Soup Dragon

The day after Major is disconnected from his third chemo ball, and three weeks into radiotherapy, his throat, quite suddenly, will not swallow. Taking medication by mouth sends him reeling round the kitchen in agony, and Weetabix, the soggy heart of his diet for weeks, turn into daggers in his gullet. Talking is tricky.

In anticipation of this day, the maxillofacial consultant at Hastings fitted a feeding tube into Major's stomach back in June (a PEG, percutaneous gastro-enteroscopy, or perhaps a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy...); he took the initiative to do so while Major was under general anesthetic for the biopsy, so sure was he of the diagnosis and what the treatment would turn out to be. We start to think that he might have been over-cautious as Major has been quite well, but suddenly we understand.

Hungry and thirsty, Major visits the dietician at Maidstone. I expect her to study his blood, perhaps take a hair or a nail clipping to analyse, and, thanks to years of specialist training, to know which exotic ingredients to blend together to fit his exact nutritional requirements. She goes to a cupboard and hands over one of hundreds of identical crates of little juice-type cartons, the sort of thing any crappy supermarket sells - they even have straws stuck to them! This is complete nutrition, "not suitable for infants under 1 year"; banana, vanilla, blackcurrant... Major feels full after he's syringed a helping through his PEG, and can even achieve post-burp taste sensation.

He's gasping for a pint and moans in longing at any pub scene in Lovejoy. He brings home a food pump as a change from syringe-feeding and within an hour has hooked himself up to a homemade drip-bag of Guinness.

Over the last few days large pools of mucus have formed in his mouth. I guess this is the build up of saliva and other helpful, slimy substances that normally come and go without drawing attention to themselves. His mouth gurgles and bubbles during sleep, a cross between the Soup Dragon and Alien. He suddenly sits up and performs a series of high-pressured French rrrrrrs from the back of his throat and gobs with drama and abundance and NOISE into one of the paper napkins he keeps piled by the bed in readiness, then he falls back into sleep. The pattern is repeated at regular intervals throughout the night.

I lay awake unable to help and, guiltily, less and less able to stand it. I reckon the cycle is about 20 minutes long - gurgle, rrrrr, SPLAT, gurgle, rrrrr, SPLAT.... oh, and did I mention the stench? At 6am I can bear it no longer and seek the peace of our spare room feeling like a bad wife.

Its gorgeous in there! We have a new bed and sleeping in it is like being on holiday in someone else's house! I want to go there again the next night but Major insists that he should go. We have a little tussle until he admits that his motive is to get more sympathy from the world for leaving his own bed for my comfort. I win.

By accident, I catch sight of the "mucus" (I haven't wanted to look...) and am unhappy with myself for not having been more of a bossy busy-body (an unfamiliar emotion...). (This is a dodgy area: how much to interfere with his illness.) I am alarmed by what I see and call the hospital; I want to know whether this Soup Dragon Syndrome is to be expected, or whether he should be checked out for infection. I speak to a nurse on Charles Dickens Ward. She hums and hahs and asks where his cancer is, then tells me that when her mother had "that" she also brought up lots of "bubbly spittle" so its probably fine. Not quite what I was expecting from a professional cancer specialist, but curiously reassuring.

Golden Delicious

Last week Major had his third chemotherapy, an old hand already. Each treatment begins with an overnight stay in hospital where he is flushed with water and hooked up to treatment. Once released back into the community he manages the art of being connected to his ball and chain as if he'd been born with them attached, threading them through the sleeves of clothes and finding the perfect position for sleep to avoid entanglement and princess/pea discomfort. He cling-films his arm to keep the line's entry wound at his inner elbow dry in the shower.

The first round passes without so much as the loosening of a hair on his head or the slightest ripple of nausea, but his hearing becomes hyper-sensitive; I'm often accused of shouting, and phantom engines idle outside which only he hears. I think maybe I should get tested, but friends and visitors are also told to sshhh.

We take evening walks along the beach at Pett Level with the ball in his pocket and his arm bandaged so as not to scare fellow paddlers; he's invented a story about the slip of a saw during DIY to answer anyone who asks.

By the third day the lymph-node lump in his neck has diminished by half and at the end of the treatment, day 5, it disappears altogether and the weird grey tissue in his mouth has miraculously turned a healthy pink. What a trick! £1000 for each ball of yummy Cisplatin and 5FU, care of the NHS. Thank you.

For the second round, two weeks after the end of the first, Major's blood count (white cells I assume) is very low, borderline for receiving chemo, but it is decided that treatment should go ahead.

He cannot face a thing to eat by the second day other than Weetabix which have become an important presence in our lives. I realise how much our interaction is centred on food: "Mmmm, have you tasted Mhairi's spinach/Roger's strawberries/Eric's little carrots?", "These sausages are not a patch on Mr Seppings'", "God, this lamb is stunning!", " smell this amazing garam masala I just made", "soup for lunch?", "do you know what I suddenly fancy?", "you HAVE to taste this perfect Ringden cox" and on and on, meal time or not, until Major, eyes closed, says "Please..." in a small voice which tells me that he is, in fact, not well. We cancel a dinner date with neighbours. Funnily enough, the nausea does not effect his thirst and there is always a glass of red wine within reach.

He passes the remaining few days wrapped in blankets, though it is August, watching Lovejoy, who, like the Weetabix, has become an unexpected daily fixture - possibly the most alarming development of the cancer journey to date.

Last week was the third and penultimate treatment. Major is completely blasé about the whole routine now and seeks out novice chemo-ees on the ward to take under his wing. He eats the hospital food, has bought new glasses so that he can read the piss-jug numbers, even sleeps through the bleeping of the chemo batteries, and casually accepts the news that he will have a blood transfusion. I think he's joking when he mentions it, but apparently this time there is definitely too little of whatever it is in his blood that's needed. He is flushed and chemo-ed briefly, flushed again, and spends the whole of the next day with the golden orb dripping into his left arm and three bags of someone else's wholesome blood dripping into the right. Then he drives himself home.

The foreign blood works wonders and though several Weetabix are still consumed each day, so are more substantial meals, and Major sails through the week on good form.