I have a cancer in my neck and I’ve called it Jeremy Hunt.

Around a month ago I had a stroke. During the many, many tests the NHS did to help me get better a ‘mass’ was discovered in my neck hanging round my jugular vein like a junkie looking to mug an old granny outside a post office on pension day. Last week it was confirmed as being a probably malignant cancer, and this week I’ve been seeing doctors about surgery which could be as early as next week after Easter depending on further tests.

At this moment in time I’m still waiting on blood and tissue samples. The other day I had a fun time at St. Michael’s Hospital in Bristol where the doctors stuck a few needles in my neck to get some samples out (I also shared a waiting room with loads of pregnant women as the ultrasound department was doing loads of scans prior to Easter, which was odd..) and some amazingly good people made me feel comfortable with a procedure which is probably going to be the least horrible part of what’s coming. However my doctor is confident he’ll get this cancer out my neck, and once the blood samples come back we’ll find out if it’s spread across my body. Right now it looks as if it hasn’t and by sheer chance the stroke has highlighted something that could have been sitting in my  body for say another decade before deciding to kill me.

So, following the lead of the late, great and very lamented writer Dennis Potter who called the cancer that eventually killed him Rupert, after Rupert Murdoch, I’ve decided to name my tumour after this man.

This is the Health Secretary and human rhyming slang Jeremy Hunt. He, like my cancer, is doing the most it can to fuck up life. So together my doctors, nurses, technicians and me and going to fight Jeremy as much as we can to make me better.

Of course I’m still having therapy for my stroke, I’ve also picked up a urinary infection, but at least I don’t have diabetes which is nice. It’s as if the fact that I’ve barely used the NHS in 40 years is because my body has decided that everything should go wrong at the same time so I hopefully barely need the NHS for another 40 years.

So over the last few days I’ve been fortunate enough to have a friend from Glasgow down and I’ve been doing things to prepare for the onslaught against Jeremy. hence my quiet online presence this week. I also foolishly decided to walk down St. Michael’s Hill which is this:

It actually gets steeper the further it goes down! I stupidly walked down this the other day after seeing the doctors at the hospital in the top of that picture. I’d have thought twice walking down it before the stroke, but noooooo, like a dick, I decided to awkwardly climb down the hill knackering myself in the process so a weekend of rest starts today rather than tomorrow.

But I’m not miserable, or depressed. I still plan to move back to Glasgow when a possible window opens which hopefully is in a month or two’s time, so I can get back and carry on treatment there. Sadly Glastonbury is out this year, but hey ho, I’ll be back next year. I even have a personal trainer of sorts as I intend to fight this bastard I’ve called Jeremy and carry on for a long time yet. Together with the good people of the NHS I’ll beat Jeremy.

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