Homecoming

Last Wednesday I had my first headache in weeks. This happened to coincide with my journey to London. Lucky me! So come Wednesday afternoon my dad had the pleasure of sitting on a Megabus with the worlds worst passenger. I slept the majority of the way, other than when I woke up briefly at the services to take some paracetamol. On the up side, the journey flew by for me.

My dad lived in London for about 30 years so he was happy to be home for a bit, even if it was only very briefly. So I had the arrival fully narrated due to the detailed description of the roads we were going down as the bus approached Victoria Coach Station. When we arrived we got a taxi to the hotel, which was fairly nice considering it was one of the cheapest we could find. Having said that, the lifts were big enough for roughly half a person and the breakfast did involve making a choice between warm toast and warm bacon.

That evening we went for food at a pub across the road followed by a catch up with one of my mates from when I was down in Plymouth Uni back in the day. I attempted to have a drink but half a bottle of Rekorderlig kicked my double vision off so much that I had to close one eye to cross the road, thankfully I played frogger quite a bit as a child so I was prepared for this situation.

The next morning I awoke with a horrific medical condition, some say it can be worse than the cancer. This condition was the dreaded Man Flu. I managed to drag myself out of bed and down to the aforementioned breakfast and got ready to leave the hotel for our journey across London. Roughly 45 minutes and 15 stops on the underground later we arrived at Great Portland Street Station and departed.

The London Clinic Consulting Rooms were a short walk from the station so we started the walk across to a place that was coincidentally 2 minutes down the road from the Portland Hospital where I was born. We had travelled up so that I could meet with a specialist from The Royal Marsden in order to get my second opinion.  The London Clinic was a world away from the Heath and Velindre, plush chairs and spacious, well decorated consulting rooms show the difference between private practice and the NHS.

When the consultation began we started by discussing how the doctor had wanted to see me as his son did judo, and he had even been sat next to my mat in Glasgow (thankfully we didn't discuss that day too much). Who knew judo would come in so handy one day. The next hour he went over the scans in detail, explaining why the tumour was inoperable and why it was so hard to monitor and control. The reason was basically the nature of the tumour causing it to be hard to differentiate between brain tissue and tumour tissue. We also discussed all the other issues that had been discussed at Velindre such as treatment plan and prognosis to ensure he agreed with what had been set out for me.

In summary he agreed that the tumour was of the type I had been told and that I had been given the best possible treatment plan, this news reassured my mother (who had been wanting me to get a second opinion), even if it was not what she really wanted to hear.

Following the meeting, and an agreement to catch up with the doctor at the Welsh Championships that weekend, we headed for Victoria ready for the journey home where I would prove to be the perfect travelling companion once again by sleeping awkwardly for at least 90% of the drive.