How Norman From Accounts Nearly Brought Down the Entire Company.

One Man’s Quest To Find Out What His Cancer Actually Is — With Absolutely No Medical Jargon

🤔 Before Cancer, I Honestly Had No Idea!

If I’m honest, before I got cancer, I didn’t really understand what cancer actually was.

I knew it was serious.

I knew people suddenly started speaking to me in the careful tone normally reserved for unexploded bombs and elderly Labradors.

And I knew somewhere during treatment, there was a strong possibility my dignity would leave the building entirely.

But biologically?

No clue whatsoever.

In my head, cancer was basically:

“Bad lump. Very serious. Could die ”

Which turns out to be technically correct in the same way as saying:

“Chernobyl had a maintenance issue.” The reality is far stranger. And honestly… quite a bit more complicated. So, being a consultant for many years, I decided to look at this from an angle I did know to try and get my head around it all.

🏢 Your Body Is Basically One Massive Company

Your body is essentially one gigantic organisation.

Millions upon millions of workers are all doing different jobs.

🔧 Maintenance crews

🚛 Transport

📞 Communications

🧹 Cleaning

🚨 Security

♻️ Waste disposal

Everything is quietly ticking along, keeping the whole operation functioning. And most of the time, your cells are brilliant employees.

They turn up. Do their job. Replicate when needed. Retire when it's time.

No drama. No fuss. No “circle back via email.” Just efficient little workers cracking on.

Then one day…

"Norman from Accounts" decides: “I am now immortal and answer to nobody.”

Which, medically speaking, is where things start getting a bit concerning.

🚨 The Safety Department Starts Sweating

Normally, your body catches this sort of nonsense early.

There are safety systems everywhere.

✅ Quality control✅ Internal audits✅ Error checking✅ DNA repair✅ Tiny biological compliance officers wandering around asking:

“Hang on… why’s Norman photocopying his head?”

Most dodgy cells get quietly escorted out by security before they become a problem.

Which is comforting.

Until one slips through security purely because he was carrying a clipboard, wearing a Hi-Vis, and walking past you confidently with a cheery wave.

Classic Norman behaviour.

👔 Then Norman Somehow Gets Into HR

And this is where things go properly off the rails.

Because the rogue bloke in Accounts doesn’t stay alone for long.

Oh no.

Soon, he’s somehow ended up in HR.

Now he’s recruiting aggressively. With no prior permission, use of CVs or job interviews, he is just inviting them in to start work!!

Thousands of completely unqualified idiots are all doing the wrong jobs.

Its like hiring:

🩺 A Plumber to perform open-heart surgery

🛫 A chef to run air traffic control

🩰 Or a Train Driver to become a principal ballerina at the Royal Opera House

Nobody knows what they’re doing.

They’re just expanding endlessly and consuming much-needed resources.

⚡ Space

🔋 Energy

🫁 Oxygen

🍔 Nutrients

All while contributing absolutely nothing useful whatsoever and replacing your good workforce.

Which, now I think about it, does resemble several workplaces I’ve encountered over the years.

⚠️ Cancer Isn’t Really “A Lump.”

That’s the thing I never properly understood before all this.

Cancer isn’t just “a lump.”

It’s a system's failure.

It’s uncontrolled growth.

A hostile takeover.

It’s your own body quietly losing control of itself while Norman and his “lunatic workforce” open three more regional offices and buy a hot tub on expenses. Which somehow feels even stranger than an infection.

At least with flu, there’s an obvious villain.

Cancer feels more like discovering your own workforce has secretly been hiding Norman's strange behavior for several years. It knew he didn't belong there, but because he was behaving, it just ignored him.

☢️ Head Office Finally Notices Norman

Eventually, things get so bad that Head Office (Brain) realises something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Norman and his “Norman’s expanding franchise operation” are spreading through the building like an aggressive corporate takeover.

Departments are being overwhelmed.

Resources are disappearing.

Nothing useful is getting done.

At this point, the company brings in outside consultants.

And unlike normal consultants…

These are actually useful.

👨‍⚕️ Specialists🔬 Analysts🛠 Engineers📋 Crisis managers......... (NHS)

Entire teams are working together trying to stop Norman and his lunatic workforce from taking over the organisation completely.

Which is basically what cancer treatment is.

An emergency intervention designed to stop rogue employees from destroying the company from the inside.

⚠️ The Problem Is Norman Looks Like Everyone Else

The difficulty is that Norman and his mates still technically work for the company.

They look almost identical to normal employees.

So treatment becomes incredibly difficult.

Doctors can’t simply walk into the office shouting:

“RIGHT — All The Cancer Looking Normans Get Out.”

Instead, they have to identify, isolate, and destroy the rogue cunning Normans while trying not to damage the rest of the organisation.

Which explains why treatment often feels less like healing… and more like surviving a controlled demolition carried out by very intelligent people.

☢️ Radiotherapy: The Corporate Air Strike

In my case, it was radiotherapy.

Which sounds futuristic and sophisticated.

And it is. But it also feels slightly insane when you really think about it.

Human beings invented machines capable of firing controlled radiation into specific parts of the body with terrifying precision.

Me? I didn’t actually know what radiotherapy did. All I knew was the rooms had nuclear symbols on the doors, warning signs everywhere, and the whole place felt like a mad scientist’s lab.

