt too exhausted to join the arranged meal, and set off home on the train, dragging my heavy foot. I had a scary encounter in an otherwise empty carriage, with a very drunk hoodie with Tourette’s syndrome, who shouted a sequence of aggressive obscenities until staggering out of the train at the stop before mine. It was probably fortunate as my exhaustion might well have made me sleep and miss my stop. Reluctantly I decided to abandon the remainder of the conference.

Wednesday: Alarm Bells:

By now my medically knowledgeable friends who had read the spine scan report, and my son, were all urgently persuading me that I needed to see a neurologist, and that it might not be a back problem at all. To Hell with the expense, I managed to book an appointment at the local private hospital. Very fortunately the Dr. was able to see me straight away. He quickly confirmed that it was not a spinal problem and immediately sent me for an MRI brain scan. So two hours later all was revealed:

The consultant showed Lavinia and I the successive slices of my brain scan, starting from the bottom. As he approached the top, two bright objects appeared, the larger “Walnut sized” one he said was a tumour right in the middle of the part of my Left brain responsible for my Right side locomotion. This was surrounded by a much larger area of swelling. The second bright object was much smaller and was “not in an important part of my brain”, however the very fact that there were two tumours indicated that they must both be Secondaries of a Primary tumour somewhere in the rest of my body which has gone unnoticed. To find where it is located, we immediately booked a full-body MRI scan for this coming Monday.

He told us that they would need to biopsy the Primary before knowing a diagnosis, and that radiotherapy would be used to shrink my”walnut”. His mood was serious, no attempt to put an optimistic spin on my predicament. He prescribed some steroids to reduce the swelling and told me that they might provide a brief temporary honeymoon period of reduced symptoms.

I felt surprisingly calm and all my emotional concern was for how upset my nearest and dearest would find the news. By chance I had recently posted a poem on this website describing an earlier encounter with death (Dying to Live) which I had always felt helped me with the truth about my own mortality. We returned home and called my son and daughter with the news. They immediately came round to support me, and we enjoyed a delicious Indian takeaway meal together, with an excess of dark Gallows humour (it’s my Yorkshire way).

So that’s it I have Cancer with Secondaries. Now for a forward plan.

Thursday

Phoned my two sisters. Informed my immediate neighbours. Made phone calls to Occupational Health Dept, and arranged physio visit for Friday.

Friday

Physio spent time showing me exercises. My dead Right leg refuses most mental instruction.