You would think I’d learn. As a patient at the Day Hospice I get to meet people who are in the same boat, we chat, we become friends and then? They die. That’s the reality, and I made a decision a few months back when I lost a good mate here that I was going to become more guarded, but it’s happened again. This week I’ve lost another mate.

The thing is, it doesn’t become any easier. I’m coming to the realisation that I can’t be anything other than the way I am, so I will continue to make friends, and doubtless I’ll lose some more along the way.

Once you’ve been given a diagnosis, you know that one day will your last. None of us can change that, but remaining upbeat and positive is essential. None of us know when our turn will come...as they used to say, you could fall under a bus tomorrow! If I do, I’ll come back and haunt that bloody driver!

I’ve got my next bout of chemo tomorrow, and an appointment with my oncologist. She’s great, but at first I don’t think she quite knew what to make of me, and my sense of humour especially. Personally, I think people who do her job deserve our support and understanding.

On my second appointment she kept me waiting, not for long, but enough for me to start getting a bit miffed. As a new patient, and only getting used to the idea of having cancer myself, I thought it was a bit much for her to be running late.

But when I got into the consulting room, it all became clear. “Sorry Paul,” she said, “but I had to take a little longer with the previous patient because I had to break the news of their diagnosis to them.” Suddenly, my irritation seemed irrelevant and just a bit arrogant. When we first met, she’d overrun her appointment to tell me about my illness, and my prognosis. Why wouldn’t - in fact, why shouldn't - she take the time to talk with someone who was in exactly the same situation I had been in just a week or two before?

How would you like to do her job? Imagine breaking bad news to people and families virtually every working day. I know there’s good news sometimes, but thank God there are people like her, working with patients like me, just to try to help us live our lives to the full in the time that we’ve got.

So, I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I know I’ll feel a bit rough afterwards, but it’s my choice to take the chemo, and if it wasn’t for the chemo I honestly feel that I probably wouldn’t be looking out of the window at blue skies and green fields this afternoon.

I just want to add...thanks for the poem, Becs. It made my day.

Take care, Paul