Recently I’ve been thinking about my eyes being cut out. I don’t mean in a dream or some kind of nightmare. And I don’t mean while I’m still alive, because I need them for seeing. But I’ve caught myself in the mirror recently and thought that my eyes look nice so maybe someone else might want them. Yes, while my face has been ravaged by chemotherapy, like a small ship dragged on to jagged rocks before being smashed to pieces, I quite like the squishy orbs that nestle in the eye sockets.
I filled in an organ donor card years ago when I got my driver’s licence (which was a very cheery way of saying “Young drivers have fatal crashes “) but now I’ve got incurable bowel cancer I wonder how much has changed. Am I still able to donate organs and, if I am, which ones? The blood donor people no longer want me and I think bone marrow donation might be out too.
But what about my heart and my lungs? My heart has been busy pumping chemotherapy around my body so it might be out. If the cancer spreads to my lungs then that’s probably a no too.
My liver is supposedly fairly healthy, but it has had lots of tumours growing in it so the surgeons would probably turn it down. Would my eyes, or at least the cornea part, be something that could be given to someone else?
And what about all the organs I’ve forgotten to mention? It definitely isn’t something I thought I would have to think about, at least not yet in my fairly ordinary life journey.
Maybe it is too early. Maybe it is something I should wait to think about until my cancer becomes terminal. And maybe I’m just spending hours thinking about it because I don’t want to do the washing up.
It’s one of those questions that someone could tackle with a mental health professional, if cancer hospitals realised that such people are as important to a patient’s treatment as the oncology teams who specialise in physical health issues.
Maybe it’s not just about my eyes and is a lot about me questioning whether I’m ready for death. How will I feel when I’m told there’s nothing more that can be done and that my cancer has spread faster than Greggs’ expansion plans?
Will I have achieved everything I set out to do in this life or will there be a massive handover email for me to send to my boss? I say my boss because, while lots of people’s bucket lists include places they’d like to see, mine just has one wish on it.
My one wish is for the Daily Express Cancer Care campaign to succeed. This would mean that all cancer hospitals ensure that patients receive a holistic needs assessment at the time they are diagnosed with the disease, so medical teams can work out what the biggest issues and concerns are for the people they are treating.
It would also mean that mental health issues are seen as a side-effect of cancer and the associated brutal treatments. So, rather than medical teams simply ignoring mental health and wellbeing, they would ask about how a patient is doing mentally and could refer them to specialist support or even just low-level help like a friendship group or an online forum when necessary.
It’s my not-sure-when-I’m-dying-but-dying-eventually-and-thinking-it-might-be-dying-within-three-years-because-that’s-what-the-stats-say wish. You can help it come true by signing the petition above.