11. Sh*t or Bust Time.

Over the few remaining days before my first appointment with Mr Amen I took the opportunity to make sure I had both of my available options with me on the evening I was due to meet him. Unbeknown to anyone else in the world, I'd secretly stashed in the car everything I needed to survive for about 6 weeks. Clothes, shoes, passport, documents, money, an old spare mobile which I intended getting a burner simm for. Everything I needed to run away from dying of cancer. I knew I couldn't fight anymore. My options, by my own making, I had been whittled down to this appointment, this one man. If this went badly, if he was just another wanna-be tonsil and tongue robot wars player, I'd already made up my mind I was driving away leaving my smashed mobile simm card in the car park, and no one would ever see me again. I didn't want to rot in front of people, I didn't want them to see the anger and resentment that I knew I would have, in the fact that I'd been forced to give up and just let it happen.

I wasn't going to die gracefully, and I didn't want pity or annoyance, or 'I told you so's'.

If this man was just like all the others, it was just me, like I'd said, I would go and see some nice places, make some last beautiful pictures in my head, and take that flight to a bitter drink and a square of chocolate in a cold empty sterile hotel room with a view of mountains and the smell of crisp snow and pine trees coming in from an open window.

As part of this plan I'd told Paul we couldn't keep leaving the dog with our dog lady, and there was no point coming to just the first appointment I'd do this one on my own, and as I hugged Lottie as I was leaving I looked at her and wondered how they would manage if I never came back. I got into the car waved to them standing in the porch watching me through the window, and I was all too aware that possibly this would be the last time I would ever see them. I drove away towards Peterborough. On route I felt a huge calm flood over me, as if the last few weeks and everything shit that had happened suddenly didn't matter. I felt free, I felt finally it was going to be my choice, I was finally going to get to call the shots, and whatever happened I knew I'd be ok.

I sat quietly in the waiting room, it always makes me smile that there are 2 areas, one for the paying sick and another for the NHS funded sick, and that they even have different versions of the same free coffee machine. As if the people who are paying are going to be kicking off about free loaders getting great coffee. But, after seeing and hearing some of the 'self funding' patients, honestly I wouldn't put it past them. I think you really get to see the true extent of entitlement in a place like a private hospital waiting room.

A little later than the time, but only a few minutes, a slight man, who walked silently and almost as if unnoticed by anyone stood in the doorway of the waiting room and called my name.

I smiled and got up and followed him slowly down the corridor. As he gestured to the dentist chair type examination seat in the centre of the room I sat and he sat at his desk, crossed his legs and in a calm and quiet voice said ' so tell me what brings you here today?' In the next 4-5 mins I babbled out the story so far about p16 lumps, robot surgery, no options, not being given a choice, told to go back to where had sent me, lies and colon cancers, and he just sat there, gently, calmly, on more than one occasion his face flinched at my words describing the things I'd been told, they way I'd been spoken to, and he held out his box of tissues, when I finally finished sobbing and talking, he reached out and rubbed my forearm gently with his hand and apologised. He apologised for others, an apology that he shouldn't have been responsible for, but he still did, he apologised that I had had to go through all this, and it shouldn't be like this for anyone. He asked me what I wanted, and we discussed why I didn't think I could manage the full surgery in one go, that I didn't see why it all had to happen at the same time, especially as some or even all of it could be pointless and at what cost to my life going forward with the risks of the operations. All the time he sat, looking at me, listening, really listening to what I was saying, and nodding. So I felt brave to demand at last and blurted out.

'I want my tonsils taken out! I want to see if its there and then decide! Is that something you will agree to do?'

Over the course of the next 20 mins, aided with more tissues, we discussed having a tonsillectomy and seeing what cards that put in our hand. He asked if I wanted to wait for my NHS notes or have the biopsies done again so he could have his own results just to be certain the NHS ones weren't wrong, which in all honesty at the time were the only proof I actually had cancer at all.

So we agreed on biopsies at Cambridge and I'd come back and see him when the definite results were in and then we'd press on with the tonsillectomy to look for the primary cancer. He then asked if I minded him looking with the nose camera and he had a feel of my throat, first warning me to make sure not to bite his fingers as they were worth an awful lot of money LOL We parted far less strangers than we had met 35 mins before, and as I walked to the car I stared at the brick flower bed where I'd reversed up to, where no more than hour ago I had planned hiding the simm card out of my phone if I came out defeated, and realised I didn't need to drive into the darkness into the unknown, I could drive home, drive home and fight, because Mr Amen was going to help me try to save my life.