I scratch my notes in a pad I’ve positioned outside my
designated bathroom, the one I’ve been advised to equip with extra towels,
rolls of tissue, wet wipes and gallons of bleach. I scribble “12.02 little liquid but can’t
finish”, “12.10 try again”, “12.15 cloudy, much pain”. On the same page are some of the notes I made
on my recent Glasgow visit to see the ebullient author Ian Spring. Ian is writing Real Glasgow for the series of books I edit. I met him on George Street, striding, newspaper
under his arm, shades in place, beaming a “how are you?” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what was
up ahead.
The repeat BCG instillations are over in a flash. I keep up my long term tried and trusted
method for reducing anxiety here. I don’t
look. You are allowed to go home immediately, “so
long as you pee the stuff out again after two hours.” Keeping it in for longer won’t get you there more
swiftly nor improve the treatment’s efficacy.
“I had one patient who got on the train to Scotland immediately after
his instillation,” the nurse tells me. “We don’t advise things like that.”
I’m driven back. The safe
familiar world of home continues. Why
would it not? The prescribed two hours of
holding it all in pass slowly and then like all hours they are suddenly
up. I void the liquid. 50 ml.
Less than a bottle of tonic but it felt like a pint. Everyone’s instillation experiences are
different, it seems. Some feel nothing, others
take to their beds for the duration. I’m
somewhere in between.
The sense of unwellness ramps up steadily. It is joined by vague flu-like sensations, a
head filled with otherness, an inability to concentrate, an increasing
tiredness, aches. Voiding is appalling,
pain, inability, more pain, streaks of blood and minor debris, further pain,
inability to start properly, inability to finish and once stopped an immediate sensation
that it’s time to start again.
I get a chair moved into the bathroom but end up not sitting
in it. I spend the next four or five
hours in a reeling haze. I drink as much
as possible, tea and more tea, hot water, cold water and then tea again. Slowly, ever so slowly, the gaps between
voids widen. But the head stays full of
fog.
At 9.00 pm I knock myself out with super strength co-codamol
but still manage to visit the toilet around 8 times as the night
progresses. Dawn is all weakness and exhaustion. The fatigue of it all presses over me like a
cloth.
It takes 48 hours for the worst to pass. Sensation, inability, stinging and a massive
sense of can’t be bothered, however, hang on virtually until it’s time to go
back in for the next weekly session. We
do it and the wheel goes round again.
I can’t say that things get easier nor really that much
worse as the sequence progresses. Other
than the fatigue which comes at me regularly out of left field and makes me sit
down on house walls, park benches, cafes, anywhere.
I haven’t totally wasted my time though. I have learned the location of every accessible
toilet within a five mile radius of the house.
I can plan a walk that rocks between bush and public convenience and
friendly café. Just about do-able post-BCG,
on day three anyway. I’m thinking of having a t-shirt sloganed with
the words God I need a pee just in
case.
I’m up to instillation #5 now. One more in this set to go. The darkness will then lift. Will
it? I’ll let you know.
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| If only the world was like this |
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