Three years of Covid makes cancer survivors more anxious about CT Scan check ups.

Next week, I must go to Toronto. It’s a day trip but it seems a bigger ordeal than it should because I haven’t left my city in a year. I feel as if; I am about to embark on an enormous journey of tramp steamers, aeroplanes, camel caravans, trains, and buses. I guess it is understandable to feel this way, considering my travels are for my annual CT scan- a yearly reminder that the cancer rodeo still has me down as a member of its troop.

It has been three years since I was cut open like a tin of tuna to remove cancer from my rectum. But I am still gobsmacked by the ordeal or that I was diagnosed with cancer in the first place. The Big C blew the trajectory of my life so off course that I am still trying to find my bearings to a safe harbour.

But since Covid, almost everyone's lives were thrown off balance. So, I know I am not alone thrashing about in these choppy waters on the New Normal Sea.

I am not the same person I was in 2019, and neither are you because all of us suffered; great trauma during this era when death was airborne.

2020 was my traumatic year because it included radiation therapy and an aggressive surgery to remove cancer lodged with lethal intent in my intestines. It was a horrendously frightening time to fall seriously ill because the world we knew came to a complete standstill- while this airborne virus killed and brutalised society.

The first lockdown for Covid occurred on the day; I had to travel to Toronto for radiation therapy before my surgery scheduled two weeks later. The city was hushed by Covid. There were no cars in the downtown core, and few pedestrians save for the homeless, who were out on the streets like feral animals after Armageddon. The cancer centre where I had my radiation treatment was shut to everyone but patients and staff. When I waited to be called for my turn for radiation, I had to sit two seats apart from every other maskless person. Looking around, everyone had the same quizzical look etched on their face. It seemed to ask several questions. The first was “is someone in this room infected with Covid." The Second was- "will my cancer kill me or this new plague?” It was tormenting for everyone in that waiting room, not just because we had cancer but because we were sick when the world was dying from Covid.

I survived 2020 and, so far, the cancer; I was diagnosed with. Hopefully, all was removed. But luck is fickle, and time is something on loan to us. I know mortality is swift to collect on its debts. What I have experienced in bad health makes me wary of what the future has in store for me. It is not my death that concerns me so much as the dying before it. That's the hard part if you have few resources and the wheels begin to come down on your existence.

It's why- I cringe when anyone calls my yearly CT scan- “just routine.” It isn’t for me or anyone that requires them. Nothing is routine about your health or healthcare once death brushes against you like a drunk man pushing his way through a crowded pub whilst holding two beers. My appointment for a CT scan triggers memories of helplessness, pain, fear, anger, loneliness and confusion. It makes me relive 2020 with the foreboding knowledge that should cancer return, I neither have the finances nor the emotional resources left to thumb-wrestle it with similar strength as before. It's all been used up by the cost of living crisis.

The verdict next week, whether it be yea or nay to evidence of cancer, is beyond my control. What is in my control is that as long as I am sentient, I will scratch out not only meaning but happiness from the moments of my existence until the music stops for me. When I return home next week from my long and venturesome trip to Toronto, I will drink a beer and toast the fact that I am still standing, living, enjoying and doing for another day.

Thank you for reading my substack. Your support and subscriptions help me maintain my dad Harry Leslie Smith’s legacy alive as well as keep me housed. On February 25, 2023 Harry Leslie Smith would have been a hundred. I think he would have been sickened that his warning to not make his past our future became true. Take care, John

Photo by Accuray on Unsplash