On the road

The thing is this:  If you don’t hear from me, it’s all good.  If nothing happens, I have nothing to write about (and if that were the end of this blog, I’d be the happiest person in the world). If I lie in hospital or a chemo session keeps me immobile, my laptop is where it belongs, and I type away.  If I don’t write, there’s nothing to write about.

This is how it should be but last week showed that it’s not that easy.  The week was one story after another but I got around to summarizing it only on the plane to London on Sunday.  It had been a point landing.  Up to the last moment, it hadn’t been clear whether I’d be able to go on this trip at all, but then I woke up at three, fresh and full of energy.  I was on the train by 5:30, on the plane by seven, and at Heathrow two hours later.

Conferences are usually good fun because I hear interesting science and meet people I’ve known for years.  This time it was a bit different because of the secret I carry inside me.  The light-hearted greetings with their cheerful how are yous weighed heavily on me.  Was I lying or just keeping my privacy when I said, “All right”, again and again?  Or was I just answering in the context of that day?  One person who I enjoy talking to over beers asked about the time since we had last met, which happened to have been between my initial diagnosis and the operation.  How can I share anything?  Sharing anything means sharing everything, and a coffee break or a conference dinner is not the place for something so deeply personal.

It took me weeks to tell my colleagues at work about my cancer.  When I had bailed out at the last moment during a group meeting a few weeks back, I thought it’d be better to have individual conversations.  Better maybe, but not easier.  The only conversation I had was completely unexpected.  A colleague asked good questions and inquired about a day when he saw me hobble around as if I had massive back pain.  Instead of just brushing him off, I let him in.  We talked for quite a while.

At our group meeting last week, I framed the news as good news.  “I’ve just started chemotherapy”, I told them.  “This is the only way of beating the cancer inside me.”  It was a good strategy.  Some people were shocked but others relaxed enough to joke.  I should get a camper van and start cooking meth, one colleague told me.  He was right, but not as he had thought.  What I might need to cook is methadone, according to early, unconfirmed reports that this opioid might be an enhancer of chemotherapy success in difficult cancers.  A clinical trial is about to start in Germany.

After three days at a conference near Cambridge and two days at a workshop near Oxford, I’m back in Switzerland now.  A totally normal, uneventful week is drawing to a close.  I’m doing fine.  There’s nothing to write about.