Ex-patient Nick was a role model par excellence!

Photo: Emily Harvey

David Whaley with wife Wendy on the Rollercoaster

KEEP SMILING - Managing Editor David Whaley’s continues his throat cancer journey

THE “Holidays are coming” big red truck for a certain fizzy drink company was parked outside the entrance to Manchester Children’s Hospital as we walked by, on our way to the near-by Manchester Royal Infirmary.

I did think about nipping in to give St Nick a list of wishes but, in truth, it was another Nick who lit up my life last week.

Inspirational is an overused word in modern life but it only goes part of the way to describe an emotional meeting in a small corner of the old hospital’s ENT department.

We had to negotiate corridors of blue boxes stacked high for the MRI’s impending move to new premises as we attended a meeting with speech therapists.

Radical

Plural because I have been under North Manchester’s Janice Lang since originally diagnosed with throat cancer (is it really eight months ago we heard those words).

Now, thanks to consultant Mr Murthy’s awareness of the more radical operations undertaken by Professor Jarrod Homer I am going to be under the care of his experienced sidekick Frances Ascott.

The meeting was partly hand-over for the two colleagues (Janice actually trained under Frances and was keen to know more of the partial-larygectomy techniques and outcomes) and partly information.

Wendy was at my side, as she has been for all appointments, but this time the health professionals has OK’d it for my sister Chris to join us — she asked to come to “get her head around what was going to happen”.

As the professor had outlined last week, this is no easy option for the patient but the outcomes can be significantly improved.

Certainly a three-week stay in hospital with several early days in the high dependency unit (HDU) conjures up some scary thoughts.

I was contemplating the logistics of such when there was a knock at the door and in walked a smart man in suit and tie and he was chatting away to Frances.

I assumed he was one of the consultants seeking advice when Frances turned and said: “This is Nick. He has been on exactly the same journey as you and had the operation three years ago.”

The three of us had not previously talked about what we expected but Nick was a role model par excellence!

Very quickly I found myself thinking, “well if that’s me in a few years time I’ll take that tomorrow”.

It turned out we were very similar people. Similar age, non-smoker, sporty, competitive, driven, folically challenge (I even commented that I owned the same tie that he was wearing).

Nick’s a 53-year-old from Lymm who works in transport sales and he talks with what would probably be described as a slightly higher-pitch voice than normal.

He told us that, prior to cancer, he had a very strong voice (another similarity) and that those who knew him prior can hear a marked difference.

But he admitted that those who have only known him since the change don’t really give it a second thought.

He talked frankly about his time in hospital, about his competitive nature (he was and is still a runner) in wanting to get rid of the temporary tracheotomy and feeding tube peg in double quick time.

Nick could not speak highly enough of the efforts of Frances and the professor — he has known him so long he calls him Jarrod but he is still Professor Homer to me.

“if you do what they tell you then you will do fine,” he recalls as he is bombarded with questions relating to pain (none really) drinking (yes please) and eating (the only thing I can’t cope with is a peanut).

He shows us his neck to emphasise that there is no visible scaring. Staples are more the norm these days rather than stitches.

I shake Nick’s hand like that of bonded brothers in arms and he promises to call in on me after the operation.

After he leaves the two speech therapists are at pains to stress that the pain-free recollections may be something of a rose-tinted glasses view now that he is so well. We all get that but are still stunned at what we have witnessed.

Nick is coming up for the fourth anniversary since his operation (Feb 3, 2011) but he is a sterling ambassador for Professor Homer’s work, even if this had been the first time he’d talked to someone on the same path.

We leave with beaming smiles and even the driving rain can’t dampen our spirits as we head back to the car.

Spirits stayed high as our week also brings what I have always felt is where Christmas really begins — the Chronicle Carol festival.

I had to mime the words to the communal singing but felt my heart fit to bursting at the performances from the likes of opera star-to-be Claire Lees, accomplished group Notability and the unforgettable “Three Bears Rap” from the young stars of the Christ Church, Chadderton, choral speakers. “How many bears... three bears!”

And so this week we are set to return to the MRI for a pre-op assessment (my fourth of the year but first at MRI as all the others have been at Royal Oldham) and we should get some dates.

KEEP SMILING :-)