Cancer - nothing to worry about

CANCER DIARY

by Angela Lansbury

A book in progress based on blogs.

The story of Trevor’s cancer, treatment, and how it affects the family, told by Angela

Picture Trevor and me when we were younger and Trevor was in robust good health.

CONTENTS

First News Of Cancer 

Who's stressed? 

Insurance

        We Are Not Worried, Yet

        Look on the bright side

Risk-taker 

Fitness And The Fifties

Stress

The Lump

 2008 Worry 

Diagnosis Lymphoma

 Prognosis 

6 months treatment. Staging.

 Treatment Starts. Pills. Isolation. 

 Progress

First News Of Cancer

The cancer started as a lump on the neck while Trevor was on an overnight flight back to Singapore from London. 

Trevor says nobody knows the cause of cancer - or it could have multiple causes, an inherited weakness, then a trigger, which could be a virus. 

What bothers me is that if it is lifestyle or inherited it could be passed on to me (less likely as it affects men more) or our son. If it’s lifestyle we need to change it - as we are doing - as you will see if you read on. 

If it’s catching, I might catch it. He insists it is not contagious. We’ll come onto what is contagious or infectious later. If stress affects one’s vulnerability, see what you think of Trevor’s lifestyle. Frequent flier. Skier. Trekker. Climbs volcanoes. 

Spent the night in a jungle. Runs through the jungle. Photographs dangerous snakes -  close up - until his friends tell him to stay away. 

And nearly dies when hospitalised with an infected cut - three weeks after being cut. About the year 2000. He now reveals, ‘That was more dangerous than the lymphoma. Afterwards the doctor at the Singapore hospital told me she’d been very worried about me.’

I remember he phoned me from hospital in Singapore to tell me all about it. I was in the car with Mr Edmund de Rothschild and his chauffeur, getting a private tour of the paths through Exbury Gardens near Southampton in the New Forest. After lunch with the Rothschilds. A dream come true. My big moment. 

Then Trevor rings my mobile to say he is in hospital and has nearly died in Singapore. Mr Rothschild politely jumps out of the car to allow me privacy. So does the chief gardener The chauffeur jumps out, too. I am abandoned - between the towering rhododendrons, no idea where I am, no idea where they’ve gone, And Trevor is telling me he is feeling much better. 

Who Was Most Stressed?

He flew to England overnight on Singapore Airlines arriving before 5.55 a.m. on Wednesday October 8th 2008. After breakfast he drove to Bristol to sign a document. No time for lunch. Just a sandwich. We had to drive back to London so he could catch his flight. If the traffic back to London was bad, he might miss the flight.

We reached London on time, late afternoon. Then we phoned and summoned the family to an early family dinner at a restaurant. I asked our son to collect my mobile phone from the phone shop on the way.

We told the restaurant owner that Trevor’s food should be served immediately, no waiting for the rest of us. During the starter a man arrived at the restaurant door, asking for us. The mobile phone shop in Northwood delivered my phone. My son who I’d asked to collect my phone instead organized that. I was surprised and so was the restaurant owner. 

Half way through our main courses the hire car arrived ready to whisk Trevor off to Heathrow. The restaurant owner looked stunned. 

I bet most families simply sit down docilely and eat dinner. She had seen us before. So she knew that although one family member had done a runner, we would pay. But I think  ‘bring his main course quickly!’, then just watching all this hoo-ha, must have stressed her. 

That day was certainly stressful for me, waking up early, being a passenger to Bristol and back in a day, then racing through dinner, knowing he had to catch a flight.

I expected him to come down with a cold. I was not surprised to hear him phone and say he had a health problem. If he’d had a rash or a lump that would have struck me as a natural result of being overtired, one’s body saying slow down. I had that feeling of, if not ‘I told you so,’ at least ‘what would one expect’. 

I thought, I hoped, that after he had rested he would get back to normal. I got the news in a phone call to England from Singapore.

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