The Treatment

My deteriorating eyesight forced me to give up driving twenty years ago. This has made me dependent on my wife and, to a lesser extent, my daughter, should I ever need to leave Pearly Beach, and that is why I could not travel back and forth for cancer treatment on my own.

The treatment started on Monday, 31 October, 2022. We left pearly Beach at 1.45pm, allowing sufficient time for delays through the road works between Gansbaai and Stanford in order to be at the Centre by 3pm. After visiting the spotless grey and black tiled facilities with their gleaming white receptacles, we found Pathcare just round the corner. There were no other patients and it did not take long for a nurse to draw a small quantity of blood from my arm and stick a pledget over the puncture site.

At Radiology, I had barely seated myself on the sumptuous black leather couch when Melané and Rochelle arrived and greeted us in a friendly fashion and we descended to the bunker. They showed us the control room from where they monitored the procedure and then took us into the radiation area and explained how I would lie on the table with my head immobilised in the plastic mask and be remotely moved into position beneath the equipment. This, they said, was a linear accelerator programmed prior to each session to deliver high-energy X-rays that conform to the specific size, shape and location of a tumor. In this way, the LINAC could target and destroy cancerous cells in a precise area of a patient’s body with minimal exposure to the surrounding healthy tissue.

Before lying on the table, I was asked to remove my shirt so that the mask fitted snugly over my shoulders. On seeing the scrawny condition of my torso, Melané registered something bordering on horror, and she urged me to eat more protein and start taking food supplements. I later realised that her concern was informed by the knowledge that I would soon be losing weight. I climbed onto the table, was strapped into the mask and they retreated to the safety of the control room. I lay listening to the hum of machinery and wondering whether I was going to have a panic attack.

I heard some whirring and clicking and assumed the radiation head was rotating above me and taking up position to target the tumour. The table jolted, there was more whirring and clicking, and after a few minutes a loud buzz as the actual zapping began. It lasted some ten to fifteen seconds, ceased, and then was repeated another three times with intervals of about two minutes. I heard the head move back to its original position, and then the sound of the door opening and footsteps approaching. The therapists were either side of me releasing the mask from its anchor points and asking me if I was okay. The table was moved out and lowered, and I was able to sit up and get to my feet. The process had lasted no more than fifteen minutes.

I ended up having a total of 32 radiation sessions over a period of almost seven weeks. In that time, Melané, Roshelle and Karien were extremely supportive and seemed to genuinely care about how I was responding to the treatment as it progressed. The fourth member of the team was Michelle, the receptionist, and she proved to be friendly, efficient and helpful, even to the extent of trying to sort out a software issue on my phone.

The following day, Tuesday, we were back at the Centre for my 9.30 am appointment with Doctor D. He announced that my blood test was normal.  This was to be expected at this stage, but as treatment progressed it was important to monitor my condition and ensure that my white blood cell count did not fall too low as the chemotherapy took effect. The programme he had worked out entailed six or seven weekly chemo sessions, and 32 doses of daily (apart from weekends) radiation. Again, he briefly mentioned possible side-effects before taking us through to the chemo lounge to meet Aggie.

Apart from Carol, the tea lady and Sunelle and Martie., the pharmacists, there were three nurses. For some unfathomable reason, I came to think of them as the sisters of mercy. They were Aggie, Tania and India.

I was shown to one of the twelve black leather La-Z-Boy recliners and asked to place my left arm on a pillow for it to be covered with a warm towel. After allowing five to ten minutes for my veins to dilate, India removed the towel and went about inserting a canula and connecting me to a litre bag of prehydration fluid hanging from a mobile drip stand. Attached to the drip stand was a monitor that began beeping a warning when there was a hitch, or the bag was about to run dry.

Prehydration took about an hour and a half, and before the next phase could commence, I was to prove myself ready by passing at least 300ml of urine. The chemotherapy drug was administered from two 400ml bags, one after the other, and took a further hour and a half. The drug that I was given was Cisplatin, which attacks rapidly dividing cells like cancer and, in combination with radiotherapy was designed to destroy the malignancy that was intent on killing me as soon as it could.

As Doctor D had warned me, Cisplatin came with unpleasant side-effects, and to counter them I was given a cocktail of pills to be swallowed before and after meals. Omeprazole was an antacid, and for nausea there was Aprepitant, which was also meant to stimulate the appetite, Prednisone, Granicip and Contromet. They proved effective in that I never felt outright nauseous, and I never threw up in spite of a growing aversion to almost all food and drink.

Tea or coffee was on offer and was always accompanied by a ginger biscuit, ginger being a nausea antidote. However, by the fifth week even this confectionary had become unpalatable.

