Walking the walk

I’ve started making the old-man groaning noise when I get out of chairs, except with more swearing. I’ve got to say – this cancer thing’s full of surprises. My legs have seized up.

Not entirely, I should say. But it’s not comfortable.

Every hour or so I try to remember to get up from my desk and take a stiff-legged stroll around the office; to the kitchen, the toilet, the vending machines - any destination which has some point to it and which takes me out of view for a bit, so I don't look like I'm doing some kind of circular Boris Karloff impersonation among the islands of workstations.

My wife Clare was first to call it my Frankenstein walk. Frankenstein was, of course, not the monster but the scientist, who as far as I remember had no mobility problems, but Clare's far too sensible to let that get in the way of a perfectly clear description which everyone will understand instantly. I, on the other hand, am far too much of a pedant not to, so I privately call it the Bangles Bimble: I'm thinking of the mummy from Scooby Doo - I Walk Like an Egyptian.

The stiffness is the result of coming off steroids about six weeks ago. I've mentioned it here before, but it's currently the after-effect of my treatment which is bugging me most, so now it's going to bug you again.

Apparently the ligaments in my legs and back have loosened up, but it doesn't feel like looseness: quite the opposite. I stomp around straight-legged until things slacken off, I haul myself out of chairs with my arms if I have sat for too long and am having difficulty with the knee-unbending and thigh-stretching, and going up stairs is difficult. Which is a particular bugger when you live up four flights. My adventures on Google suggest this could last for three or maybe up to six months.

But it will pass.

I'm also now off the chemo. Its abiding after-effect is fatigue, which is much worse than the locked-up legs. But at least it comes and goes, while the stiffness is always with me.

As usual, day one of the final chemo was fine, but then... who'd have thought there could be so many flavours of tiredness? Degrees, yes - but types?

Over the remaining four days of the course and for a day or two after I experienced a weird series of ups and downs ranging from mildly sleepy to bone-sick exhausted.

At my worst, while I was still popping the poison, I noted that each type of tiredness had a different feel or texture, and wondered if I should become a connoisseur of fatigue and catalogue them here like whiskies. Then I wondered if I might not just be rambling: I was quite tired - at that point a dull little number with a sort of numbing sensation in my shoulders and arms, if you're interested.

That was about three weeks ago. Since then I have had days when I have been alternately energetic and shattered, days like yesterday when I have woken up tired, and days like today where I feel more-or-less normal.

I’m told the after-effects of the chemo could also last perhaps six months. It might not be so long, given my relative youth and strength, but I'm prepared for the days of unpredictable tiredness to continue for a while.

And eventually this, too, will pass.

In the meantime, the trick is to make the most of things even when the symptoms are making their presence felt. Just marking time, looking forward to the end of the stiffness, the end of the fatigue, and ignoring the present would not be healthy. It would be like treating the working week as days to be endured until the weekend comes, the month as time to be tolerated until payday; people do that, but it's wishing your life away, and those of us on the cancer-go-round are a bit sensitive about that.

So I get on with things. I go to work. I make plans to do stuff as I always have and, mostly, I keep to them. I went to see Patti Smith in concert last week and loved it, even though my legs were in agony after the two-hour stand.

Maybe if I were a sporty type all this would be harder, but I play with gadgets and with words, and I don't have to move much for either.

Anyway, most days aren't tired days, these days. It's getting better.

But when they are, I read and write and watch and listen and generally learn new things. Oh, and play obscenely violent computer games - that's a good one. Obviously, all that is as far as concentration allows; the fatigue regularly dictates that I put down the newspaper, Kindle, laptop or handset and just kip. I do resent that a little as wasted time, but it can also be pleasant, so I feel I should just enjoy it.

Here in the Tumourland Fun Park, it's important to enjoy all the rides.

Who's gonna drive you home?

Yesterday I popped into the Beatson for a wee bleed and to pick up this month’s bumper bag of harsh chemicals. My last. That’ll be six monthly poisonings under my belt come Sunday, with no more due.

