I was hoping I’d be able to do this on October 31st.  Well, if I was going to get some really scary news on Valentine’s Day the least the universe owed me was getting some fantastic news on Halloween.  The appointment got changed though so here we are.

And it is good news – the best news possible short of my consultant ending the conversation with “…and a Mr Pitt called.  He’s waiting outside in a Bugatti Veyron with a bunch of red roses.”

It’s gone – I’m at the time of typing cancer free.  Phew, that feels strange to type and I’ll try to tell you why.  First of all OF COURSE I’m happy and grateful and all those lovely positive emotions .. ooh relieved, there’s another … and …yet.

I think at its most basic it’s down to this.  The monster knows me now.  I’ve felt it’s fetid breath on my neck and it wanted me.  (That sounds a bit sexual but you know what they say about death and sex).  Up to only about a decade ago anal cancer meant at the very best a colostomy bag; decades before that … well you wouldn’t have started any long books.

While stuff was happening, the treatment, even the waiting for results, people were battling the monster and as it turns out, kicking its bottom rather badly.  Danny Baker on his Desert Island Discs said that the patient doesn’t battle cancer, they are the battlefield. He’s a clever man that Candyman.  To continue the analogy then, the battlefield has fallen silent, there’s a few marks as a reminder of the hard fought victory.  In the town there’s a party going on full of laughter and hugs and dancing.

There’s also a little tent with a single lantern shining and a few vigilant, weary souls peering out into the darkness for just a while longer, in case they see a slithering tail in the shadows.