The art of oncology

The main side effect of the six-month course of chemotherapy was ‘fatigue’. The main side effect of the three-monthly hormone injection is ‘fatigue’. The one and only side effect of the expensive, new-generation, last-chance-saloon anti-prostate cancer drug that I’ve been started on is ‘fatigue’. I’m clapped out.

At night I sleep for 11 hours and wake up tired. Then I have about three hours to spend doing things in an upright position before lunch. After lunch I sleep for another two or three hours. After a long afternoon nap I wake up tired again. But I can read lying down on the bed or the terrace recliner. Then it’s a gin and the crossword, supper, and I’m looking forward to going back to bed for another 11 hours. That’s it.

Even if the pills succeeded in keeping the cancer at bay for a few months or a year – at what price?

Experimentally, I went out the other evening. Local garden restaurant. Outside tables, widely spaced. Lights under the trees. Posh yet unpretentious. A real treat. The line-up was Catriona and my dear old pal Damien McCrystal, former gonzo restaurant critic, now in PR, who had driven down from Yorkshire in 16 hours for a few splashy lunches and dinners and to buy wine. I did my best to remain upright in my chair, to drink something, to stop thinking about how tired I was and share the abandon. But after the starter I had to excuse myself to walk around to the back of the house, where I knew there were some comfy sofas under the Aleppo pine, and lie down for 20 minutes, my heart pounding, and ask myself the question.