Cancer Comic Strip

You Mancunians ... what are you doing April 17th?

Fancy a nice healthy walk?

Check this out.

Maybe I'll see you there ... as long as I can bring my four-legged friend for company...

I thought it was just me and a few like-minded folks out here in the wilderness shouting at the health professionals that once your cancer treatment is finished, you're politely told to do something connected with sex and travel - if you're lucky, maybe "come back next year for a checkup." And that's it. Diddly squat.

As many of you will know from experience, while you're going through chemo and radiotherapy you feel supported and cocooned by doctors, nurses and other wallahs plus the whole cancer system itself. This is generally considered to be an important part of your therapy; you are not alone, you have a key worker or other mentor you can call in the middle of the night and rant at if you want to, and on your regular visits to the onco unit or "tanning booths" you're warmly welcomed and entertained by all your friends and co-patients.

As soon as the treatments end though, you get pushed over the cliff and you're on your own. All that nice, comfy support, cups of tea, letters, pamphlets, cosy chats, little ring-binders with your treatment notes in them etc. etc. vaporise in an instant and you're dumped back in the world of real life, feeling about as fit for coping with it as a one-legged man at a butt-kicking party.

At last, here in the UK, Macmillan Cancer Support - bless 'em - are campaigning for the system to stop abandoning successfully-treated cancer patients like stolen cars by the side of the road, and get them - or rather, us - the follow-up care we need.

Macmillan not unreasonably are focusing on the medical issues involved in post-cancer care here, but I hope they don't forget the psychological side of it - we cancer patients get withdrawal symptoms when our toy-toys and security blankets are whipped out from under our noses. But we can hardly rate as spoilt brats who should just be told to grow up and get on with it.

This article on the BBC website makes interesting reading.

What do you think?

Greetings to all in this new decade and I hope you had a wonderful Holiday season. I've had some welcome time off from BCG+Interferon bladder treatments - boy, did they make me pee razorblades - and have no further Chinese torture until I go for a "poke and peek" early February.

And now, while we're on the subject of uro cancers, a little story to start the New Year:

A patient visited his urologist for testicular cancer and expressed concern about being able to perform after the operation. The patient was also worried about the chemotherapy.

The doctor said "I too had testicular cancer a few years ago. Ten days after the operation I made passionate love with my wife, and forgot all my worries. Try it and see for yourself."

Three weeks later the patient returned, and thanked the doctor effusively. The doctor said "I'm glad my advice helped."

The patient thanked him again, and as he was leaving said "By the way Doctor, you have a really beautiful house."

With thanks to The Furry Monkey for the loan of this gag - check out his cancer jokes but be warned, some of them are not for the faint-hearted.

Yesterday I said a fond farewell to my dear old and very first ever breast prosthesis which had begun to ooze silicone gel and had had to be patched up with tape.

Being keen on recycling rather than throwing things away I asked various friends what would be a fitting retirement role for it, and a number of very helpful suggestions were put forward, including:

**Door bell
**Shooting target, alternative to clay pigeon
**Centrepiece for upcoming festive season (appropriately painted)
**Decoration floating in party punch bowl
**etc.


By far the mosting intriguing, however, was from my good friend Pam W who suggested I mix it in with the pot pourri, rather in the fashion of St Agatha as seen in the illustration here ... a painting by Cariani currently hanging in the National Gallery of Scotland.

Excellent idea! Can anyone come up with anything better?

An email just in from my cousin Alyson in Ottawa...

~~~~~~~~~~

Woman's Annual Exam

I went to the doctor for my yearly physical.

The nurse starts with certain basics.

"How much do you weigh?" she asks.

"135," I say.

The nurse puts me on the scale. It turns out my weight is 180.

The nurse asks, "Your height?"

"5 foot 7"," I say.

The nurse checks and sees that I only measure 5'5". She then takes my blood pressure and tells me it is very high.

"Of course it's high!" I scream. "When I came in here I was tall and slender! Now I'm short and fat!"

She put me on Prozac. What a bitch.

This was sent to me by a colleague - original source unknown...

~~~~~~~~~~

POWER OUTAGE DURING A MAMMOGRAM

I actually kept my mammogram appointment. I was met with, "Hi! I'm Belinda!" This perky clipboard carrier smiled from ear to ear, tilted her head to one side and crooned, "All I need you to do is step into this room right here, strip to the waist, then slip on this gown. Everything clear?"

I'm thinking, "Belinda, try decaf. This ain't rocket science."

Belinda skipped away to prepare the chamber of horrors.

With the right side finished, Belinda flipped me (literally) to the left and said, "Hmmmm. Can you stand on your tippy toes and lean in a tad so we can get everything?" Fine, I answered. I was freezing, bruised, and out of air, so why not use the remaining circulation in my legs and neck and finish me off?

My body was in a holding pattern that defied gravity (with my other boob wedged between those two 4 inch pieces of square glass) when we heard,
then felt a zap! Complete darkness and the power went off!

"Oh, maintenance is working. Bet they hit a snag." Belinda headed for the door.

"Excuse me! You're not leaving me in this vice alone are you?" I shouted.

