Chocolate shakes hit the spot

Dave’s favourite drink... for now

Chronicle Managing Editor David Whaley has throat cancer and is sharing his treatment experiences with readers.

Part SIX: Here come the side effects...


THEY say 24 hours is a long time in politics. I can tell you it is exactly the same along the cancer highway.


Those of you following my weekly journey through the fog of treatment for a tumour on the vocal cords will note that last week I was zipping through daily radiotherapy with none of the pre-warned side effects.

Well, no more!

On reaching day eight the most dramatic thing I had to report was that one of the fledglings nesting in the courtyard garden at the centre of the Christie Oldham quadrangle had flown into a window.

The staff showed as much concern for the young bird as they do for all of us in their care and thankfully the stunned winged patient finally got up and flew back to its nest with only a headache..

Day eight was half way through my course of tretment and afte the day’s session my wife Wendy and I ralked things through with radiographer Zoe Gale. She and doctor Agata Rembielak monitor progress and make any necessary adjustments to the treatment.

I got a bit of a telling off for catching the sun while golfing.

“You don’t want to get burned on your neck - you’ll know about it if you do,” said Zoe sternly as she asked if I needed painkillers.

“What for?” was my reply. At that point I wasn’t in any pain.

What a difference a day makes.

Next afternoon I was back under the mask after telling the team how I was suddenly having difficulty swallowing food - my throat had gone very dry and tight.

By the time ever-helpful radiographers Sarah and Samantha removed the mask I had been booked in to see Dr Rembielak and was prescribed a liquid paracetamol that, taken 30 minutes before food, lines the throat and allows you to eat. The shirt and tie went at the same time, to avoid irritation.

Suddenly all the dietary tips came in handy: my mum had been busy with portions of home-made vegetable and tomato soup, and rustled up a week’s worth of egg custard in ramekins. Not only soothing, but it slides down a treat. I don’t think weight loss is going to be an issue here.

ANyway they want me to maintain my weight so I am fit for the fight and continue to fit snugly in the mask. The treatment site has to remain always the same and changes in bulk can alter this.

Also added to the menu was a cheese and tomato dip, baked in the oven. It’s messy but boy, is it good when your throat is sore!

And I have become a milkshake addict. Chocolate is my favourite, banana a close second. It’s the coldness as it glides down.

I never thought I would prefer that to a pint of lager, but at the moment I do.

Oh and I think I’m developing gills: cuts of meat have been replaced by fish. Fish stew, fish in sauce, ocean pie...

Recovery from the stresses of treatment was aided this week by a visit to meet complementary therapist Joanne Berber.

She is chocolate milkshake in human form; she soothed away every woe with a foot massage.

“Use the session as you want — talk, rant, swear — I am here to help,” she said as she got to work with oil on my feet.

There is photographic evidence that I really enjoyed those few minutes. Joanne takes it as a compliment if you nod off. That I didn’t was probably down to the constant noise of the shutter of Darren Robinson’s camera before he made his excuses and left.

The great thing about these treatments — funded by charity donations and recently boosted by John Hudson’s mayoral pot — is that they are available for carers too.

Patients sometimes forget that those close to us go through the mill too.

Wendy didn’t tell me what she and Joanne talked about; just that she too had a foot massage. What a rock.

Next week, maybe.

And so we reached Friday again — 11 of the 16 sessions completed — and prepared for the final week.

As we left we bumped into the Denton man I spoke of previously, being treated for prostate cancer.

He shared a joke about the “waiting for a bus” headline on last week’s piece.

“It’s hit me too,” he said. “I can’t pee and my back hurts and I am struggling sleeping,” he said as he disappeared down the corridor.

Suddenly a sore throat and fish for supper doesn’t seem too bad. So after my own encounter with that metaphorical side-effects bus I was even more determined to reiterate: “I get knocked down, but I get up again”.

KEEP SMILING