Side Effects

It started with the underwear. None of your 4 pairs for a tenner pish either. Bamboo no less. Then it was socks, also bamboo, first these, then others. One must diversify! And vests, same, bamboo. Never worn vests in his puff! Expensive designer, summer shorts were next. Really nice, great gear. Then shirts. Shirts! The man goes nowhere but he’s looking cool doing it.

A winter jacket was found. A real cracker. Nanook of the North didn’t have a look-in. Need decent longs now so, same expensive brand as the shorts, two pair. Might as well get the lounger ones long too, good old elastic waistbands, but still expensive. Shoes. Shoes! The man hasn’t bought shoes… ever!  Well, not never, but now on-line, cool Chelsea boots. Now walking shoes too! And walking. Every day, miles and miles. Needs long-sleeved Ts now. Can’t be wearing these same five or six for another year.

He’s not wrong, but this is Mr 145-T-shirts. Mr Needs-forced-to-look-in-a-mirror on the odd occasion he agrees to shop for (discounted) jeans. Mr These’ll-see-me-out. A pensioner no less. Cutting about like an Italian model at times these days.

He started interfering with the washing too… ‘what temperature is that?’ ‘have you turned them inside out?’ ‘is it not time for…’ I did my best to stamp on that but have to say I like that he likes to hang stuff out. That’s not new though, he’s always done that. He’s nothing if not domesticated. It’s just that the messing in my washing schedule is definitely recent. That, and the clothes.

In hindsight, the emotional reactions are certainly more noticeable too. The tearing up at sad stuff and the cringing at fights in a film, say. That’s not all that new either, but perhaps more intensified now? Yes, we both think so. Of course he has had a lot to contend with. A lot that would bring tears to a glass eye! Plenty to cry about indeed. He’s always been a crier to be fair, and it speaks volumes for him that he’s ‘always been in touch with his feminine side’ as we have always laughingly put it. But this does seem that little edge further.

Then you read up on things and, well, a wee light starts to burn. It could be I’m on the wrong track altogether but, a neuroendocrine tumour messes with your hormones. So it all kind of fits. The timing is hard to ignore. I mean, he didn’t just grow a tumour the day before his colonoscopy! But then, surely not as long ago as the first set of boxers? Hmm… maybe though? Slow growing and all? It’s been since the prostate horrors for sure. I think. Yeah? Yeah.

He got through that though, with flying colours to be fair. A year past the ‘five years cancer free’. Woohoo. No more hospitals, finally. The man’s had his fill of those… long since! Let’s ignore the 20 years before the prostate cancer. The ones with the melted brain cells disaster. He wasn’t on invalidity all those years for nothing! Then the bloody prostate op, the abscess from that and his amazing recovery. Hospital poster boy for the Prostate Dept. even! Now this! Not remotely related, just ‘here’s another bombshell for you!’.

Last scan showed no metastases so… that was a whole load off. Basically proving that everything is relative. Still got cancer, but we were almost having a party because ‘not as bad as…’ Still a long road to travel and hopefully can be zapped as minimally invasively as possible. Not having spread means it’s not quite Death Row. Not yet. The interminable wait for results honestly felt like waiting on a verdict -‘To fry or not to fry’. Turned out, ‘not’. The fact that that even springs to mind is sad in itself because they can do a lot nowadays. Cancer, as we already know, is not just the plain, upcoming-painful-death it used to be.

So anyway, if a wardrobe full of nice clothes is the worst side-effect… I’ll take it. Of course, I’m being flippant but you kind of have to be in these circumstances. I’m telling myself he will be fine and all things positive, until proven otherwise. I’m a reasonably attuned believer in the power of positive thinking and I’ve bulldozed my way through life with it in mind for a long time now so… onwards and upwards. A new chapter begins. We’ve another thirty years to go yet so, not taking any arguments otherwise.

Damn, I totally forgot about the jeans too... never had so many decent pairs of jeans either!