Halfway through the first session, I was convinced my skin was slowly melting, rearranging itself, and that if I looked in a mirror later, I might resemble Sloth from The Goonies.

Basically, a targeted air strike against Norman’s regional headquarters.

The downside being there are still innocent employees working nearby.

So while the treatment is trying to wipe out Norman and prevent an aggressive, hostile takeover…

Other departments get caught in the chaos, too.

👅 Taste buds💧 Saliva glands😴 Energy levels🥪 The basic joy of eating a bacon sandwich

Collateral damage basically.

And because radiotherapy happens day after day after day…

It slowly feels like the consultants (NHS) are solving the problem by repeatedly setting fire to the same office block until Norman finally gives up.

💣 Chemotherapy: Carpet Bombing The Industrial Estate

Chemotherapy, on the other hand, felt more like the consultants deciding:

“We can’t risk Norman escaping, so unfortunately, we’re now carpet bombing the entire industrial estate.”

Unlike radiotherapy — which targets one area — chemotherapy goes everywhere.

The whole company gets involved, whether it wants to or not its the office party!!.

Bob in HR is shouting drunken instructions nobody understands. Frank in Maintenance has tripped over a speaker cable and somehow set the table on fire, and Sally from the Safety is hiding under a table crying, protecting a tray of sausage rolls like civilisation has collapsed.

Meanwhile, you’re wandering around in the middle of it all, wondering if anyone actually knows what’s going on anymore.

It’s basically like being forced to attend the worst company party in human history that has a free bar, and everyone's taking full advantage.

Everybody’s invited. Nobody wants to be there. Everything’s chaos.

And the next morning you wake up feeling like you’ve survived the mother of all hangovers… without getting any of the enjoyable bits beforehand.

No music. No dancing. No free bar. No funny stories or empty promises of you getting a promotion next month.

Just exhaustion, confusion, and trying to remember what day it is.

I also spent a slightly worrying amount of time staring into mirrors, waiting to see if all my hair had fallen out overnight and whether I was about to resemble a slightly depressed egg.

Which explains why people often feel absolutely battered after chemo.

Norman might be getting hammered from the bombers up above…

…but unfortunately so is everybody else.

😵 Recovery Is Mostly Weird

Before cancer, I assumed recovery probably looked inspirational.

🌅 Slow walks along beaches

🎻 Emotional sunsets

🧘 Deep life-changing wisdom

Maybe me standing on a cliff somewhere, looking thoughtfully into the distance like a bloke in a very American type medication advert for a new cure-all Cancerdol tablets.

Voiceover softly saying:

“Ask your doctor if Cancerdol is right for you…”

…while I nod wisely at absolutely nothing in particular, wearing an oversized jumper and holding a Springer Spaniel for some reason.

Turns out recovery is mostly:

💧 Dry mouth

😴 Fatigue

🤕 Random aches

📱 Googling symptoms at 2:13 am

💊 Staring at medication packets like a confused pensioner in Boots

At one stage, I fully embraced the stereotypical “recovering cancer patient” look as well.

Baggy tracksuit bottoms because I’d lost weight.

An ill-fitting baseball cap pulled down over my head while I nervously checked every morning to see if my hair was still attached.

Less “inspirational survivor”…

more:

“middle-aged bloke waiting outside Ladbrokes, with a can of Stella, wondering where it all went wrong.”

You also become bizarrely aware of every tiny sensation in your body.

A sore throat? - Clearly death.

Mild headache? - Excellent. Brain tumour, probably.

Slight neck ache? - Well… It’s been a good run.

Honestly, WebMD should be classified as a psychological weapon.

Recovery isn’t glamorous.

It’s mostly just slowly getting the company operational again after Norman’s little corporate coup.

📋 Human Body Ltd — End Of Year Incident Report

Summary Of Events:

• Norman from Accounts initiated an Unauthorised expansion project

• Rogue recruitment campaign launched through HR

• Multiple departments compromised

• Significant infrastructure damage sustained

• Emergency consultants deployed

• Strategic air strikes authorised

• Industrial estate carpet bombed

• Several innocent employees were traumatised

• Hair losses within acceptable parameters

• Bacon sandwich enjoyment temporarily suspended

  
  

📚 Lessons Learned

✅ Listen to warning signs✅ Don’t trust Norman✅ Google is not a qualified consultant✅ Recovery takes longer than expected✅ The company is more resilient than originally thought

📊 Current Status

🟡 Operational🟡 Slightly tired🟡 Still under observation🟡 Randomly checking neck in mirrors🟢 Norman terminated

📝 Final Statement From Management

Despite significant disruption caused by one idiot in Accounts, Human Body Ltd remains operational.

The company would like to thank:

👨‍⚕️ Medical staff❤️ Family🤝 Friends☕ And everyone involved in removing Norman and his lunatic workforce from the premises

Normal service is gradually resuming.

Although frankly…

The moral of the story !!..... Every department matters, be it

• Maintenance

• Operations.

• Security.

• HR.

• Facilities

• Finance

Remove enough good people…and eventually Norman gets promoted.

And that, my friends, is One Man’s Quest To Find Out What His Cancer Actually was, With Absolutely No Medical Jargon.

Have a great day

Ash