I should have got this round of chemo last week, but my white cells were low and my consultant regarded it as “a bit gung-ho” to dole out drugs which batter the immune system while it was already punch-drunk. So the regular envenoming was deferred for a week, my counts returned to normal, and this morning I took the first of my final five doses.

Feeling fine so far.

I’d like to think it’s my last round. It’s the last I’m scheduled for, and the last I’ll get as long as things remain as they are. If one of my three-monthly scans shows anything tumourly trying to sneak back, I’ll be back on the Temozolomide sharpish, but I’m not planning on that happening. I’ve told it not to.

I had hoped that the end of the chemo would mean an end to the off-and-on tiredness which has plagued me throughout this whole process. I’d reckoned that since it takes a month for me to recover sufficiently between treatments, then a month should be enough to get back to normal.

Nah.

I’m now told that the fatigue can last up to six months after the chemo stops; it depends on the individual, and there doesn’t seem to be any way of telling how it will hit, other than that younger, fitter patients recover more quickly. That includes me (no, really) so with a bit of luck it will ease off sooner than later. Ideally before I go on holiday.

The other thing I wish would just bugger off and leave me alone is the constant stiffness in my legs and occasionally arms. It’s a bit like the sensation you get the day after a long hill-walk, but all the time (I can’t really compare it to many other kinds of exercise, having spent most of my life avoiding them, but I have been known to enjoy the occasional countryside meander). If I sit still for too long I need to haul myself up with my arms and then waddle rather than spring gazelle-like across the room, as was once my wont. This, I gather, is a side-effect of coming off steroids; they cause some muscle reduction, but also a loosening of ligaments in the back and legs. I’m told pregnant women experience something similar: I’m hoping this is the only symptom we’re going to share; I could do without morning sickness, haemorrhoids or childbirth.

But the really grim symptom of all this is the news that I may not be able to drive again for a very long time. I had previously been told that I would be likely to get my licence back a year after the surgery. That was on December 1, so I was starting to look forward to my licence's return. Counting down, even.

Now I’m told that it could be at least two years, and no-one’s very sure from when. It all depends on when the DVLA (not my doctor, apparently) decides my primary treatment ended, or indeed what my primary treatment was.

If they decide the primary treatment was the surgery (which my research suggests they won't) then it’s another year from December. If they decide it was the radiotherapy and first round of chemo, it’s a further year from mid-February. But if they decide the adjuvant chemo I’m just finishing off is part of the primary treatment, then it’s two years from now. And if I need any further treatment during that period, the clock resets.

This is quite crushing. Quality of life is pretty important just now, and not being able to drive is a massive limitation. Blind 75-year-olds and mental teenagers are allowed licences; what makes me less safe than them?

Well, the huge hole in my brain, apparently. But I have only had the one fit, and that nearly a year ago (it’s how I found out about the cancer in the first place). Since then I’ve had the tumour which caused it cut out, the area around it zapped and poisoned, and I’ve taken anti-epileptics daily. I haven’t so much as twitched in all that time. Surely I’m safe to be behind a wheel?

It seems the DVLA thinks not. They won't even ask my doctors for their opinion, I'm informed; the decision will be made by a government medic who will never meet or examine me, based on some forms which don't contain space for my doctors' input.

I understand the reluctance of officialdom to have people with large chunks of their brains missing hurtling around the countryside in cars. But I'm being checked on very, very regularly. Even now the chemo's over and my monthly trips to the Beatson have come to an end, I will still have three-monthly scans. Surely these could be used as the basis for my continued right to drive, with my licence renewed quarterly every time a scan gets the all-clear? It wouldn't be hard to administer electronically, and it would save a lot of misery for a lot of people in my position.

The next scan is in September. It was scheduled for the 28^th, but by the time I got the date I’d booked a holiday, so it was moved forward to the 19^th. Which is fine, but it means I won’t get the results until I’m back, so I’ll spend my two weeks in the sun Not Knowing. Looming capitals intended.

