Half Life – 27 – reality check
April 30th, 2021
The senior nuclear medical technician knocked politely and waited for the invitation for him to come in, a private clinic nicety. NHS doctors and nurses knock as a warning, never wait for an answer, and walk in, regardless of whether you have your trousers down or are in the middle of a private nose-picking adventure. As you approach in the car the gleaming chrome and glass building projects modernity, science, and cutting-edge medicine. The reception, spotlessly clean, adorned with comfy chairs, flowers, and free coffee, is overseen by a chatty middle-aged woman with a cheerful smile who is helpful to a fault. Deep inside, with the occasional toilet oversight, it keeps up the standard. Equipment is polished, dent free, and new. Uniforms are crisp and neat, and no name badge is allowed at a wonky angle.
Taking the chair opposite, the quietly spoken, professional, scientist talked through the process for the second round of the radioactive isotope attack on Nobby, my cancerous internal resident. The safety precautions and their reasons were beautifully explained, increasing the level of science and detail in response to questions. He covered the two different types of radioactivity which will project from me, filled me in on the inverse square law they’ll follow to explain the distances needed during isolation, and walked through the biology of how my body will process it through my kidneys over the coming days. Then, he apologised and nervously said he had to ask me a further, new, question. His hesitation wasn’t caused by waiting for an encouraging nod, it was embarrassment. Explaining that he had been instructed to ask this, pushing responsibility as far away from his scientific mind as possible, it still stuck in his throat. It took a few moments before, looking at the scripted checklist in front of him, he forced it out.
“Are you pregnant or planning to get pregnant in the near future?” My involuntary laugh filled the room before I managed to ask if he was serious. Shaking his head, but at ease enough to join me in a smile, he explained that an instruction had been handed down that everyone having any treatment had to be asked the same question, regardless. Radioactive isotopes are used for several different cancers, some of which both men and women can suffer from. The lunacy of asking me, however, was self-evident to him, all his medical colleagues, and anyone who knew about cancer and my cancer. Only men can get prostate cancer; women don’t have prostates. Only women can get pregnant. Hard, scientific, facts which, regardless how much might will them, or want them, to be otherwise for whatever reason, are not going to change.
Diplomatically, the nuclear technician saved the blushes of whichever corporate idiot had dreamt up both the new policy and question, refusing to elaborate on who it had come from. Revealing that it was part of an ‘equality’ policy drive, he discussed how it was both the craziest question he had been required to ask and the most embarrassing; it made him feel, and look, foolish and unprofessional. He admitted he was retiring soon and was relieved to be escaping that way. He knew the credibility of an organisation embracing, selling, and providing cutting-edge medical science had been undermined.
In 2005, my great aunt, a celebrated Indian dancer, yoga teacher, practitioner of meditation, and all-round wonderful person who had come to London from Madras in the 1960s, developed type-two diabetes when nearly eighty, but was otherwise in good health. She was diagnosed, provided with straightforward medication to manage it, and should have looked forward to many more years. She chose to ignore the doctors, not take the medicine, and meditate her way out of it. She died a few months later. However strong her will, desires, and focused meditation, the belief that she could change the inconvenient world of facts by willing it to be different was a deadly fantasy that deprived her of many years of life, and us of many years of her.
Facts matter when you have cancer, as does intelligent, rational thinking. As a patient, being asked the right questions matters. Trusting the facility treating you is fully aware of what is wrong, the nature of the illness, and who you are as a patient, is vital. Asking stupid questions damages that trust – even when what is asked is so stupid as to require nothing but ridicule in response. The cancer world is over-crowded with snake-oil sellers, peddling deceptions and encouraging self-deception. Preying on the desperate, offering final hopes of ‘secret’ cures involving huge sums of money, they frequently involving travel to countries with no regulation over so-called medical offerings. Doubting the credibility, and overall sanity, of the organisation treating you is not what you need a few minutes prior being injected with radioactive substances.
One stupid question in the context of a treatment might seem trivial, until it starts to chip away at reality and giving the impression that muddled thinking has a place. Bad thinking has a tendency to connect with other crazy ideas, and risks pulling people into harm, delusion, or both. Cancer, covid, malaria, diabetes and many other serious diseases and illnesses exist. No matter how much you believe in hypnosis, meditation, green tea, or the healing power of sitting under cold mountain waterfalls, they won’t cure them. If we start to move away from reality in clinics which should know better, we head down a dangerous road of thinking opinions, viewpoints, wishes, and desires carry equal weight to scientific facts and the reality we live in. More worryingly, that those desires – simply, passionately, wanting it to be different - can change the harsh facts of reality, like magic or witchcraft. The corporate numpty who thought, even for a moment, of asking a prostate cancer patient if they were pregnant should not only be prevented from going anywhere near a serious medical facility but ridiculed mercilessly to the end of their days.
As the fantastic Tears for Fears said...it’s a very very mad world
i agree write to head of HR . absolute madness. xx