Week 12
I have had one of those weeks. It is NOT a chemo head week and there are so many things I have to do but all I do is sit and daydream. What is that all about?
I had made this rule for myself which is that I will not push myself on my “healing” days. I promised myself that I would not stress about doing nothing so long as when I felt better I tried to get things done so that when I looked back it would not have been a wasted six months.
Eddie Nestor on the BBC London bus
But the longer the treatment has gone on the more it has taken out of me and the less I have been able to accomplish. Now that is all well and good. I could just say I am on the way to recovery and so just ride it out. The thing is I just feel guilty. I feel like I should be doing something.
I have taken to going into work earlier which is great as it gives me more time to get across the stories and have more of an input into the way the stories of the day are told.
That has worked well as August is a traditionally slow month for news and callers as so many people are away. I say that but as a news show we do seem to be doing so much on crime, particularly against the person.
People being shot, stabbed and attacked sometimes for trying to protect their own property.
Yesterday on Drivetime we interviewed a police officer about the killing of a man in south London. Two kids threw fast food into the window of his sisters’ car and when he challenged them they punched and killed him.
The officer said we all have the right to challenge bad behaviour. And I agree, but with people carrying all sorts and the possible consequences it does make you wonder.
And wondering is all I seem to be doing at home. Wondering about this and wondering about that.
Even the diary has been affected this week. I normally try to get it done by the Monday but this week I have been rubbish – sorry.
As the song goes there may be trouble ahead. My mum, who has been here since May looking after her big son, has to go back to St Lucia on the 24th and I am dreading what it is going to be like without her.
"My mum has to go back to St Lucia on the 24th and I am dreading what it is going to be like without her"
Eddie Nestor
I know in an earlier diary entry I wondered how she would cope when she saw me under the “Big C” but I have to tell you she has been a tremendous help to me and my wife.
When things got tough back in June she was at the hospital with her healing food and she has been someone that my wife could let off on. She has cleaned, washed and cooked. All the unconditional love that you expect from a mother…I have had.
Instead of being down about her leaving I am trying to tell myself to be grateful that she was here at all.
There are many people who have had to struggle under much tougher circumstances than me. I have had so much support and I have managed to hold on to some semblance of normality through work. I am blessed. But it will be a tough last month without her.
Week 11
No matter how dark it is, so long as there is a chink of light at the end of the tunnel you can have hope. That is what I have learnt this week.
But let me start at the beginning. It was arranged that last Thursday I would meet the doctors to find out if the treatment was working. To say the days leading up to that were stressful would be an understatement. Fewer words than normal were spoken in the Nestor household because there really wasn't that much to say until, that is, somebody knew something.
On the Tuesday, the day the doctors themselves would be looking at the X-ray results, I got a parcel. It was from a very old friend. She had been a stage manager for a show I had done in the early nineties. She had heard I was ill and sent me a CD copy of a tape I had given her for the pre show (the music you hear when you come into a theatre to set the mood). It was as I was thinking "how nice…", that the home phone started ringing. "Hello, it is Carolina your haematologist from Whips Cross. We have your results." Now, I don't know how long it was before someone spoke again but it felt like an eternity.
My whole life flashed before me. Why are they calling me now, was it that bad? Could they not have waited till Thursday etc, etc, etc? Then it came. As your wife is taking time off work to come in with you on Thursday, we thought we would phone you to let you know the treatment is working well and we are only planning to complete the six month course of chemo taking you till the end of September.
It was only then that I could speak and even then it was only to say "sorry can you say that again?" She did not even stutter. That woman had seemingly no idea of the joy she had brought into my life. Funnily enough for a man who has become so emotional I did not cry I just said thank you twenty or so times and went into the garden and called my wife who started to cry uncontrollably on the phone and tell me about how scared she had been. And I got a sense of what it must be like to always be cheery, of always looking on the bright side to keep your partner up. I have honestly tried my best not to take her feelings for granted but it was only then that I got a sense of her pain and her relief.
It must have been the sound of the laughter that brought my mum out. When I told her she threw her arms open and shouted thank you lord so loudly I thought the neighbours might come out. I was just stunned as to the reaction of my wife and mum that I couldn't really do anything but grin like a fool.
I know I am not out of the woods yet and that there will be more anxious moments. The chemo head has got worse and I can only do my precious Sunday show once a fortnight but there is light at the end of my tunnel and I will keep on pushing.
Week 10
Thursday 26th July
I have been thinking all week about what I am going to write. Funny that, because for the most part I just sit down and write what is in my head. But the chemo has been particularly effective this time and as I have said in my diaries before all sorts of weird things go through your mind.
Went to work today and it was a strange one. It was one of those “On The Road” jobbies where you do the show from a particular location and you get to meet people you talk to on the phone, who listen to the programme or who just stop to wonder what on earth this red route master bus is doing on the pavement.
This one was on home turf, Stratford. It was always going to be a strange day as tomorrow I take my scan to find out what is happening with the big C. So I have been forgetting the end of sentences, looking through windows daydreaming, eating raw carrots, the works.
