My brush with the big C

Currently a friend of mine is having his own brush (and I hope it will be just a brush) with cancer and it has prompted me to look back ten years to my experience.

About ten years before that again a friend of mine developed testicular cancer, which is one of the commonest forms of cancer in young men. This coincided roughly with the singer and music critic Ferdia McAnna getting the disease and being open about it in the media. Consequently I was well aware of it and knew how to watch out for the symptoms. However, by early 2001 I had reached the age of 41, which was outside the age-band where I had understood the disease was most common (I know better now).

One Saturday morning I woke up with a pain that wouldn't go away. It wasn't crippling but the hypochondriac in me was worried, while the image-conscious part of me said "don't be melodramatic". It was still there on the Monday and I was due to go down the country with a colleague on what was a relatively urgent work-related trip. I went to my family doctor, explaining this, and he made the judgement (which I still feel was a reasonable one) that if anything was wrong it was unlikely to escalate critically in the space of a three-day trip. So, armed with painkillers and with a follow-up appointment for the Friday morning, I departed for Mayo, did the job and came back on the Wednesday.

By then, though, the pain was getting worse. It still wasn't crippling but by Wednesday evening I could feel a lump. By now, the hypochondriac in me was winning the argument so I spent hours that night scanning the Intee time - rnet. One of the things I read was that the symptoms that might point to testicular cancer can also by caused by numerous other factors. I decided to wait until the Friday morning, therefore, and not to bring the appointment forward.

On Friday my doctor looked at me again and now he decided that I should get it seen to at once. He tried to arrange for me to see a specialist there and then but that wasn't possible so, with a letter from him, I presented myself at casualty (A and E, or ER if you will) in the nearby Beaumont Hospital. Ironically, the receptionist who checked me in was a colleague from my voluntary work with the scouts (I was a beaver leader, at the time, the beavers being the secrion of the scouts for 6-8 year-olds).

It took a full day of sitting around in wating areas, going from place to place for an ultra-sound and a physical examination, before a junior specialist confirmed that I was likely to have cancer. Plans had to be changed straight away. I had to arrange cover for the beaver meeting the next morning so that my wife and I could meet the specialist again. I was told I should present myself to the hospital on the Sunday evening. On that basis, I thought I would be clear to go to a dinner in my sister in law's house. However, on the Sunday afternoon the hospital phoned to say they had a bed free and that I was to come in at once.

That was a bit of a shock and left everybody a bit anxious, not least our dinner hosts. It was kind of lonely settling into the ward and saying goodbye to the family (Aifric, who was 6 at the time, was crying, even though neither of the children had been told exactly what the matter was).

I was operated on the next afternoon and the right testicle, when removed, was verified to be cancerous. I stayed in hospital until the Saturday (during which time I was also diagnosed with high blood pressure!). I had a room to myself for most of the time but I had to move to a public ward near the end. My niece by marriage, trooper that she was, had a job in the hospital café at the time and was constantly bringing me goodies.

What really moved me - and still moves me to this day - was the response from friends, in-laws and acquaintances. I decided from the beginning to be open about the illness because I figured that the truth would leak out anyway and be even more embarrassing. Lots of people phoned and, when I started to show my face in the streets again, I had parents of my children's classmates and parents of kids in the beavers coming up and wishing me well. The kindness of my in-laws was espeically touching, and is one of the factors of regret in the subsequent break-up of my marriage.

At the time, the atmosphere in work was quite fractious but I maintained the policy of being open about what had happened and putting it up to others to be embarrassed if they chose to be. None of them were, at least in my presence. I am sure there were a few mutterings that I didn't hear, to the effect that the person concerned would have been willing to do the operation and save me the cost of an anaesthetist. They would probably have been right!

I started back at work and even undertook a trip to attend a conference in Rome, before I had to take more time off to undergo low-level radiation therapy, which is standard practise in testicular cancer cases. This involved driving across the city nearly every weekday for several weeks to St. Luke's Cancer Hospital in Rathgar, to wait around for half an hour or an hour and then to have a blast of radiation that lasted a few seconds (I had to have two spot tattoos on my tummy to mar the area to be irradiated and I have them to this day). I was warned that I might be sick afterwards and advised to buy Motilium as a precaution but I was more or less fine. As I said to the radiologist, the feeling was like what one's reaction would be if, having already gorged onself on ice cream, one was innocently offered an ice cream dessert. She said that this was a good description (I have Reggie Perrin to thank for that). That said, some people have been violently sick after the same treatment. Afterwards, there was a series of tiresome follow-up CT-scans in St. Luke's and, after I moved there, in Brussels (in a hospital that was also called Saint Luc, coincidentally).

