8602/21521
What a great way to show you’re a Newsround fan and help us out during this difficult time. Thank You Moriarty t shirts now
available to order here. We’ll take orders for a fortnight and then print whatever we’ve sold. You won’t be able to buy them later!
And I don't know if you've heard, I've got incurable cancer, so you know, do the right thing!
THANK YOU, MORIARTY.
OK so thanks to the wonderful British press (and I suppose I am partly responsible) that joke backfired a bit on me. My dad hasn't been very well this year and so the family weren't going to tell him about my hairy cells, as there seemed no need to upset him (over something that remember, is treatable). But mum gave him the Independent today or yesterday, which he usually doesn't read fully, but today he did. And though they didn't drag out the truth as long as some papers, all dad saw
was the incurable cancer bit which is obviously a bit upsetting for him.
In some ways I blame myself.
Mainly because it's entirely my fault.
So I'm sorry that my flippant attitude to all this has led to my poorly dad being worried.
Even I largely stopped finding it funny today. I had slept better in my room, aside from being woken up by weird confusing dreams at midnight and a nurse at 3am and 7am who wanted to check my blood pressure and give me drugs. The room is ruthlessly air conditioned, which should be a good thing (I had no idea what the weather outside was like, but being too cold is probably better than being too hot) and the NHS blanket and sheet are painfully thin. So my two nights away, plus my last disturbed night at home had left me very tired and worried that I might actually get ill, as it seemed like I hadn't had an infection at all.
I was being told I was going home today and I was all packed up and ready by 8.30am, but the day dragged on. The doctor came in mid-morning to say it looked like I had been fine, but that there was one more blood test they had to wait for and it was looking like a 4or 5pm home time if all was well (and then in all weekend if I was not).
I was really too tired to do anything useful and typically every time I tried to sleep or talk to Catie on the phone, I'd suddenly get loads of visits from the nurses and every time I didn't bother trying I was undisturbed for hours.
The pharmacist came in at about 3pm to tell me about the antibiotic course that I'd have to finish at home. It looked like I might be out of there.
Catie has had a Hell of a week having to drive the kids everywhere and pick up Ernie from an overnight school trip that was a 90 minute drive away, but we were hoping she'd be able to come and pick me up. But Phoebe had football and a concert this evening and so as the minutes ticked away it looked like that wouldn't happen.
I was no longer being a chirpy little birdy, enjoying the fun bit of incarceration in a much too cold (but better than being much too hot) room. The pharmacist didn't seem to be coming back and nor did the doctor with the results of my tests and having not been out of this room for 50 hours (Jesus, really, was that all it was?), except to get my lungs x-rayed I was going a bit stir crazy.
I thought I might start smashing the place up or smashing my head into the wall and remember, there's essentially nothing wrong with me. Everyone else in this area of the hospital had proper serious problems, from what I could hear through my door, and I might just have an infection, but probably not.
The doctor came and confirmed the good bad news that I hadn't had an infection. This was pretty frustrating as not only had I spent 6 weeks in the hole, but my 5 day course of chemo injections had been paused after day 2, unnecessarily and so I'd have to do it all over again. After my antibiotic course had finished, probably the week after next.
It turns out that the two I've had don't count. Though surely they must have helped a little bit. If I can keep this going long enough I might get permanently radioactive.
I am very keen to go on holiday in mid-July and do Edinburgh in early August (and it's very probable that I will) but if there's an 80% chance of getting an infection mid-course then I might have to keep getting two injections done and then stop and be left in a room alone for at least 16 more weeks.
I just wished I'd asked them to do my temperature again n Wednesday. I felt pretty sure it was all due to the stress of waiting for an hour in the waiting room and that it returned to normal seconds later.
Anyway, poor me - yes I am lucky that they are taking it all so seriously, but when you don't get sick pay, suddenly being unable to work for at least 4 weeks sucks a dog's cock.
The pharmacist took ages to come back - had they forgotten me? And I still needed my cannula taken out. I finally got an Uber home at 6pm and the whole family were out for the evening.
But great to be back home. Also great to weigh myself and realise that I have lost 3kg since Monday. My appetite is very weak and most things make me feel nauseous, but with results like this, who cares?
One of my goals of 2026 is to properly fit back into the jacket I wore in Educating Rita, where my character ha smartened up to impress his student, but when he tried to do the button up there was a good six inches of stomach in the way. I tried it on after I'd got back from the hospital and it did just about do up.
But look I couldn't face more than a couple of ice lollies tonight and I have to do the chemo course again. I could drop 10kg if this thing goes on long enough.
Cancer treatment might not be good in many ways, but turns out it's a great weight loss system. After my testicular cancer I also got about as fit and slim as I've ever been.
No one talks about the good side of cancer.
It was great to be home, but now I felt insane for complaining about the air conditioning (only to myself - I did not bother the staff at the hospital for anything at any point) as the muggy evening made sleep tricky. Luckily I was tired enough to get a reasonable night's sleep.
Anyway, a few days off, hopefully recovered enough to do a bit of work and some Newsrounds next week and then we go again.
