Standing in a kebab shop ordering a chicken doner meat and chips I felt like a normal person. I was thinking about whether to also get a can of Dr Pepper (what’s the worst that can happen after all) but decided I had enough drinks at home. Back in my days of drinking alcohol I may well have plumped for the fizzy drink while shovelling shards of reheated chicken doner and lukewarm chilli sauce in my face.
But now, as probably one of the only sober people in such an establishment just before closing, I was a lot more reserved. I’d been out in Hyde Park in London for the afternoon, and quite a bit of the evening, celebrating my cousin’s birthday – including trying to understand a Scandinavian game of throwing big sticks of wood at blocks of wood. And, most importantly for me, hardly any of his friends know I have cancer so they didn’t ask me about it.
It is obviously sad that they don’t devour my diary pieces every week and don’t know that at the Daily Express we are trying to change lives with the Cancer Care campaign. But it was nice that for several hours on a sunny afternoon I could enjoy that rare experience of just be me around other people. I wasn’t a cancer patient. No-one questioned why I wasn’t drinking, because everyone else was at the age where they drink but not as much as I did at their age.
And it instilled a bit of confidence in me that this week I could manage four nights out in a row. Yes, me, the one with incurable bowel cancer who gets tired when he has 12 hospital appointments in a week across three hospitals in south London. Yes, me, the one who falls asleep during chemotherapy after accidentally spilling a pack of Mini Cheddars on the floor.
But, a bit like a cruel plot twist in the Craig David Seven Days song, instead of going to comedy on Monday, a documentary film launch on Tuesday, an immersive theatre experience on Wednesday, and a summer work party on Thursday, so far I’ve managed nothing. Yes, nothing. I haven’t even made it to hospital for a blood test. Somewhere in my quest for normality I’ve picked up a sore throat so, at the time of writing, I haven’t made it anywhere.
Unlike the days before I was diagnosed with incurable cancer, nowadays every little ailment and infection affects me far more than I wish it would. Scrapes and bruises take longer to repair, infections that should be solved with Strepsils and sleep plague me, and everything just takes longer. And the frustration and exhaustion takes its toll on me mentally as I watch as fun things slide by.
It’s something I’ve spoken a lot about before but, two years on into the world of cancer, the mental health and the missing out bits of cancer are still the hardest for me. This is why the Cancer Care campaign is calling for mental health support for cancer patients both during and after chemotherapy.
And, whether you favour chilli sauce on your kebab or wouldn’t be seen dead in such an establishment, you can help by signing the petition and then sharing it with all your friends on social media. Together we can give everyone as much support as they need to feel as normal as possible.