It has taken a while to think about this, how to say what needs to be said.

In the manner of current NHS guidelines for clear and open communication to patients my parents have been receiving copies of all letters sent from specialists back to my Dad’s GP.

Right upper zone mass-stage T2b, N2, M0 if NSCLC
COPD

Very informative.

Scared what any of that might mean my Mum asked if I could ‘translate’ it back into something approaching English for her before she told my Dad about the letter. (I know, I know, it’s his cancer not hers but that doesn’t stop her trying to take control of everything).

I did what most people would do nowadays – I Googled it. I thought I was getting quite good at working out TNM classifications, the calm and clinical discussions of the latitude and longitude of illness. I could even show her the figures for 5 year suvival rates. They were not good but at least it gave hopes that he would be able to see another football season through.

PET scan results came through next. They showed the folly of trying to play the odds game. The lung tumour may have been stage 2 (still operable) but his spleen showed up hot. At stage 4 they have said there is no point in trying to take the lung, my Dad wouldn’t survive the operation.

Three to six months they said. Three to fekking six months for a man who, even a month ago, didn’t know – or didn’t say – he was ill.

He had his first session of chemotherapy on Monday, his second will be tomorrow.

This isn’t a cure, this is just an attempt to slow things down. I’m not certain how much can be done. Now that he is in the care of the real specialists at The Christie they are being kind to him but they are being honest. The jargon has stopped and they are speaking to him in English.

He is too weak for the more aggressive forms of chemo. He will have three sessions and on the fourth week they will take a view on whether or not there has been any response to the treatment. If there has been no benefit then they will not put him through any more medical poisoning and all that will be left will be palliative care.

If he responds to the treatment, and the side effects are bearable, then they will continue for up to eight more weeks. At best, if all goes well, they think they might be able to buy him another three to six months.

As a family we are coping in different ways, none of them seem to be particularly good but I guess that that is quite normal. My parents have been here before. Specifically they have even been at The Christie before as my sister died of cancer in the mid sixties. This time around they have been sent away with leaflets packed full of advice and phone numbers and how to get support for all aspects of the illness and the grief that is to come.

I think that first time round they got nothing and have struggled with the effects of the grief ever since. In the sixties it may have all been stiff upper lip and keep calm and carry on left over from the war. That was the environment I was born into and I’ve never really been comfortable with emotions. The stats and the charts and the TNM I can get my head around. The thought of my Dad just not being there and, more importantly, the thought that he may suffer in the process, is something that I have no answer to.

My job has always been to fix things. I can’t fix this.