Oh dear, it’s time to break out the Warren Zevon again.

Imagine for a moment it was your job to dish out bad news to, say, a less than grateful 47yr old man who keeps asking questions. You might develop some defence mechanisms. You could send him letters instead of picking up the phone. You might couch what you say in impenetrable jargon to avoid having speak distressing truths out loud. And you might hand off the harder cases, like him, to another colleague as soon as you could.

All this and more was on display at Broomfield today.

However your best defence is probably “The Look”. Delivered by your opening glance, The Look says “I’ve got some bad things to tell you and this look is me telling you to prepare yourself so I don’t have to spell it out.”

When I saw The Look I knew it wasn’t over.

We got off to a bad start. Remember the first law of cancer treatment, no matter where you go you will discover that you have broken an unwritten rule? In this case I’d failed to receive a letter that would have saved her having to deliver the news out loud.

When I gently protested that I had not actually received said letter, she gestured to the date “Well you can see it was written on the 14th”. Clearly my new (and delightful) oncologist from Eastern Europe has still not grasped the full horror of the postal system at the hospital. By past performance I should get it next month.

This was not a good start. So, grabbing her copy, I started to wade through and here’s the skinny:

The thing about cancer is it doesn’t exist, in the same way that the Chinese language doesn’t exist. Chinese is a group of languages, some bigger than others. Cancer is a generic term for rapidly developing cells that go freelance and set up shop wherever the fuck they want instead of obeying their genetic programming.

Remember that scan from my last note? The radioactive glucose is drawn to these rapidly developing cells because they are greedy little fuckers with a sweet tooth.

(Editorial note: Sorry Auntie but I’m right past caring whether you mind the bad language or not…)

The scan report starts at my head and works down. All is fine until it describes the inside of my left pelvis as having a moth eaten appearance (thanks) from where the tumour took a nibble. And a little gang of rapidly developing cells are still right there, having a party inside my bones.

Who knows what they are up to? Might be residual disease (love that, “dis-ease”, bloody right) or might be healing activity (she said in a hopeful voice) and they are sending me to Barts for another expert to take a closer look.

The letter mentioned “autologous transplantation” as a possible treatment option. You might know it as a bone marrow transplant. Turns out this is more like an oil change and involves, wait for it, nasty chemicals and a long stay in hospital. Not nice.

Let’s weigh up the evidence:

• Item 1 - a jargon filled letter that allows medical professionals to talk to each other without patient understanding what is being said. Letter currently “lost in post”.

• Item 2 - swift buck passing to another doctor at Barts.

• Item 3 - The Look.

Hmm. What could it all mean?

I tell you what it means. The universal law of irony has lined up a typical British fudge. Am I cured? Nope. Am I dying? Nope. Am I left waiting somewhere in the middle with no clarity, direction or firm decisions? You got it.

At least nobody wanted to make a hole in me today.

More later.

(PS - Obviously it’s in my interests to over dramatize the whole thing (second law). Actually it’s now just a wait for a phone call, then another visit, then some tests, then some more shit. Not so bad. Stay tuned if you’d like to follow along.)