Karen.

I almost gave up waiting when a well-dressed, well-groomed young woman appeared with a small luggage case on wheels. She has been in the secure unit for six months. “We have to go and get my dog” so off we go to get her dog. She tells me she has been sectioned before and because of that, when the argument occurred with her boyfriend they locked her up again. She is worried, “What if my dog doesn’t recognise me? “What if he has been given a new home”? We arrived at the kennels that is some distance from the town. Karen has been in the office for some time and decides to stand outside. She needs to be outside. Way across the huge yard a dog is being walked and he is barking, Karen notices and is now moving from the door. The dog, a good 150 yards away is going nuts and is let go by its walker and runs across the vast yard. “Jimmy! Karen shouts, the dog is barking/crying as it missiles towards her. They meet in a dust cloud in the yard, both in the dirt, both shrieking with joy. Karen is on her back being washed by Jimmy, immaculate clothing not so anymore. A scene of happiness of such I rarely see in real life. It took an age to calm them both down enough to get them in the cab. Jimmies tail never missed a beat the whole journey. Karen only had the £4.20 she was sectioned with and my meter said £19.80 but that was ok. I took it and was happy with it. Karen saw me crying in the yard but that was ok as well.

The Extraordinary Coolness of the Ordinary.

I’ve seen many things whilst doing my job. Batman and Robin arguing outside a pub about who had the fags. Someone punching my cab at thirty miles an hour and hearing his hand crack. I’ve watched disastrous break ups of woman-woman, man-man, man-woman, trans-man. Casual sex being agreed upon and settled like a business transaction for just the one night by most of the above. Y’now, ordinary.

  The above is de rigueur on any drug and drink fuelled night out in any town. Acts of carnal contract and agreement will be told and reminisced as being quite cool by many. A badge of coolness. If your famous enough, your particularly weird animal acts of copulation may even make the weekly magazines. It’s not really cool though is it? Nah! Not cool at all.

But I have seen, truly, the coolest of things…

  I watched, recently, standing by my cab door an incredibly attractive, tall woman tell her husband the marriage is over, she went on to remove her rings, bracelets and hand the keys to the car to her mocking, argumentative soon to be ex husband. I’ve heard all that before, many times, but what separated it from the others was what happened next. She went on to step out of the dress she was wearing and hand it to her husbands already full hands. Did a twirl in her immaculate and heart stopping underwear as if to say this is the last time you get to see this, open my rear door, got in and I drove away. She sat silent, no tears, no fear, just wistfully looking out at the world that was passing by. No doubt pondering a new happier future. I got her home, she paid me and she walked up her drive semi naked holding a small handbag and a smile. This small movie played itself out in front of me.

That was cool.

  I’ve seen a young girl wearing a short skirt, legs covered in eczema going for a night out in the town, not giving a toss for what others will think and the comments she WILL get.

That was cool.

  I’ve seen a paraplegic man punch a bloke in the nuts for disrespecting his girlfriend who was dutifully pushing him in his wheelchair.

That was cool.

Some people are cool because they have an attitude to life that is impressive beyond words…

  I took an elderly man home from the hospital he discharged himself from. I dared ask why he did it, he told me he had terminal cancer and had at best a couple of weeks left and didn’t want it spent in a hospital or hospice bed being fawned on. We chatted and laughed for about fifteen minutes as I slowly, deliberately meandered my way to his home, he was smiling and more alive the nearer we got there. When we arrived he paid me and I helped him out.  It was uncomfortable to watch a man in such pain. His wife at the doorway never budged, willing him on but knew the walk to his own front door had to be his own.

  They held each other in the doorway not letting go, he crumpled slightly, I went to run to grab him, she held her hand out and stopped me, I walked back and stood by the cab, it was twilight and crispy cold, the sky a wonderful deep blue above their bungalow, just my headlights lighting his well kept and proud front garden, I was transfixed and tearful, knowing that this union in the doorway will soon fade away into just a memory…

That was cool.

  I was privileged to witness a similar moment with a Mum and her teenage son who, equally and stubbornly discharged himself from hospital, his time short. A big bag of pain relief in his hand and holding a small bottle of oxygen, small tubes strapped to his nose. His Mum cradled him in the back of the cab, he was thin and very frail and I made an effort not to hit any potholes or bumps in our badly kept roads for him. She told him he could have whatever he wanted and whomever he wanted to come and see him at home right up till his time. He paused, took in a struggled breath and said “Can I play Xbox when I get in?” She then sighed and said “No you’re having your tea first” He then angrily replied, OH! FOR FUCKS SAKE!! “Right no Xbox for swearing!” she huffed, and so the exchange of bartering went on till I got them both home. She practically carried him to their front door and they were both still arguing. The normalcy of this typical conversation between parent and teenager was both comical and sad, knowing that a mother and child would soon part. Forever.

That was REALLY cool.

  I sometimes see cool things. In a split second glance as I drive by, I see an elderly man helping a young mum with a pram get up some steps. I see a smile as a door is opened for somebody and a laugh coming from a chance meeting in the street with an old friend. I look at the ordinary and see something extraordinary, not all the time. Life is crap and I know we are all busy with our own lives, I have to look hard myself through the dross of ordinariness. Sometimes though… When I really open my eyes I see small very cool things just… Happen.

Cancer And Me...

I began writing this about seven hours after being discharged from hospital, after being taken their some seven hours earlier today (Mon 11th Oct 2010) by Steve the paramedic.

