Thursday 26 April 2012

Bad news within the family

After a few days of uncertainty, the news about my wife's brother is not good.  He had severe back pain earlier this week, had an MRI last week and a radioactive bone scan this Monday.  The results of that are back and the tentative diagnosis is cancer, the bone tests revealing the secondary symptoms of a primary illness, probably prostate cancer.  Tonight he is back at hospital for further tests.  So not good.

My brother died of cancer just before my eleventh birth (he was nine) and my father died of cancer six years ago.  I always suspect that I will die of cancer too and wonder every time I have a headache or some other possible symptom.  And it is noticeable that I still keep press cuttings of cancer stories, the most recent being the various articles on and reviews of Philip Gould's book.

All this is a prime example of how one's life can be turned upside down in an instance.  Not good.

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