Jo Beecham

Till death do I part

For my sister, who always shows me so much love and keeps my fridge filled with food.

Recurrence: October 2012

The very sweet 12-year old looking registrar explains somewhat nervously that the CT scan repeated from six weeks earlier shows the cancer is moving aggressively and ominously towards my internal organs and that I need more chemo immediately. ‘What if I don’t want more chemo……?’. ‘Ermm, mmm’! ‘How long have I got, with or without more chemo?’ ‘Ermm, mmm, I don’t know, ermm, I have to ask the consultant and get back to you’.

‘No offence, and you seem very nice and everything,’ I say ‘but shouldn’t you be able to discuss these things with me? I mean, I am upset and I think you should be able to answer these life and death questions. If you can’t, it shouldn’t be you but the consultant telling me this stuff, don’t you think? I mean, if I was a dog, would you have me put down now or later?’

‘Ermm, yes, you are absolutely right! I’ll go and get the consultant.’

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