Still, it should be fine. June’s cerebral photo-shoot wasn’t substantially different from March’s, and I’ll have just finished my treatment, so there’s no reason to think September’s will show any changes either.

So if it is OK, can I drive at least until the Christmas scan, please? It would at least give me something immediately positive out of the cycle of quarterly anxiety I'm going to have to get used to:  the build-up to each scan, the wait for the results, and the hoped-for relief when they come back clear.

Until they don’t. But that might (just might) never happen, or at least not for years. Until then, I could be driving safely and happily.

Just a thought.

Stating Points of View...

Dear Auntie Beeb,

Can I call you that? It’s just that I’ve known you since I was a wee boy, ever since Brian Cant was the coolest thing on the telly. It’s like we’re family.

Anyway, you might have heard I’ve not been too well, recently. Just a spot of light brain cancer, nothing to worry about, but it has meant that I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in front of the TV. I get quite tired, you see, and it's as good a place as any to have a slump.

But I can’t say I’ve been very impressed.

I have an established pattern, which is to come home from work knackered, watch the news, have my tea, then fall asleep during the One Show, which you seem to have designed for that purpose. I then won’t surface for an hour or more, until around the time the grown-up telly starts. Unless it’s an Eastenders night, in which case I will wake up to change the channel; these people have voices like Stihl saws and even I can't sleep through that. Our cats are convinced the ’Stenders theme tune goes dum-dum-dum-dumdumdumdum-urgh-bloodyhell-click-zzzzzz.

It’s not the most exotic or productive way to spend an evening, but it suits me. And you’ve spoiled it, Auntie. This summer, there’s been nothing on. Nothing I even want to sleep through.

First there was football, all that Euro 2012 nonsense that Scotland wasn’t even in. You even moved the news for that. You can’t do that: the news is at six o’clock – there’s a law or an old charter or something. Moving it is wrong.

Then there was tennis: Wimbledon, the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’s annual knockabout. Tennis is boring and goes on for hours; I hoped for a bit more tension from the croquet finals, but you didn’t even show them.

After that there was golf. Some blokes went for a walk, hitting little white balls in front of them, and eventually one of them was given a claret jug and some money. Whoopie-do, Auntie, whoopie-do.

And through all this, there was the building threat of the Olympics. 

The run-up alone seemed to last most of my adult life.

The torch relay just went on and on and on, and it's not even traditional: the Nazis started it in 1936. And I didn't even bother to watch your rowing drama Bert and Dickie; it looked like a damp Chariots of Fire and I can't help suspecting it was partly responsible for holding up Dr Who this year, which is unforgivable.

I watched the opening ceremony, of course, but I did so on iPlayer, mainly because it has a fast-forward button and I couldn't face three hours of bombastic special effects that night; I went to see The Dark Knight Rises instead. Bits of the Boyle-fest were quite good – it really annoyed Morrissey, for instance – but it did leave me feeling that both Paul McCartney and the monarchy have now had their day.

After that, though… well, the thing is, I don’t like sport, so the Olympics have been a bit of an entertainment dead-zone for me.

Maybe I should explain: I have never liked sport. I know, I know, you don’t understand or don’t believe me. That’s most people’s reaction. Others just look at me like I have just admitted to being a Scientologist or a snail fetishist, or are incapable of processing the information and commence The Football Chat anyway.

I don’t know why I don't like it. I was never good at sport and went to a school at which being bad at games ranked you lower than amoebic dysentery, so that might be part of it. But I suspect it’s because I don't get sport. Don’t understand it. No comprendo.

In my defence, there's quite a lot not to get. Like the scoring in cricket, for instance: I played the game (admittedly under duress) every summer for about six years and I still don't understand that.

Or football. Why is that interesting? The plot's broadly the same every time, it has no soundtrack (well it does, but it seems to consist largely of songs about Irish history and Victoria Beckham's bottom) and there is very little chance of a car chase. Yet I've met people who can barely spell IQ but who can and will talk at massive length about the intricacies of a game in which all I have seen has been some very highly-paid haircuts kicking a ball about for rather longer than seemed necessary.