These three-hour chemo sessions were not too tedious because patients came and went and provided a degree of interest and entertainment. I regularly got to chat to one man in particular. About my age, he was also receiving radiation as well as chemo. Cancer was eating up the fingers of his bandaged right hand. He tried to show me what the wound looked like on his phone but, unable to see any detail I had to use my imagination to appreciate the gory spectacle. Intelligent and outwardly cheerful and positive, he had an irreverent sense of humour that reminded me of my father, and I was grateful for his company.

And there were the nurses, of course. When there were half a dozen patients or more, they worked under extreme pressure, setting up and disconnecting drips, and responding to the frequent beeping of monitors. Nevertheless, they were always cheerful and unflustered, and even managed to chat and banter with their more extrovert charges. The atmosphere was never gloomy, despite the seriousness of the incurable illness each patient was contending with. I asked India if she found the work distressing, and she said she enjoyed interacting with her patients and getting to know the individual, even if it was only for the duration of their treatment. The distressing part was when news came that they had lost someone before the end of their course.

Observing the nurses and the radiation therapists at work, my indignation and anger on encountering injustice was rekindled. How is it, I asked myself, that a society can support a system that rewards self-interest, materialism and greed far more generously than altruism and dedication to alleviating suffering? There has to be something fundamentally wrong with such a status quo but, I told myself, there is nothing much I can do about it, and must confine my feelings to gratitude and admiration for all of those working in the health care profession.

Next: The Side Effect

Other posts chronicling my encounter with cancer:

The Lead Cylinder and the Plastic Urine Sieve 

One Thing Leads to Another

An Aggressive Uptake of Glucose

The Man in the Plastic Mask

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.

How Not to Pour a Cup of Tea

This is an extract from The Life of Henry Fuckit:

Of course, it is worse when I am acutely anxious or fraught with existentialist depression like the other day when I was at home in my filthy little chamber at the Olympia Residentia and it was late morning and I thought I'd make myself a nice pot of rooibos tea to steady and comfort myself because I was feeling very shaky for some obscure reason, finding life rather unbearable and feeling rather overwhelmed by the pain and humiliation all around me wherever I looked. So there I was trying to pour myself a cup of tea. As I say, I was at a very low ebb and floundering in a slough of insecurity and self-loathing. My intention was simple and mundane, merely wanting to pour a cup of tea, but as I lifted the teapot I was filled with embarrassment and misery at the spectacle of my hand upon the handle, it looked so weak and ugly. It was bony and the knuckles were white like gristle and it was a weak hand and the skin was red and blotchy and ever so ugly. The hand quivered and shook and the tea came out in a feeble, wavering stream that cut me to the quick. Right to the very core I was cut, bleeding and raw and weeping inside. It was a direct attack on my integrity, my very persona, this pitiful stream. It was like an old drunk pissing, uncertain and erratic. This wasn't rooibos tea, this was piss darkened with blood, and MY piss would be like this soon, a tincture of blood and piss in stinking fish water. Miserably I regretted trying to pour the tea. I shouldn't have poured the tea; I should never have tried to pour the tea. What right did I have to try and hold a teapot steady and aim a steaming spout at a gaping cunt of a cup? Instead I should have crawled under a blanket and crouched there under a blanket in the dark, shaking and trembling inside and wanting to whimper. Why, I asked myself, why am I like this, how has it come to pass that I am like this? This is what I asked myself there in the room, in my hour of dejection there in that anteroom waiting to be summoned into some frigid abyss. Why am I like this, I kept asking myself, why am I like this? I don't know why I'm like this. I couldn't drink this pernicious decoction, this foetid infusion. I wouldn't drink it. No ways. The more I thought about it the more agitated I became. I blamed myself for my own despicable weakness, for I should never have tried to pour it in the first place, knowing what I was like, not being able to do anything right, not even the simplest of tasks. I was a shivering cur, better off with brains kicked in and guts spilled in the gutter. Oh, it was a very dark hour for me, I can tell you. Such debilitating wretchedness. That's why I'm so worried and am forever casting about, this way and that, looking for some kind of explanation, some definitive diagnosis that would help me to overcome what appears to be a relentlessly progressive malady.

If you enjoy this kind of piffle, you can read all of Henry’s monologue here.

To view my longer pieces as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.

Steve’s Pub and Grill

The Story. A public figure well known for his contemptuous attitude towards black people – let’s call him Steve - is abducted and taken deep into a sprawling squatter camp. He is led to a tiny shack made of iron sheets, cardboard and plastic, and told he must stay there for three weeks in order for him to experience what it is like to live in poverty. He only has the clothes on his back and nothing else. He is given a loaf of bread and a can of pilchards. He is told that if he tries to escape, or make contact with the outside world, he will have his balls cut off.

The night was cold and Steve was shatting himself, which wasn’t good, because there was a long queue outside the nearest toilet. A woman from a neighbouring shack took pity on him and offered him a blanket. He crept into his hovel and tried to sleep.