What is it going to be like when we do the show, when Kath and I would have to relate to real people? It didn’t start well. It absolutely bucketed down about 4.20pm and everything had to be taken on to the bus and out of the rain.
It was only through luck and the stubbornness of Sami our engineer that we managed to set everything up again outside and be kind of ready for 5pm when the show is supposed to start.
There seemed to be lots of people around, even our bosses Dave and Justin turned up, which was a bit daunting on my first day back. Anyway, this is what all those “healing days” are for. The show kicked off nicely with good interaction from the audience.
It was all about the Olympics and Kath was doing her “talking to the audience” bit, whilst I was much more comfortable rooting the whole thing, going from guest to guest trying not to catch people's eyes.
My eyes did meet up with this one woman though who put her two hands together and mouthed she was praying for me. That, funnily enough, was the only reminder that I was sick in the whole two hours. Oh, how I love going back to work. How much twenty four hours can change how you feel. Ah
Eddie and Kath
As soon as the show was over and I got into the car with my wife I became the bumbling head case that I had been since my last chemo. Without any clear thought or, sometimes it would appear, reason.
My wife had good news. Well good for her but not necessarily for me.
Since I got ill we had decided that we needed to be much more sensible about the way we lived our lives. We could no longer both be self-employed. One of us would have to get a proper job with minimum hours, holiday pay, health benefits, pension rights and the like and as I was sick and wasn’t really qualified to do anything but talk that person would have to be her.
She had managed to secure a test with a local authority (yippee). The only problem was that the test was taking place the next morning and she would have to revise she announced. “But hold on” I wanted to say. “I have this rather important test myself tomorrow and it will determine more than whether I get some stupid job”…But I didn’t. It would have been unfair.
It didn’t matter that I wanted to spend this evening on which I am typing this diary; this evening where only a swear word would truly explain how apprehensive I feel; this evening ..with her.
Strange things happen though because as I went in to the bedroom feeling sorry for myself I flicked through the satellite channels like I have done so many times before and what did I find? It was a programme on the Biography channel.
It was the story of Lance Armstrong the multiple winner of the toughest race, in one of the toughest sports in the world - The Tour De France. Why is that strange? Well Lance is a cancer survivor and a friend gave his book to me last week.
I knew something of his life but this doc blew my mind and has made me sure to pick the book up, chemo head allowing, and make it the first and possibly only book I must read during my struggle with cancer. Tonight after writing this I feel positive. And there was me wondering whether I had anything to say.
Saturday 28th July
Had the test, so I guess all I need to do now is wait and worry. Been a bit short with the Mrs today. The fact that I want to discuss what happens if it goes pear shaped does not mean that I do not think the treatment has worked…..Does it?
For the first time I am writing an intro for my Sunday show. Not sure about this new format. Not sure about anything. I had better stop now…
By the time you read my next entry I will know a lot more about how or if the treatment is working
Wish me well
Week 9
Why do the bloody good weeks seem to go by so quickly? Sorry did I say that? I meant I am looking forward to my rest/healing days so that I can have more good days. Have had two really fulfilling days on Drivetime so far this week, talking about organ transplantation and the possible reclassification of cannabis. Great when people feel comfortable enough to phone, text or email in and tell us what their experiences have been. Sometimes it is so personal and always better than when people contact us to say, "I fink this" or "I fink that".
I am such a saddo. Kath isn't in tomorrow (Thursday) and instead of getting a good night's sleep I am sitting here worrying about having to do the show on my own. Would never let on whilst on the radio but my confidence is shot. When I am there I am OK. In fact, listening back I sound better since I got ill; but off air I worry so much more. That swagger, that air of invincibility seems to have deserted me both personally and professionally. Suppose that is what happens when you come face to face with your mortality.
You become a nicer person. Petty grievances are left to one side. You get to realise what and who is important. You concentrate much more on the positive and become much more allowing of people's failings. But I do worry more about how my words or actions affect other people. I would hate for anyone to go through cancer but it is not all bad. Did I just type that?
It is Thursday and I have just had my monthly check up. Apart from the lumps in my stomach from the daily blood thinning injections my wife gives me, all seems fine. I can now have my seventh of twelve fortnightly chemo treatments. Past half way now, then she [the Doctor] catches me off guard. The test I told you about last week the big one, the one that says how I am doing, the one that decides the rest of my bloody life, is not four weeks away it is next week, on the bloody 27th! That is next week Friday. They do the scan and have a meeting the following Tuesday and will be able to tell me what the situation is on the Thursday. What?
People tell me that I am hard to read that I give nothing away but I do that when I am really scared, when I don't know how to react. I just looked at the doctor, absolutely bricking it.
I have tried to avoid people with cancer as much as I can. Not because I am rude but because I am aware of my delicate mental state of how much energy it takes me to keep going. This week I could not avoid it. I met and spoke respectively to two people Melissa and Malcolm who both have lymphoma and who are both enduring long and difficult battles. It was both soul destroying and uplifting talking to them. Because on the one hand I don't want to deal with this for any longer than six months and on the other they were so much braver than I could ever imagine I would be. They were so strong, positive and inspiring that it also gives me something to aim for if the news is not good.