So the Olympics are just the grand culmination of the general sense of boredom and incomprehension you’ve inflicted on me all summer, Auntie.

Why would I feel involved? Why does every other armchair-bound slob seem to gain some sense of personal achievement from the success of highly-tuned athletes who happen to have been born in the same country as them? What have they done to deserve this vicarious thrill, apart from pulled up the roots their buttocks have sent into their couches and wobbled to the fridge and back? Why are they all so offended when Frankie Boyle Tweets that  Rebecca Adlington has an unfair advantage as a swimmer because she has a dolphin's face? I'm sure Rebecca is a lovely woman and a fine athlete, but she is also a celebrity and uses her media profile to make money; which is fine, but it makes her fair game until she stops taking cash from British Gas. "Eek. Eek, eeek. Eeeeek!", as she said herself, while being awarded her medal and a herring.

Nonetheless, I have watched some of the Games; I haven’t had much choice. But that has just raised more questions.

Why do we now have uneven bars? Is “asymmetric” too difficult a word these days?

Why, Auntie, did you spend so much money moving to Salford, then just weeks later head back to London to broadcast from a glass box balanced on some freight containers? And what’s with the black marble altar surrounded by geometric patterns? Is this so Gary Lineker can boost Team GB’s medal count by raising the aid of a dark, demonic force and interview Bradley Wiggins at the same time?

And what makes Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time? He must be, all your presenters have said so. And yet, while 22 medals is quite a lot, all he does is swim; Daley Thompson had to get blisteringly good at ten sports to get just one of his. And he did it to an Iron Maiden soundtrack. How cool was that?

You don’t need to answer, Auntie. I really just want to know one thing: why is it that, with everyone now receiving digital TV and 24 channels of Olympics available, can’t people like me keep BBC1?

Just in case you change your mind, here’s what I’d like to see on a typical night’s viewing for the rest of the Games:

8.30pm Javelin Catching with George Osborne
Short but sweet. Tune in tomorrow for the Michael Gove episode. And the day after for Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. You see where we’re going with this?

8.35pm My Great Big Gypsy Website
Sequel to My Great Big Gypsy Wedding in which the happy couples find their new marital homes on a special mapping app comprising a huge arrow pointing to Jeremy Clarkson’s garden.

9:30pm The Only Way Is Wessex
The casts of various reality shows of the last few years are all put in a house without food, drink or spray tan and not allowed out until they’ve read the complete works of Thomas Hardy.

10:00pm News & Weather
Followed by Reporting Scotland and Newsnight, with proper interviewees who don’t wear Lycra for a living, and no abrupt cut off to the cheap local version until the real one is finished.

11:30pm The Late Movie Double Bill
A couple of old classics back-to-back. Maybe The Maltese Falcon, or Gregory’s Girl, or something from The Godfather trilogy. Not Chariots of Fire.

3:00am All-Star Indian Wrestling
With Dale Winton and Archbishop Philip Tartaglia. This doesn’t actually need to be broadcast, we just need to know it has happened.

It’ll be ratings gold.

Love,
Graeme.

Put a peep-hole in my brain…

So I got to see the latest photos of the inside of my head this week. There’s very little going on. You may not find that terribly surprising.

It cheered me up immensely, though. Since no news is good news, and I hadn’t heard anything from the head doctors since my MRI at the end of June, I was pretty confident there would be nothing to report. But it was still nicely reassuring to see the scans from March and June side-by-side and note little change.

There is a slight difference. The newer scan shows a kind of rind around the cavity where my tumour used to be; apparently this has been noticed in a couple of other people who have been on the same vaccine trial as me. I’m assured it’s nothing to worry about since it doesn’t represent any cancer growth. The tumour site is the same size as before, which is the main thing.

So it looks like the treatment is working, which is hugely cheering. Glioblastoma is an aggressive cancer which likes to try to grow a new head when it can, but not this time. Today is not that day. And I’m planning on holding this position for years.