For me the most moving part of the visits to St. Luke's were the daily encounters with other cancer patients, most of which, one can reasonably assume, were in a worse state than me. These included children and teenagers - both girls and boys - many of whom had lost their hair - and some of whom were obviously very ill indeed. If I had any temptation to feel sorry for myself, it wat tempered by witnessing their courage and acceptance.

I write this piece because, for the few people that read it, I want them to know that the depth of trauma of an illness is not determined by the fact that it has "cancer" or "tumour" in the title. At the time when I fell ill, it is true, I had already watched my prospective father-in-law fade away due to cancer. Since then I have lost several friends and relatives to cancer, including my own father, a work colleague who had already ondergone a double mastectomy, and a child of the friend I mentioned at the outset. But I have also lost friends, colleagues or relatives through motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, septocemia, and freak accidents. On the other hand, I am still alive ten years later and I know other former cancer patients who are also alive - and prospering.

A couple of years ago, I overheard a radio interview with the comedian Des Bishop, who also fell victim to testicular cancer. He was asked - by the female interviewer - if he had had a prosthesis inserted afterwards. It was the first time I'd even heard the idea suggested. As he said, why would I? The crotum is not the most attractive part of the male body!

A night at the Brahms

We were in London last weekend for a proms concert. I've only been to the Proms twice since my student days in 1982, when I took a holiday in London to attend six concerts, for which I had to queue all afternoon (or, in one case, all day) for cheap standing tickets. The best accoustics are to be had in the standing are and the atmosphere is great. Still, on subsequent occaisons, being older with less time, I've booked seats.

On this occasion, we went with our hosts to hear two of Brahms's greatest works: the second piano concerto and the fourth symphony. Coincidentally, both works have associations with the days when I used to study music theory. It was my theory teacher, the lovely Helen Kane, who introduced me to the concerto. She played the opening bars in class on the piano and asked us what instrument did we think Brahms would have used for the lovely fragment in the first bars, to which the piano responds with beautiful swelling chords. I was learning the french horn at the time and this was what I guessed. I turned out to be right. That opening was what drew me to the piece but there is su much more.

One of the great things about Brahms is how tightly structured his works are. Much as I love, say, Mahler or Tchaikovsky, I don't think they have this appreciation of form and structure which obsessed Brahms. You sometimes feel there is a movement too much, or that the elements of the symphony, lovely as they are, don't make a unified whole. You never get that feeling with Brahms. The second piano concerto is long (nearly an hour) and it has one more movement than the normal three (a brooding scherzo, inserted as the second movement). Still, the work doesn't seem flabby or overblown. The complex opening movement and the subsequent atmospheric scherzo are followed by an achingly beautiful slow movement which opens with a long cello solo and develops almost into a love duet between that instrument and the piano, with only muted support from the orchestra. Finally, a rombustuous finale lifts the mood as the work races towards its glorious end. Emmanuel Ax performed beautifully on the keyboard, with Bernard Haitink conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

The moods of the fourth symphony vary from movement to movement but if there is one word that sums them up to me it's lingering uncertainty. The first movement is very much the classical symphonic opening one but the mood is enigmatic. The second movement opens, likke the concerto, with another horn call. It develops into a richly lyrical piece. One might almost say pastoral, except that these are sheep grazing on northern alpine slopes, not sun-kissed valleys. The third movement is an energetic scherzo and is probably the brightest part, but it would be going too far to describe it as "cheerful" or "sunny", although it is dance-like at times.

Back to music theory. When I was learning about musical form, I read in my rudiments of music that a "passacaglia" is a set of variations built up onn a theme in the base, that it was common in Baroque music (which is true) but that the finale of Brahms's fourth symphony was also in this form. It is practically unique among mainstream symphonies in this respect. He uses a theme from a Bach cantata for his eight bass chords, which open the symphony, followed by a series of contrasting variations. As André Previn pointed out, this is not a dry intellectual exercise. The form he has adopted is very much part and parcel of what he wants to say. The variations represent almost a voyage of the soul, and the structure guarantees that this musical Pilgrim's Progress never deviates from the path. It is the crowning glory on this final symphonic masterpiece by a truly great composer.

Thoughts on rioting

A few years ago, when I was still living in Dublin, a group came down from Northern Ireland for a parade under the title "love Ulster". The event was organised by loyalist groups and their motives may have been mixed. However, wise counsel would have taken the view that they should be met with consideration and courtesy, if only to show that we were civilised people and thus disappoint their expectations.

