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.