I certainly feel well enough. I'm still unexpectedly hit by fatigue at odd times, but I can deal with that. It accumulates throughout the chemo, apparently, so now the bursts of tiredness caused by the daily zapping I received in the first few weeks of the year are at last receding, they're replaced by seemingly equally unpredictable spells of exhaustion brought on by the harsh chemicals. It’s nice to have a seamless change-over.

My physical signs are good. I feel generally stronger and the stairs to my south-side eyrie no longer seem so excruciating. My platelet count is rising closer to normal, I’m told, and it looks like I won’t need a blood transfusion to fix my anaemia, as was suggested last month. And I've managed to regain the 20 pounds or so I pretty much excreted during that little spell on the campylobacter diet back in May. I'm less pleased with that one: after all that, can't I at least keep the weight-loss?

Still, it was all looking about right, so with no other impediment I went back on the poison on Wednesday morning. And it was OK.

A spot of encouragement for anyone reading this who's heading for the same treatment: it does get better. I've now had five of six rounds of adjuvant chemo and, while it hasn't always been easy going, it hasn't generally been all that bad.

This last one has been fine, or at least a good as can be expected. I felt almost no ill-effects for the first four days of the five-day course, just a spot of tiredness on Friday afternoon. I was knackered yesterday (Sunday) and this morning (Monday) and have slept for most of both days, but that has been all. Given the horror stories I hear of people receiving intravenous chemo, I'm happy with my little exhaustion pills.

Last month's was similarly easy, except the tired days were two and three. May was bad, but that was because the campylobacter got to do me over while the chemo held my immune system's arms – it was unfortunate, but not an inevitability. April was the first on the highest dose – 400mg of Temozolomide daily for five days – and I didn't feel great, my stomach was irritated and I had no energy, but it could've been worse. March, which was at a lower dose, and the six weeks of daily dosing during the radiotherapy in January and February, at a lower dose still, seemed to cause no side-effects at all.

Of course, I still have one to go. I could react badly and have another May all over again, but it seems improbable. More likely is that one of my various levels could drop below the threshold at which I'm allowed to take the last course; but even that seems unlikely now and, even if it happens, there seems to be some doubt as to the value of the last couple of adjuvant rounds. Which is hardly encouraging when you're gearing up for a five-day poisoning, but there you go.

Anyway, that's in three weeks. In the meantime, I'm off the steroids as of tomorrow morning, which is just as well because, although they helped keep my brain smaller than my skull when I needed that doing, they are quite nasty in other ways. Their withdrawal means no more Losec, though, and I  will miss that; it'll be back to the chronic indigestion and chomping Rennies for me, I suspect.

And then, sometime around late September, the next scan looms like a monolith. But it will cast no shadow over the preceding weeks: I'm getting on with stuff. Then we'll see what we will see.

And it will be fine.

Sing if you're glad to be second-class

So here’s me feeling all pleased about living in a country where, at least where public transport is concerned, there are no second-class citizens. The elderly, the disabled, young people, and middle-aged chancers who’ve had their licences taken off them just because of a spot of light brain surgery, can all relax in the knowledge of free or discount travel by one form or another across the land.

And then, less than 12 hours after blogging about how nice that is, I pick up The Herald to find one of Scotland's leading churchmen, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, calling for a countrywide vote to declare perhaps ten percent of our population second-class.

The leading celibate bachelor and relationships expert wants, he says, a referendum on the gay marriage issue. And he’d like it before the independence one, please, because providing a legal basis for letting people with imaginary friends deprive another section of society of a right everyone else can enjoy is apparently more of a burning issue than the vote which will either tear our country apart or give us a new beginning in freedom (depending on where you stand on that one).

Ah, but… a referendum. That’s pretty democratic, isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean the will of the people is decided once and for all?

No. It doesn’t. We have a representative political system. The weapons-grade democracy of the referendum is reserved for the really big constitutional issues, such as devolution and now independence. And there’s a good reason for this.