The pain was obviously too much fourteen hours ago for me to bear, the phone was picked up and the questions were answered that facilitated the dispatch of a wonderful medical professional to my aid.

My fight with Cancer started four years ago, still chirpy, but grey and ashen, I had just met someone that I had admired from afar for quite some time. That someone made me stand a little taller, smile a little broader, every time I saw them.


I had been losing blood for a good few months, even went to my local hospital and was duly prodded and internally searched, they tutted and reminded me that my own doctor could have dealt with my so called emergency, and I was to think twice before I came to an A+E ever again.


Satisfied that I wasn't dying and I was being a little baby about it all, I carried on. grateful that my new interest was keeping me...interested.


Months passed, a little weaker and a little greyer, I showed my bored GP a camera phone picture I took of a visit to a public toilet and the bath of blood it contained, camera phones have such clarity these days don't they?

Duly dispatched to a consultant, and after quick succession of barium enemas and CT scans and MRI imaging, after the final look with an expensive bendy camera with a snipping tool attached, a large bit of something was torn from its festering mooring and brought out into the cold light of an operating theatre. Still, my strength never left me...


That thing that saw its first light was being gripped by the snakelike scope, its brightly lit l.e.d. eye emphasised this thumb sized slice of cancers grey-red colour. The thing on the end of the scope that grew within me, wasn't something that had Cancer on it, but it was Cancer itself. I was awake, undrugged during the entire process. But, I had some strength to draw from...

They probably call it the big "C" because everyone capitalises the word "Cancer" but from now on, I'm going to write it simply as, cancer.

So colorectal cancer was the diagnosis, its also called colon and bowel cancer but whatever this evil wants to call itself it gave me nine months left to do my goodbyes.

Drastic surgery ensued, quickly. The next eleven days I was medically starved, no food or liquids passed my lips, strangely still I wasn't even hungry during all that time, I wasted away, my body started to eat itself  and it certainly enjoyed its meal, because I lost two stone-that's 28 pounds in American. My strength never left me...

Because of my Strength, I quickly started to wash myself rather than take the easy option of having a nimble fingered nurse to do it for me. My stomach was being pumped out through my nose twice a day to stop the juices that destroy food from destroying my newly shortened lower bowel and half of a rectum that was left.

On the twelfth day I was solo, free from tubes coming out of three places, free of a multi spinal epidural of which one is normally sufficient for a woman to give birth, but was left in for nearly two weeks to stop a pain that truly wanted to be noticed. My strength grew...

The machines that pumped fluids and nutrients into the tree of life that was the mountainous weighty cannula that stuck out of my arm, was removed, my morphine machine that pumped useless morphine that never ever worked on me was switched off, It ignored my screams in the night, and it beeped and watched me praying that a couple of hundred pushes of the button would send me into oblivion. My strength never left me...


That day I was free, I Slowly started to strengthen myself by walking around a table in a visitors room, albeit with a zimmer frame... round and round, hundreds of times, I had to get strong by myself because there was something I had to do...


What was this thing I had to do? Dear weary and patient reader?


In my hospital, their is a multi-faith chapel, its quiet and still. I took a woman that I met some four months previously inside and asked her to marry me.


In the second paragraph above the phone call to the paramedics was made by my wife, I couldn't do it...


In the seventh paragraph when I was diagnosed with cancer, the person holding my hand and held her composure with the straightest of backs, and with just one tear, was my wife...

My strength, the strength I talked about in the above paragraphs wasn't me at all, it was her.

Every step of the process she never left my side, never blinked in disgust at my little accidents in the early stages of recovery, she never faltered or showed any weariness at the long long road to recovery, I had now been given a few more years of life.

When she was at work, I crawled and sobbed my way to the bathroom, sometimes taking up to an hour to get there and get out of the bath, there where times when I lay in bed for a whole day unable to physically hold myself up, going without that all important cup of tea we British find solace in. It was waiting to be made just yards away in the kitchen.

When she came to visit me I walked, didn't show a struggle, didn't tell her of the hell day I just had.


Her just being there made me stand strong. She IS my strength.


You read poems about heroes and angels sent from heaven, well, I'm certainly not going to start attempting to insult you with a silly poem or ode, I feel naked enough now telling you all this, you dear suffering reader!


My children played they're important part in my recovery and their isn't enough electronic ink on whatever your reading this on, that can thank them enough either.


So, there you are, cancer and me. as the title above says, but this piece is not really about me, it never has been dear deceived reader.

...it was about my wife, Carolyn all along.


Until next time...


Oh! My emergency dash in Steve the paramedics car today? well, I still don't know! I will no doubt find out in the ensuing weeks ahead, But, whatever! Everything is alright because as I write this, she sleeps, and its my turn to protect her while she does, as you get to know me, you will know its the night that belongs to me, its when I work, it was when I walked dozens of miles around a five foot wide table in a cold dark visitors room in a NHS hospital that saved my life, so I could ask an angel to marry me.


Alright! alright! I got a bit poetical and weepy when I did that last paragraph, so sue me... Oh! And thanks for reading to the end, dear, now very weary reader...

2020 update!! January of this year I was contacted by my sister whom I have never met and told my of the passing of a father I did not know. He died tragically of a heart attack on the floor of his kitchen at the same date and time aswhat was happening to me in the first paragraph above. Father and son both on their kitchen floors not even aware of each other’s existence, my father lay dying and I thought I was at the same time. The same moment. In the same circumstances. Make of that what you will.