Underneath the Skin

Well, I feel just fine, I keep saying to myself. 

Especially on a sharp October morning like this, 

emerging all ruddy and dripping from the Herring Pond, 

feeling wondrous and lit up inside.

People look at me and say I am looking well.

My doctor begs to differ. It's not going well inside. Underneath your skin. 

So I spent the last four days in the Cancer Centre at City Hospital

For observation and intravenous administration of higher dosage medications for the liver. 

In the end it was a good experience. 

To see at first hand the level of care, of professionalism, and the dedication of the staff, whether doctors, pharmacists, nurses or orderlies.

I remember, as a student in London in the seventies, with the cold war at its height, devouring the writings of a Russian dissident by the name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (His name hardly rings a bell in today’s world, I guess). His semi-autobiographical novel “Cancer Ward” depicted the dark dystopian world of a cancer hospital deep within the then Soviet Union, and also sought to expose the evils of that cancerous regime. And I thought, what an utter contrast this is.

Brightly lit, friendly and supportive, even down to the well kept small space of garden, where even with Covid restrictions, it was possible to be out for periods in the open air.

Also to share our experiences, with the other guys, in the four bed ward.

We each had our own personal story, our own slow path to tread in this steady march against the disease.

I think the common thread that drew us together, albeit briefly, was the mystery of how this cancer invades our system.

It's persistence, it's almost deviousness, lying undetected for long periods, then suddenly rearing up its ugly head. 

Stories of - well it started here, and I was being treated for this cancer, then I was doing fine for over a year, but now it’s reemerged here, and I don’t know what’s next. As Bill Bryson has said, "What cancer is, appallingly, is your own body down its best to kill itself. It is suicide without permission."

Well, I don’t know what’s next either, in any great detail, but I am very glad that I have a God who does, and who keeps reminding me that he cares for me, for both of us, that there is a plan, and that it's a good plan.