Under a representative system we have elected politicians who make everyday decisions on our behalf, based on a previously-declared agenda to which they sometimes even stick, and every few years we get the chance to vote for the candidates we feel are least likely to bugger all that up. It’s not a perfect system, but no-one has really found a better one yet: a delegative system (such as trades unions use) or even electronic direct voting on every issue would be unworkable on a national scale - pretty soon, no-one would turn up to the meetings or bother to click, and the extreme loonies who did make the effort would be in charge. We’d have the streets lit by burning paedophiles within three months.

People who call for referenda on the smaller stuff are usually not really big fans of democracy - what they really want is a great big apathy or ignorance-driven mandate to do something deeply unpleasant that they can’t get done by normal means. Like declaring homosexuals second-class citizens.

And, make no mistake, that’s what Cardinal O’Brien wants. He wants to deprive an adult, thinking, responsible, voting section of society of a right or privilege extended automatically to the rest of us. Which means he wants the law to say: "You are not as good as us, you do not deserve our rights, you are second-class".

He’s a man you’d think might have a little empathy with at least part of the gay community, given that he eschews relations with the opposite sex and goes to work in a dress. But he’s had a rummage in the Leviticus pick ’n mix, and has adopted the bit which decides that homosexuals are abominations, but not the bit which forbids you to wear a watch. (It’s "observe times", actually: see Leviticus 19:26  if you don’t believe me. The King James version is quite clear.)

Of course, that's true of most flavours of Christianity (honourable exceptions for the Quakers and United Reformed Church, here) including the supposedly democratic, everybody-equal old Church of Scotland. The C of S is normally willing to leave much up to the conscience of the individual worshipper or congregation - to the extent that there is an openly-gay minister in Aberdeen - but perhaps it has been shaken by the recent departure of a couple of ministers and a congregation, the Buchanan Street Bigots of Glasgow's St George's Tron, over that very issue. Whatever the Kirk's reason, it's backing the Catholics on this one and has come out (so to speak) strongly against same-sex marriage. Selectively sifting Leviticus for sin.

I’d thoroughly recommend having a flick through Leviticus, it’s a right riveting read. A bit heavy on the blood sacrifices in the beginning (a lot of bullocks) but it soon gets down to some good solid prohibiting: 'no' to bacon, shellfish and rabbit, 'OK' to locusts and beetles (which must have been a big old "gee thanks" moment for the Children of Israel); 'no' to lighting joss sticks (two priests are immolated on the spot by fatherly old God for that one) but 'OK' to… actually, there aren’t really many more OKs. It’s pretty much "don’t" from there on in.

Of course, the Biblical argument against gay marriage isn’t the only one being put forward. There’s a semantic one, too, that says the word "marriage" strictly means a union between a man and a woman. A lot of people are hiding behind that one.

I've checked a few online dictionaries, and this definition does seem to be correct. But so what? English is a living language, we adapt the meanings of words all the time: "gay" being a very good example. That’s why dictionaries are regularly revised.

The status quo of calling gay unions "civil partnerships" is just not good enough. Less than two months ago, I was married in a civil ceremony with no religious content: the rights and benefits of my heterosexual wedding are barely different from those endowed on a homosexual couple, except that they cannot technically call themselves married, or call each other "husband" or "wife". And that is effectively telling them that in the eyes of the law, their union is worth less than mine, is second-class.

So I'm glad that the Scottish Cabinet decided today not to have a referendum. I'm irritated that they thought the demand was even worth considering, and disappointed that they didn't just go the whole hog and put forward a bill to legalise same-sex marriage in Scotland once and for all, but that should come soon.

And, when it does, it is likely to allow churches to refuse to carry out gay weddings. I'm not so sure about that: it sounds like a reasonable concession towards religious freedom until you try swapping the word "gay" with, for example, "black". But since there are other churches which will do it, and the option of civil marriage will be very much open, perhaps it's enough for now.

One day at a time, sweet Jesus, and all that.

On the buses

One of the plus-points about having brain cancer is that I get a free bus pass (the other is reduced hairdressing costs). It's quite handy: not worth growing a glioblastoma for, but a useful thing to have.

