Part 6 – The Radiotherapy Chronicles: Taste Buds on Strike & Life in the Chemo Chair

🎤 Boring You Yet?

“Boring you yet with my cancer story? Well… I don’t care 🙂.

When I first set this blog up, it was really just for family and friends while I was working abroad. A way of keeping people in the loop without spamming them with WhatsApp about whether I’d survived another dodgy kebab or missed yet another flight connection. Then it went to finding the best coffee in Riyadh or places to visit.

Fast-forward to now, and it’s morphed into something else entirely: a rolling diary of lumps, surgery scars, chemo chairs, radiotherapy masks, and my ongoing love/hate relationship with hospital tea. (Mostly hate, for the record — I’ve tasted puddle water in Riyadh that was less metallic.)

I know, it’s hardly the stuff of holiday brochures. No glossy beaches, no cocktail umbrellas. Just me, some drips, and the occasional hospital sandwich. But here’s the thing: it’s real. It’s my reality right now. And if sharing it keeps my family updated, gives my mates a laugh, or helps a stranger somewhere feel a bit less alone, then that’s enough reason to keep bashing the keyboard.

So here we are, Part 6. Same cancer, new complaints.

🎲 Cancer Doesn’t Care

Here’s the thing that properly blew my mind when I first read it: 1 in 2 people in the UK will face cancer at some point in their life. One in two! A coin toss. You don’t need to be unhealthy, unlucky, or doing anything “wrong.” It’s just math's. Flip a coin with your mate, one of you is getting the golden ticket nobody wants to "willy wankers cancer factory tour".

It doesn't care who you are

And cancer really doesn’t care who it lands on. It’s not picky. It doesn’t check your postcode or your bank balance before it moves in. You can be royalty with palaces, a rock star selling out stadiums, a comedian with a BBC crew following you round, or just me — a lad from Davyhulme, a not-so-famous corner of Manchester best known for… well, Europe's biggest sewage farm. It doesn’t matter. Rich or poor, famous or forgotten, cancer’s an equal-opportunity nuisance.

That fact honestly hit me harder than the diagnosis itself. Because it means everyone will meet it up close at some point. Every family, every friendship group, every workplace. Half of us. Which is staggering when you say it out loud. Yet even with numbers like that, when it finally lands on your own doorstep, it still feels like the postman’s delivered the wrong parcel. “Sorry, must be a mix-up — this was meant for someone else.” But no. No mix-up. This time, it’s your turn.

💉 Chemo Day: More Than Just a Drip

Chemo day isn’t just “turn up, plug in, wait six hours.” It’s a complete production line, so let me take you behind the secret door.

• Step one: the weigh-in. Every time, before a single drop goes in, you get weighed. The dose has to be exact. Put on a few pounds from sandwiches? Adjusted. Lost a couple because you can’t face food? Adjusted. I’ve never had my weight scrutinised this closely since Army fitness tests.

My new Gym

• Step two: the cannula. Paperwork, forms, checklists, signatures. Then the needle hunt begins. Some days they get it first go. Other days it’s like trying to plug a charger into your phone in the dark.

• Step three: the pre-drugs. You don’t just get chemo straight away — oh no. First comes a cocktail of steroids, anti-sickness tablets, painkillers, and “just in case” meds for headaches, allergies, or anything else that might show up. It’s like being given half a pharmacy before the main event.

• Step four: hydration and bladder duty. You’re pumped full of fluids before and after the chemo bag goes in. Why? Because your kidneys need flushing, and the staff want to see you peeing like a racehorse before they’ll even let you leave. Every bathroom trip is measured, recorded, ticked off. Nothing like standing in a hospital loo at 3pm thinking, “Well, at least my urine output is excellent.”

• Step five: the main course. The chemo bag itself finally gets hooked up. You sit. You wait. You try not to think about it too much. Hours pass.

  
  

By the end of it, you’re not just tired — you’re stuffed with fluids, sore from the cannula, buzzing from steroids, and dragging a bladder that deserves its own medal. And then, just when you think you’ve survived the day, you’re off to radiotherapy for your daily zap.

🥴 Taste Buds on Strike

Chemo and radiotherapy don’t just wipe out your energy — they stage a full-blown coup in your mouth.

One day you’re fine, the next day tea tastes like you’ve dunked a rusty nail in it, bread tastes like damp cardboard, and water tastes like it’s been filtered through an old radiator. Honestly, it makes NHS tea taste like fine dining, and that’s saying something.

