Recap

It's taken me over a week, but it's finally dawned on me that I really should be keeping a journal of this stuff, what with "events" being all the rage. In my defence, I only just secured internet access over the weekend, so blogging's been out of the question for most of the saga so far...

On Saturday the third of November, I slept in until one in the afternoon. I'd been out at The Union for most of the Friday, so this wasn't surprising in itself. What was surprising, however, was that family and friends had gathered to inform me that, as of 9pm that evening, I'd been diagnosed with leukaemia. There's a Wikipedia page on leukaemia, but it's a little dry. Basically, it's a blood cancer which mimics the effects of being a student: paleness, shortness of breath, predisposition to infections; it's a miracle we caught it at all. Anyway, my variety is the Acute Lymphoblasic Leukaemia; as the name suggests, this stuff moves pretty fast. First port of call: the hospital.

Saturday afternoon, then, I met with my mum and a Dr. McDonald of the Glasgow Southern General Hospital; he's of the softly spoken and compassionate school of medical personalities. Not too compassionate to stop him taking about five phials of my precious blood, mind you, but he assured me that it was necessary. He explained the diagnosis, talked us through what sort of treatment regime I'd be subjected to, that sort of thing. I thought all of this was quite fascinating, and mum got some reassurance about how used they were to dealing with ALL; I think that helped her quite a lot. Eventually we ran out of things to talk about and weekend staff to meet, so we headed back home and toured some of the relatives. I think the worst part of all of this so far has been putting everyone else through the shock and worry of it; you'd be amazed at the range of individual expression in human grief and distress. It was with relief, therefore, that I took a couple of hours to email everyone who I had obligations to at University, before and heading off to bed.

By the Sunday, I was showing a bit more strongly in the symptoms department. Shortness of breath walking on the flat, having to pause for air at the top of staircases. Another trip to the hospital gave me a clean bill of Not Going To Die Today, though, so we made the most of the afternoon. My brother, Francis, had come through from Edinburgh yesterday, so we drove him back through and went to the Dean Gallery to see the exhibition they had of Basil Spence's fabulous architectural adventures and misadventures. Apparently, he had a hand in the design of the modern section of my Physics building. We wandered about for a bit, met some of the local McKernans, enjoyed Edinburgh until I was too tired out, and headed back to Glasgow. As a final meal, so to speak, we collected my other brother (Gabriel) and little sister (Madeleine) and headed out for a curry. Turns out Sunday night in the West End isn't the best place for an intimate family gathering. C'est la vie. The curry wasn't even that great but, again, it was cool to have everyone together; it's pretty rare to have the family around one table these days -- we'll go to a nicer place when I get better. Back home afterwards to sleep in my own bed, and that was Sunday.

Monday, now, Monday was all go. Too much so to go into at this late hour; I do have cancer, after all. Stay tuned for tomorrow's gripping installment!