It's mine because the DVLA won't let me have a driving licence at the moment, for fear I should embark on another bout of side-on disco dancing, this time at the wheel. Since I've only had the one fit, and that nine months ago and before the tumour was cut out, I can't help feeling this is a bit over-cautious. But there it is – no more vroom-vroom for me until a year after the surgery.

In the meantime I have a little blue card which gives me free bus travel around Scotland, and some reductions on the Glasgow tube and local trains. Annoyingly, it seems to be the same as the one my mum gets for being a pensioner, but it also looks like a YoungScot card, so I'm hoping people just think I had a hard paper round.

While it's a little odd to be – for this purpose at least – technically disabled, I use it daily. I actually quite like public transport; it provides a great opportunity to catch up on podcasts, do a spot of reading, and ponder the great issues of the day. You know, stuff like: does Tom and Katie's divorce settlement allow him to take the wean to McDonald's on Saturdays as long as he promises not to sacrifice her to his weird octopus god? (For fear of a complaining call from John Travolta, I should probably point out here that I don't actually think the Scientologists worship un-nameable Lovecraftian horrors. I think they're far more sinister than that. )

Of course, public transport has its downsides: the varying condition of the fleet, from the comfy, wifi-enabled buses heading out west to the cabbage-smelling boxes aiming east; other passengers and their fascinating range of personal habits and conditions; happy, smiling Glasgow bus drivers with an interesting concept of clutch control: Wait, wait… right, he's just about half way up the stair… change down hard!

And, of course, the vagaries of city traffic. Just the other - particularly rainy - weekend, an apparently unreasonable attempt to get to Queen Street Station by means of boarding a bus which purports to stop outside it led to a major round trip thanks to "an obstruction in the road" (given the date, I guess this was the Orange Lodges getting their flutes rusty further into town).

"If youse are no' goin' tae the city centre," the driver informed us. "Youse hud better get oaf here."

What luck, we thought. The city centre is exactly where we're going.

We stayed on.

One tour of some of the more exciting parts of the south side and an unexpected trip over the Squinty Bridge later, the driver announced that a patch of pavement-free road under the M8 was now the city centre, and that was where we were all getting off.

As we splashed our way through ankle-deep puddles among fast-moving, rain-blinded traffic to negotiate a way into Anderston Station from the wrong side, I reflected that we were lucky technology hasn't moved on further: First Wormholes wid like tae point out that because of an obstruction in the quantum, youse'll all be getting' aff somewhere just outside o' space and time, from where youse'll huvtae walk tae Buchanan Street.

It also occurred to me that, were I actually properly disabled, I would be in a bit of bother right now - as opposed to just soaked up to the knees and swearing at drivers coming off the Expressway.

Of course, I'm not. And since my haircut is now substantially less medical than before, I don't look it, either. To be honest, I feel a little guilty about having a bus pass; OK, I have a serious illness, but I'm mobile and employed and can afford bus fares. In fact, I'm a little surprised at how readily it's accepted, since I'm clearly over 26, equally clearly (I would hope) under 65, obviously equipped with the standard number of operational limbs and generally self-propelling.

Still, it's nice to live in a country which has decided that those who need free public transport (and a few like me who don't really) should get it.

I wonder if Richard Branson can be persuaded to launch his £128K-per-person near-space flights from Prestwick…

A scanner, loudly

Last week I had my head shoved in the big, bangy machine once more, and I'm now waiting for the photies to come back from the chemist.

So to speak. It was my regular three-monthly MRI, and the first which may or may not give any useful information about how the hole in the head's getting on and, more importantly, if it's still empty. The hole, I mean. Not my head.

I've had a few of these now and they're getting almost routine.

First there's a series of standard questions about pacemakers, tattoos and piercings (no thanks, never wanted any); artificial plates and limbs (just the bits of titanium holding part of my skull on); can we pump you full of tracker dye? (if you must); and do you mind if we stick your head in a great big magnet? (go for it, it's what I came for).

