The Annual Cancer Check

I have been clear of cancer for over five years now. Five years is usually the point at which the medical profession decides the risk of your malignant tumours performing an encore is low enough for you to be downgraded, so of course I am pretty damn happy to be at this point, poignant though it is to have reached it in a year in which I lost my sister to a much more destructive version of the same horrible disease.  The McMillan centre at University College Hospital is an all singing, all dancing, bespoke cancer treatment centre, all shiny and gleaming off University Street in the West End, and that is where I go, mingling with hundreds of other Londoners at various stages of the same disease. Some might have it. Some know they have it and are working out their treatment. Some are all too visibly mid treatment, and some have reached the end with noplace else to go. The building is huge but it overflows with anxious relatives and friends. I don't know. Something about Cancer Country induces an automatic empathy. But there is also a thread in my thoughts of wanting really really hard to be anywhere but in this place. I think the information centre is fantastic. One of the worst things about getting cancer is the abject confusion, the inability to reconcile the reality with your innate confidence in your body, and more than anything the deluge of emotional stories in the press that skew your perception like nothing else can. I think the counselling suites are amazing - a place where a shoulder to cry on is as available as a blood test. I really love that there are two cafes - two!!! - with decent croissants, not nasty plastic sandwiches that curl on the end. but still every time I go there I want to run howling from the place. And as I leave I discover I am not the only visitor who feels that way. Outside the building there is a tall man clutching what looks like a medical appointment card, his hands raised to the heavens, and he is yelling. MY NAME IS RONAN, he shouts. I NEED HELP. People stop and stare at him. I NEED YOUR PRAYERS, he yells at the sky. IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME??? People on the streets scratch their heads, giggle nervously, speed up their stride. But I get it. I listen to him yelling the same thing over and over, and think to myself, Ronan, you have my prayers. OK? Will that help any? I know exactly how you feel. But I tell you what Ronan. I'm going to have to get the hell out of here and give you my prayers at a distance, somewhere  not cancer related where I can get my head out of this twilight zone. And I head off to work.  Nice, normal office environment where people bury their personal skeletons, get their heads down and deliver. Which is just so much easier than hanging it all out there in a cancer clinic.