Belinda kept going and said, "Oh, you fussy puppy...the door's wide open so you'll have the emergency hall lights. I'll be right back."

Before I could shout "NOOOO!" she disappeared. And that's exactly how Bubba and Earl, maintenance men extraordinaire, found me, half-naked and part of me dangling from the Jaws of Life, and the other part smashed between glass!

After exchanging polite "Hi, how's it going" type greetings, Bubba (or possibly Earl) asked, to my utter disbelief, if I knew the power was off. Trying to disguise my hysteria, I replied with as much calmness as possible "Uh, yes, yes I did thanks."

"You bet, take care" Bubba replied and waved good-bye as though I'd been standing in the line at the grocery store.

Two hours later, Belinda breezes in wearing a sheepish grin. Making no attempt to suppress her amusement, she said, "Oh I am sooo sorry! The power came back on and I totally forgot about you! And silly me, I went to lunch. Are we upset?"

And that, Your Honor, is exactly how her head ended up between the clamps.

And you thought I had disappeared on you! Well, yes, I did. I have been busy writing more books, bringing up my increasingly expensively 17-yr-old student and rock drummer son Tom, and cooking for my (largely) adopted family of teen musicians who have been practising and recording at our house ... have a look here for more on that.

But that doesn't mean to say I have lost touch with cancer - no way. In fact in my ongoing dealings with bladder cancer I am about to embark on a course of treatment of BCG and Interferon ... commonplace in the USA but a relatively new departure in cranky old England. Having thought my bladder was soon to be confined to the hospital incinerator, we've had a reprieve for now!

So to continue in the urinary vein, so to speak, here is a short story you might find of interest - especially if (like me) you are the wrong side of 55.

77 year old Morris went for his annual physical. All of his tests came back with great results. The doctor said, "Morris everything looks great physically. How are you doing mentally, emotionally and are you at peace with yourself, and have a good relationship with God?"

Morris replied, "God and me are tight. We are so close that when I get up in the middle of the night, *poof*... the light goes on when I go to the bathroom and then *poof* the light goes off!"

"Wow," commented Dr. Cohen," That's incredible!" A little later in the day the doctor called Morris's wife. "Becky," he said, " Morris is just fine. Physically he's great. But I had to call because I'm in awe of his relationship with God. Is it true that he gets up during the night and *poof* the light goes on in the bathroom and then *poof* the light goes off?"

Becky replied, "Silly old f*rt...he's been peeing in the fridge again."

Until next time ... and I promise it won't be so long! Sz

Hats off to the "Sixth Form" (US equivalent - 11th and 12th grades) pupils at the Sir Henry Floyd School in Aylesbury, near London, England, for pledging to make prize idiots of themselves all next week to raise money for breast cancer charities.

Activities planned include wrestling matches with all combatants wearing fat suits ...
the boys performing their own version of "The Full Monty" strip routine ... a "gunge the teacher" session (which teacher can afford the time off afterwards to get all the goo out of his/her hair?)... various sponsored anatomical bits being shaved and/or waxed ... and lots more.

But why breast cancer?

"We had a vote in every year's assembly and breast cancer won outright," said organiser Oli Lacey. "People clearly wished for that charitable cause to be supported."

And when I asked my son Tom Webb (who just so happens to be a 6th form pupil at the school) if I could look forward to hearing about his wrestling exploits in a fat suit, he replied "nah, mum, I'll be busy doing the sound and lights for all the events."

Sometimes it pays to be a behind-the-scenes techie...

Not surprisingly these events are not open to the public, but if you want to lend your support have a look at their Facebook page.

To whoever owns the copyright of that fat suit pic - thank you for supporting us by letting us use it.

With Darren Couchman's book on testicular cancer still fresh in our minds here is a gag that caught my attention...

Two women were playing golf one sunny Sunday morning. The first woman teed off and watched horrified as the ball flew at four men who were playing the next hole. Her ball hit one of the men extremely hard and he instantly stuffed his hands into his crotch, fell to the ground and began rolling around in agony. The woman raced across to the man and apologized profusely.

"Please let me help - I'm a physiotherapist and I know I could relieve the pain for you," she said with deep concern.

"No, no, thanks, I'll be alright...I'll be OK in a minute," he gasped, still lying in fetal position with his hands clasped together at his crotch.

The woman then took it upon herself to ease his pain by massaging his groin. After a couple of minutes she asked, "does that feel better?"

The man looked up at her and replied, "Yes, that feels really good, thank you. But my thumb still hurts like hell."

Picture borrowed from 2NewsTV of Boise, Idaho. Many thanks for its loan.

So sad to learn of Jade Goody's death today, the UK's Mothering Sunday of all days. Whatever you may think of her behaviour in the past, she has created significant awareness of cervical cancer, particularly in younger women for whom it is a serious threat.

I think it's only fair to say that Jade's illness and its resultant publicity will save many lives in the future, and she is to be admired for that.

As this is, after all, a humorous blog, let's say goodbye to Jade with a picture of her when she was laughing and in good shape. She was a good publicist and a very brave cancer warrior.

(Pic borrowed from the internet, thank you to whoever owns the copyright.)