Then it's off  to try on the fetchingly ill-fitting but firmly non-ferrous hospital jim-jams and to have an equally iron-free spike shoved into my vein. This time, as Lou Reed more-or-less sang, things weren't quite the same, because they got the cannula in first time without the usual jagging about my upper limbs which always seems to end up leaving me with multiple stab wounds, a massive bruise round the bit they finally manage to get it into, and a huge wad of ultra-sticky tape across the hairiest part of my arm. At least, what was up until that point the hairiest part of my arm.

Apparently I have very elusive veins which see needles coming and leap out of the way. Which I can't help feeling is eminently sensible for them, but often ends up being a bit nippy for me.

It's odd, because back when I was allowed to give blood every three months, there never seemed to be a problem; although I suppose the nice people at the Scottish National Blood Transfusions Service are vampirising folk all day, every day, and have got pretty good at dealing with all sorts of venous variations. (Incidentally, it really doesn't hurt, so if you feel you can fill in for me now I'm not allowed to donate any more, please book yourself in via www.scotblood.co.uk. They need 5000 donors a week in Scotland alone, and you might well save a life - maybe mine.)

Equally, over at the Beatson's Clinical Research Unit, which has been bleeding me regularly for the last six months in the name of medical science, they're so good at it that I barely feel the needle going in. But everyone else seems to have massive difficulty; from radiographers to registrars to locum GPs, they either seem to have huge problems finding a vein which works, or just have a good old stab away until they do. I've now found out for myself where there are a couple of good 'uns, and I point them out as soon as anyone approaches me with a Venflon.

This time, as I said, nae bother.

So with stylishly washed-out blue jammies in place, tap in arm, and a final check for any old iron, I was off to spend over an hour lying dead still in a very enclosed space.

MRI machines are not terribly comfortable. They're quite narrow, not really designed for the chunkier chap, so once I'm on the table I'm never very sure what to do with my arms – and I become acutely aware that one of those now has a tube in it, and my elbows can touch the sides, and I really have to try to stop thinking about anything being pulled taut as the bench slides back and forward. At least I'm not claustrophobic.

They're also very noisy, although you do get ear-plugs – usually just before the radiographers ask their last-minute questions. You also get a sort of frame thing over your head and then cushiony, spongey things are packed in there round your ears. Apparently this is to keep your skull still in case you fall asleep. There's nothing more disappointing than blurry photos.

And I always do nod off. I've always been able to sleep just about anywhere: in the past, any form of moving transport I wasn't actually driving myself gave me an instant ticket to the land of nod; now I'm an enforced passenger I seem to be getting used to that, but I'm now kipping off  at café tables, since my post-radiation/chemo/whatever fatigue, although much improved, is at the moment kicking in around lunchtime.  Being inside a big, thumpy, magnetic tube seems to be equally soporific.

This is A Good Thing, I reason, since I always seem to be in there for absolutely ages: the radiographers give me some sense of time by waking me up via intercom occasionally - I gather to tell me what they're doing next, although it's hard to know thanks to the earplugs; they could equally be informing me of their plan to shave something rude into the back of my now-refoliating scalp while I sleep - but otherwise the tedious process passes pretty quickly.

Then the banging stops and I emerge feeling a bit dazed (since I've just been woken up) and a bit uncomfortable about the cranial scar (since the head packaging is pretty tight) but otherwise fine. Some people, I'm told, feel tense and trapped through the whole experience; others don't like the dye going in at half time. I just sleep through it, and I've never felt a thing.

That was last Wednesday, and I've so far heard nothing from SupaSnaps. Some day my prints will come.

But no news is good news, I reckon, since if the scan had shown anything I'm pretty sure the Beatson would have been onto me sharpish to haul me in for further jabbing and treatment. They react pretty quickly.

Since I've had no update, I'm taking it that I'll get a nice "nothing there" result when I next see the consultant in a couple of weeks.

Just before he tops up my poison levels once more. I'm not there to enjoy myself.