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(We Need To) Pray
 I tell you who I want to get onside: God. Talk about a prize entry in the contact book. Friends in high places don't come any higher than the Almighty, do they? And for all buttering up surgeons, hospital adminstrators and local politicians might reap some dividends come the operation, none of the above is endowed with either divine authority or omnipotence. Of course, I'm not well enough in there to start calling in the favours yet. If I were a deity I wouldn't take too kindly to random sinners suddenly asking for favours. The trick is to get others, better acquainted than I with Jahweh, to put in a good word. You might say this is all very un-21st century of me. But it all makes perfect rational sense. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) argued that the potential benefits of religious faith (eternal life, entry into heaven) outweighed the negatives (forgoing earthly pleasures) given our uncertainty about God's existence. I'd like to take this rationale to its logical conclusion. What I'm looking for are representatives from each of the world's major religions making sure I'm covered if the rest of them turn out to be false idols. My dad's side of the family are all Irish Catholics, so there are plenty of decades of the rosary being said for me. And just in case "Dr" Ian Paisley is right about the whole Pope being the antichrist thing, my maternal Grandmother is a Presbyterian talking to the big man (God, not Paisley) unmediated by an Episcopsasy. When I told my Muslim landlord about my operation he promised to pray for me. So that's Allah squared, then. Now I just need to work on the other major faiths. I know loads of Jews, but all of them are secular; what use to me is that? And to my shame, despite living in multicultural north west London, none of my friends are Sikhs, Hindus or Buddhists. The latter two, however, do both have temples on my road, so I'll have to get them to look out for the local boy. So if you or any of your friends happen to belong to one of these, or indeed subscribe to the Wiccan, Zoroastrian or Baha'i religions, you know what to do. If all goes well I'll try to return the favour, so it really is win-win.
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21.9.05 10:46
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Into the old man's shoes
Now, I'm useless with fashion. I'm not even wearing last year's
colours, let alone this season's. Don't ask me to identify whatever is the
new black this morning because I won't know. Take my brain tumour, for
instance. I've only gone and got myself a middle-aged one.
According to this site,
the average acoustic neuroma patient is 50. That's almost twice my age.
I mean, talk about uncool. It's the non-cancerous equivelant of owning
a James Blunt record. There is no use pretending I'm a hip young
gunslinger cutting a dash around swinging London when the AN marks me
down as someone who dances so badly at weddings that his teenage kids
turn puce with embarrasment.
Why couldn't I have got something more appropriate for a young chap like me? Testicular cancer, for instance, or depression, both of which are most common among the under-35s. Even heart disease,
with all its connotations of corpulent
fiftysomethings putting in too many hours at the office or in the
boozer, is on the up amid the more passionate of my age group.
I know, of course, that there's no good age to pick up a brain
tumour. But everyone at the hospital I speak to seems to remark on my
tender years. Mostly, of course, this is because I'm a statistical
anomoly, an outlier. But when I spoke to the splendid Mr Nigel Mendoza, a neurosurgeon at the Charing Cross Hospital, he found the disfiguring effect of the operation on my facial muscles more
noteworthy. "It's a shame in someone your age," he told me. "The women
might not like it." I nodded. While he might be overestimating my
pre-op ladykilling abilities, I do think he might have a point.
So what to do? The obvious strategy, as any young "creative" will
tell you, is simple: go for a rebrand. Through this blog I should start
portraying acoutic neuromas as something sought after by blokes with
asymetrical haircuts who DJ in Shoreditch. By the
time I'm done there will be more ANs in Old Street than
iPods. All I need is a spread in Dazed and Confused and I'm away.
But who am I kidding? I'm useless at trying to be hip. At any
stylish gathering I end up drinking too much and wittering on about how
great leopards are. No-one's seriously going to buy into any kind
of supposedly cutting-edge youth cult if I'm at its head.
So instead I'm going to take the hint from Mother Nature and accept
Richard Briars as my new style icon. Goodbye trainers,
bootcut jeans, records from Berwick Street; say hello cardigans, garden
centres, Val Doonican. Actually, it's such a compelling look I
might just find myself as a fashion icon by mistake. When you see your
first pair of nice driving gloves at the 333 club you'll know acoutic
neuromas have arrived.
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26.9.05 11:58
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Don't let me down
You know, readers, sometimes I fear I'm selling you short. "Brain tumour," you think, "Brilliant! All sorts of wonderfully gruesome details describing the side-effects of unwanted growths near the cerebellum. At the very least I can count on the protagonist dribbling uncontrollably in Waitrose, or losing control of his bowels on a hot date. Talk about human interest. Pass those Maltesers, please."
As we all know, it's not like that. And I do apologise. So far the worst consequences of my condition have been losing a bit of my hearing, and then not bothering with an aid. I mean, I've had more debilitating hangovers. Or rather, I regularly do. I know this can't be easy for those of you hoping for another My Left Foot.
It's not even like acoustic neuromas can't produce the kind of symptoms that might at least instil pathos. Headaches, loss of balance, tinitus, vertigo and facial paralysis are all regularly experienced prior to treatment by my fellow sufferers. And despite having the largest one on my consultant's waiting list (for which I leapfrogged to the front of the queue, and reckon I deserve some sort of gold star) I've so far managed to avoid anything save the ear thing which might impinge on my daily routine.
All this, of course, makes going into hospital even stranger. Usually when someone I know has an operation they display recognisable symptoms beforehand which will be, if not immediately cured, then at least demonstrably treated. A hip replacement patient will be limping in advance of the procedure, a heart attack victim will have troublesome chest pains. Whereas I am about to hop, skip and jump my way onto the neurology ward, and come out worse off.