Then come the ulcers. Tiny little assassins scattered around your mouth, each one lying in wait for that moment you get cocky enough to try crisps or anything with a hint of spice. Bang — pain that could strip paint. A drop of vinegar on one of those and you’d confess state secrets.

Eating stops being about flavour. That has long gone, packed its bags, and buggered off until further notice. Eating becomes pure strategy. What’s soft enough? What’s bland enough? What won’t feel like chewing on sandpaper dipped in acid? You don’t eat for pleasure anymore. You eat for survival, and sometimes even that feels like a gamble.

📺 Rhod Gilbert: A Pain in the Neck

If you’ve seen Rhod Gilbert’s documentary Pain in the Neck, you’ll know what I mean when I say: it’s all there. The mask, the zaps, the chemo grind, the side effects. Watching it, I couldn’t help thinking: that’s me.

The difference is he’s telling it on national TV and I’m here scribbling away in a blog from Cumbria. But the parallels are uncanny. His honesty, his humour, his frustration — it mirrors this journey perfectly.

If you haven’t watched it, do. Because if my words don’t get the point across, his film will.

• go to here https://www.channel4.com/programmes/rhod-gilbert-a-pain-in-the-neck-for-su2c

⏳ The Daily Grind

Here’s what people often overlook: it’s not just the once-a-week chemo slog. If it was, you could probably kid yourself into thinking, “Six bad Mondays, I can handle that.” Nope. It’s chemo plus daily radiotherapy on top. Monday to Friday. Every week. No bank holidays, no long weekends, no “sorry mate, I’m working from home today.” Cancer doesn’t do flexi-time.

Your whole life gets hijacked by hospital appointments. You stop living in days and start living in appointment slots. 9am zap. 2pm drip. Waiting room in between. It’s like running your life on train timetables, except at least Northern Rail sometimes cancels.

By the time you get home, you’re not “done.” Not even close. You’re basically running on low battery with the warning light flashing red. So you collapse on the sofa, plug yourself into Monster Energy drinks, Ambrosia porridge, and Netflix, and pray you can recharge to 10% before the next round.

It’s relentless—a Groundhog Day of waiting, zapping, and peeing into measuring jugs. If Bill Murray had to do this version, he wouldn’t have lasted past Tuesday.

🙌 Small Wins Matter

It’s not all doom and gloom. Some days the cannula goes in first time, and you feel like you’ve just won the Champions League. Other days the nurse sneaks you an extra biscuit, and honestly, it feels like Michelin-star service compared to the usual fare. Occasionally, the radiotherapy zap feels quicker — blink and it’s done, like getting a discount on something you were going to buy anyway. And once in a blue moon, your mouth ulcers decide to take the afternoon off. Those are the glory days.

These tiny victories, ridiculous as they sound, become the highlights of your week. Forget winning the lottery — I’m just happy when the tea tastes less metallic than usual or when the bathroom queue isn’t out the door.

So, the scoreboard stands: Chemo 2/6 ✅ Radiotherapy 11/30 ✅. Still early days, still a slog, but I’ve shuffled another square along the board game. No ladders yet, but thankfully no snakes either. Just me, plodding along, powered by biscuits and sarcasm.

⚔️ The Bottom Line

Chemo day isn’t glamorous. There’s no red carpet, no goodie bags, no VIP lounge. It’s weigh-ins, needles, paperwork, litres of fluids, toilet trips with measuring jugs, and enough pills to stock a branch of Boots. That’s all before the main event. Then it’s radiotherapy, every single day, strapping your face into a mask while your throat gets microwaved and your taste buds pack up and head for the hills.

But here’s the thing — this ridiculous circus keeps me moving forward. Every drip, every zap, every uncomfortable hour in those hospital chairs is still a step on the board. One more tick, one more square along the snakes-and-ladders game I never signed up for. Some days it feels like I’ve climbed a ladder, other days I slide straight down the snake, but either way I’m still on the board.

And that’s why I continue to write this. Not because it’s glamorous (it isn’t), or inspirational (I’m basically powered by biscuits and sarcasm), but because maybe it helps. Maybe it gives someone else an idea of what to expect. Maybe it convinces one parent to get their kid the HPV jab. Or perhaps it just makes you laugh at how utterly absurd the whole process can be.

If nothing else, it keeps me sane. And until the final square, that’s reason enough to keep playing.

All my love

Ash