Instead, we got a riot - in broad daylight - which must have reinforced their sterotypic view and served as propaganda for the most irredentist elements in the loyalist camp. Interestingly, it may have been orchestrated at the outset, but it got started and the police reaction wasn't quick enough, it developed a momentum all of their own. There is always an element in any urban setting that is just waiting for the normal restraints to break and then they let rip. A chain reaction starts and it son gets out of control.

That is not to justify the people involved. People who react in such a way are thugs and, no matter what their background or circumstances are, they still make a moral choice. Anyone who smashes a window or rips up a paving stone to throw it knows excatly what they are doing and should be treated accordingly.

The same applies to riots that took place here in Switerland last year at the time of WTO talks - in Geneva, the city of peace! On that occasion there were no fires but there were lots of smashed windows and some looting.

In the case of London, I think that, at the very outset, there may have been a few people in Tottenham with a sincerely-felt sense of grievance who just lost their temper in the face of a failure by the police to appreciate and address their anger (this is especially credible if the allegations about a 16 year-old girl being beaten without provocation by the police are correct). However, to the extent that these people might be allowed some indulgence, they soon ceased to be the driving factor and I hope that, if not now, then in time to come they will be shocked at how the situation has escalated.

For the most part, subsequent to the first few moments of the first riot, I don't buy anger against the police as an excuse. Every police force I've ever encountered can behave badly and give grounds for anger, to a few people - especially if they are poor or belong to racial minorities. However, there are always far more people who are just waiting to appropriated this as an excuse to indulge in mindless violence. There is a word for such people. they are called thugs.

Summer in the Alps

We took advantage of the August holiday weekend to stay with friends in Rossinière, in the Pays d'Enhaut of the Canton of Vaud.

The village is diyllic, as you will see from the photos. Moreover, since it lies near the famous Röstigraben (or rösti ditch) - the river Saane (or Sarine) which marks the eastern boundary of French-speaking Switzerland - one can easily hop across to the German-speaking part of the country, and the nearby towns of Gstaad and Lauenen.

On Sunday we went for a hike from the village of Lauenen up to the lake. It was actually quite an easy hike, with only one steep part near the beginning. And the views were stunning.

It wasn't typical habitat for alpine flowers; you get those higher up on the more exposed, rocky areas. Instead, we saw lots of woodland and marsh species, including wild strawberries, butterbur, meadow sweet, angelica, spotted orchid, marsh marigold (which had gone over) and (my favourite) grass of Parnassus, which isn't a grass at all but a small, plant with a beautiful, delicately veined white flower and heart-shaped green leaves.

On Monday we took a walk around the lake of Vernex, just outside the village of Rossinière itself. Vernex lake is an artificial one - the result of a small hydro-pwer scheme - but none the less scenic for that.

So, here are some pictures!

Swtizerland's big day

Believe it or not, Switzerland's National Day has only been a public holiday since 1994. Until WWII the Swiss preference was to mark 8 November, the supposed date of the Rütlischwur (an oath sworn by representatives of the Cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden on the meadow at Rütli in 1307). However, in 1941, the experience of being neutral but hemmed in by warring states reinforced the urge to celebrate the earlier Federal Charter of 1291, sworn between the same Cantons in "early August"). This led to the designation of 1 August as the National Day.

Whatever the background, it was certainly canny of the Swiss to have a summer date (as the French and Americans have), rather than a March date like Ireland's, when the chances of rain are even better than average (average being already very high).

This year was the first that I participated in the celebrations, specifically, those organised by the Commune of Chene Bourg, in the southern part of Geneva, not too far from the French border.

The weather was glorious and there was a nice relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere. The local fire brigade did a lot of the organisning - including the catering. The centre-piece of the food stalls was one where an entire cow was being roasted on a spit, though one could also partake of raclette (a Swiss cheese that is melted and served with boiled potatoes, and pickles), as well as excellent home-made ice cream. An area had been set aside where children could light sparkers (under supervision, of course - this being Switzerland) At 9pm there was a procession, consisting mainly of (accompanied) children carrying paper lanterns. There was music from a band of alpine horns (huge things - about 9 feet long), before the national anthem was sung and the Federation oath recited. Finally, several firemen (in full kit) lit the communal bonfire, having prepared it earlier with strategicallly places hoses all around - just in case.

It was certainly a memorable day and I look forward to celebrating again next year.