Now, it's obvious that the op should be good for me in the long run. Choosing not to go under the knife will guarantee those juicy symptoms in the not-too-distant future. It does feel strange from a psychological point of view to undertake something that's going to make me, at least in the short term, much worse off. But more importantly, lack of tangible symptoms makes it easier to pretend none of this is happening and carry on in a state of cheerful denial.
Mind you, this sang froid can also be put down, counter-intuitive though it may seem, to my incurable hypochondria. Before I went to have my MRI brain scan I thought my hearing was hampered by nothing worse than an ear infection. By the time it was over I was convinced I would be dead within the hour from cancer. When I was given my results a few weeks later and told the tumour was benign, I was filled with a sense of complacent relief that still hasn't diminished.
It was the day after I got back from Glastonbury - ho ho headcase, you're having your head examined tomorrow? Hope your brain's not been totally fried (I should point out I ingested nothing more potent that pear cider in Somerset, unless you count watching Babyshambles). Very casually did I wander down to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington and check into a mobile scanning unit in the car park that looked like a burger van on stilts. It was now seven months after I first complained to my GP about the diminished hearing, after all, and I was looking forward to having it confirmed that a virus had played minor havoc with the cochlea.
I lay down and the Australian radiologist clamped by head to the table that slides into the scanner itself. Then she chastised me when it was realised a penny left in my pocket was creating merry hell with the magnetic levels. I slid back into the MRI accompanied by the soundtrack through headphones of How You remind Me by Nickelback, a song I loathe with all my soul.
It was about 15 minutes later I knew something was up. I'd already started wondering why I had been in so long when a voice came over the tannoy. It was the radiologist, no longer scolding but soothing: "Just hang in there," she said. "You're doing really well."
Doing well at what? This unnerved me like nothing else. It doesn't take much skill and dexterity to lie flat on one's back and listen to sub-grunge dirges. I started to fantasise about what she had discovered that had changed her tone. There must be a malignant lump in there the size of a chocolate Easter egg, I decided. By the time I had pictured myself saying my final farewell to loved ones in a hospice she came and took me out, and refused to show me the scans. "I'm not allowed," she told me. "If the hospital hasn't contacted you in a couple of weeks, make sure you ring them." Which obviously made me feel much better.
Over the following weeks as I waited for my appointment I convinced myself I had been afflicted by something terminal. So it was actually with a sense of relief that I eventually entered the search term "acoustic neuroma" into Google. After all, the tumour was benign. Doesn't that make it sound so much friendlier?
So I hope you'll all bear with me for now as I bury my head deep under the beach. There will be better stuff in the future, I promise; you'll just have to wait until after they slice me open. In the meantime, put those Maltesers aside and busy yourself with something more immediately salacious. I hear Angela's Ashes comes recommended.
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27.9.05 16:13
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Computer love
The internet, eh? Nothing but trouble if you ask me. If it's not bad enough that it's filled with inhuman pornography, al-Qaeda propaganda and debates about whether the Death Star would beat the Starship Enterprise in a fight, the information superhighway is an absolute nightmare for hypochondriacs. You know that Sir Tim Berners-Lee? When I get my hands on him, I guarantee, he'll soon learn a new definition of "server capacity".
To be fair (a new departure for this blog), I've got no-one but myself to blame. The first thing they tell you when you go down with any serious condition is to stay away from the ol' interweb. Me being me, of course, I was Googling away before you could say Al Gore.
Now, there are plenty of places on the internet where you can find balanced, responsible data about the subject. The British Acoustic Neuroma Association, for a start, or the AN Association USA. But if you're as morbid as I am (unlikely, I realise), you'll gloss over any fair, sensitive coverage and go straight for the horror stories.
Here's a few choice excerpts from the web for no other reason than I fancy a bit of reckless scaremongering:
After a 12 day stay in the hospital, I was discharged to what has been nothing but a nightmare since the operation, and is steadily getting worse. Because of the neuroma surgery, I have had six additional surgeries... My doctor is currently treating me with valium, vicodenn es. and compazine for nausea which comes with the weak spells. I find my quality of life a big zero.
Headaches, neck pain and eyes aching very badly now. Panadol is no longer working neither are the icepacks. Am eating a little bit. Will have to talk to the surgeon as I cannot continue like this. I am trying to sleep sitting up now as the pain is so bad.
For the entire month of April, following her treatment, Marion felt nauseous. Her dizziness slightly increased. Toward the end of April, she suddenly developed double vision. She felt weak and out of balance. We consulted Dr. Lederman, who told us that she had developed hydrocephalus; the tumor had interfered with the normal circulation of fluid in the brain.
Aghh! And before you ask, I'm not giving you the links.
Now it goes without saying that the horror stories will have more chance of getting written about in the first place than tales of unqualified success. Likewise, the more dramatic accounts of My Tumour Hell will clock up the hit rates faster than the alternatives. I know all this, I'm a journalist.
I'm not going to pretend I'm entirely blase. Those sites scare me witless. But they instil the kind of fear that comes from watching horror films: the knowledge that what you're looking at is as extreme and shocking as it comes. In other words, I don't take them too seriously. There are, for the record, plenty more reassuring diaries from AN patients telling the story of how they made a successful recovery. But who wants to read that when you can hunt out gore and guts?
In my own case, I have very little in the way of forewarning about how my operations will turn out. In my favour I'm young with very little in the way of advance symptoms; counting against me is the fact my head contains the Double Whopper with Cheese Meal of tumours. Either way I have no reason to believe I'm going to end up at the extreme end of the scale.
But then that's the problem with the internet, isn't it? We're talking about a medium that ultimately makes ghouls of us all. Don't think I've forgotten about you, Sir Tim.
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28.9.05 18:15
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