Of course, he had been praying to his god ever since he had been captured but there didn’t seem to be any reception in that god-forsaken place. Then, in the middle of the night, he dreamt that God was trying to tell him something. Go! Go! God seemed to be saying. Go? Yissus Christus! Was God bedonnerd, or something? What kind of advice was that? Of course he wanted to go.

On awaking in the morning, however, it suddenly became clear. God wasn’t telling him to Go! Go! No, what he was saying was Google! Google!

As Steve finished the last of his bread and pilchards he thought of the loaves and fishes parable and he realised he was feeling much stronger. He now knew that God was on his side and it made him think about his forefathers, and how they had overcome adversity. He remembered visiting the plaas as a little kid, and Oupa saying, ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan. Give me six boys and some basic tools, and there’s nothing I can’t accomplish.

He immediately went in search of six employees. He had about six thousand to choose from, and within an hour he had his half dozen, and two dozen waiting in the wings if this lot didn’t perform. A hundred bucks a day, to be paid out at end of 3-week contract. If he didn’t pay, they could cut his balls off. (The six boys, who were actually full-grown men, all had matric, spoke English fluently, and were both computer literate and world savvy. And one of them had a master’s degree in Musicology and was a gifted saxophonist.) He signed his autograph on the backs of their hands and told them not to wash it off. 

First things first, as per God’s instructions. He called for a smart phone. No problem, the place was awash with stolen phones and no buyers. He Googled ‘toilet’, did a bit of scrolling and clicking, and soon found a neat set of instructions on how to construct a pit latrine. One of the boys he dispatched to find a pick and shovel somewhere. And a carpenter’s hammer and a saw. A little way off stood an old Merc. It had no wheels, engine, doors, bonnet or boot, and the front seats had been stripped out. But the back seat was still intact, the upholstery only a little torn. He told his remaining five workers to drag the wreck up close to his shack, and to clean out the rubbish. Then, while they began to demolish the shack, he climbed into his temporary office and got Googling again.

By the time the first boy returned with the tools, the shack lay in pieces and Steve was busy writing out a list of building materials. He dispatched two boys to the business address of his builder cousin, Piet, telling them to say that Steve had sent them, and to show Piet their autographs by way of bona fides. Piet must bring the goods with his bakkie and drop them off on the edge of the squatter camp. And Piet must keep his mouth shut, otherwise Steve would be minus his balls.

While the four boys got busy digging the hole, Steve Googled ‘township economic activity’, and began going through his options.

The hole was dug, a box seat was made to fit over it, and a cubicle was knocked up around it. Steve inspected the finished product and then shut himself inside and had an inaugural crap.

“Go and collect some firewood,” he told one of his boys. “And look for some mesh to make a grid to braai on.”

He instructed two of his boys to use the remaining material from the shack to build another cubicle alongside the toilet. This was going to be his shower. The fourth boy he took with him and they went in search of a spaza shop willing to extend him some credit. Again he used his balls as collateral, and was able to buy a kilo of wors and a dozen hot dog rolls.

It was midday and the fire had just been lit when a donkey pulling a cart emerged from a lane cutting through the sea of shacks. Loaded up with used shutter boards and an assortment of loose timber, the donkey cart was being followed by Steve’s two boys looking pleased with themselves.

The team immediately set to work erecting the new structure while Steve put up a cardboard sign saying STEVE’S PUB AND GRILL and started to braai the wors. All morning curious onlookers had been keeping an eye on proceedings, and now there was a tidy little crowd standing around feeling famished. At the first whiff of roasting flesh every mouth began to water. A customer stepped forward and Steve was in business.

That evening, when all the people who had been out for the day looking for work, or begging at the traffic lights, or trying to hijack a car or two, and now feeling tired and hungry, came trudging past Steve’s Pub and Grill, the fire was going and the sausage was sizzling. And now Steve was also offering beer to slake the thirst.

He told the musicologist boy to bring his saxophone to work, and also borrow a guitar for Steve. On day two he was able to add DINE TO LIVE ENTERTAINMENT to his signboard, and he created a Facebook page for Steve’s P&G, advertising a genuine township experience. In the second week it went viral, and visitors started arriving in droves. (Brought in by donkey cart, of course, which became a lucrative little enterprise in itself.) He continued to upgrade his accommodation, adding a free electrical connection, a solar water heater for his shower (black PVC pipe on the roof),  a nice Sealy Posturepedic mattress, etc, etc, etc.

As the days went by and Steve’s business flourished, he began to look more and more smug. On the last day of his involuntary encounter with poverty, he called his employees together – now there were 12 of them – and paid them their wages. In an act of pure philanthropy, he told them to form a collective to run the business, because he was handing it over to them. For free!

Back in the suburbs with family and friends, he finished his story with a contemptuous smirk. “And you know what?” he said. “I’ll put my balls on a block there’ll be no trace of Steve’s Pub and Grill, two weeks from now.”

As it turned out, his balls were safe.