My lovely lungs: a cancer recurrence

Breathe. Sip tea. Sob. 'I'm sorry, what?'

May 2024. A warm afternoon in central London. Bloomsbury; an area of academia, history. Of tourism, of bustle, hustle, bookshops. Green squares full of students. Life being lived in its everyday Mondayness. In our case, Monday mess.

Sarah and I are sitting in a leafy square on the grass. I am numb. I am not numb; I am fizzing with shock. I am fizzing and yet I am still. I am both here and not here. I am in London’s spring beauty and in an alternative universe not unlike the Upside Down in the series, Stranger Things. I have been sucked in here against my will. I am sobbing. I am absolutely not sobbing. I am still.

I lean back against Sarah, my partner. She is a few inches shorter so I wonder if this is okay. Will I topple her with my heavy shock? She has bought tea from the hut in the square. I am drinking the tea. I appear to be drinking the tea. This must be good as normal people, doing normal life, drink tea. And Sarah is okay. She is strong and she loves me and she can be the deckchair for now.

I wonder if I should ask one of the students if I could please requisition their bench? After all, I have stage 4 lung cancer. I. Actually. Have. Stage. Four. Cancer. Of the lungs. Both lungs. Ten tiny nodules that I have been talking to for two years. (‘It’s okay nodules, you can stay but jam your hype. No growing please. You are welcome here in your teeny tiny state’). They are however slowly on the move and after a biopsy of my right lung (oddly not as grim as it sounds) they are confirmed as cancerous. They are also described as indolent. Which is amusing to me as I don’t think I have ever been indolent in my life.

So I sip my tea, have a coughing fit in reaction to a nut cereal bar. A bit more sobbing. Great timing as so far I haven’t had a cancery cough. Then I calm. Ten metres or so in front of me, a girl has been playing. She is seven or eight years old. She might be the daughter of an international student. She is wearing a bright, poppy red dress and smiling and laughing as she chases a pigeon. She is the only child in the square. The sun shines on her and she runs and chases and chases and runs and laughs.

As she leaves the square, she turns around and she smiles at me and Sarah. She smiles at us. And she waves. She waves and waves and turns and waves some more.

And I cry. Red dress girl is telling me it’s okay. She is smiling, so we smile. I wave and wave at her. Sarah and I laugh at how we are waving. And I think, ‘I am here. I am alive. I am drinking tea and Sarah is here and it’s a sunny day.’ I am the same person I was this morning. And life really is beautiful and this moment (like all the other moments) will pass and we will be home soon and I will hug my children and my granddaughter. And we will all carry on loving one another. Normally. Extraordinarily. And we will drink tea.

About lung cancer

Anyone can develop lung cancer. Men and women, young and old, smokers and non-smokers. Be aware of lung cancer signs and symptoms. It is the most common cause of cancer death for men and women.

An early lung cancer diagnosis can make a big difference.

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