Part 8 – The Radiotherapy Chronicles: Life on Hold, Bills on the Table

🙂 Boring you yet with my cancer saga? Guess what? I still don’t care.

Bad hair days

Eight chapters in, and if you’re still here, you either really love me, really hate Netflix, or just enjoy watching a middle-aged man document his slow transformation into a porridge-eating cyborg. Either way — welcome back to the chronicles of Platty vs. Cancer.

When I first started this blog, I never imagined it would turn into a medical miniseries. I thought I’d write a few updates, drop in the odd moan about hospital parking, and move on. Yet here we are — Episode 8: The Emotional Damage Edition.

But this week’s not about the science. You’ve heard enough about the chemo drips, the radiotherapy zaps, the mask fittings, and the ulcers that could hold their own postcode. This one’s about something quieter — what cancer actually does to your life outside those four walls.

Because while the treatment hits your body, it’s everything else that sneaks up on you — your work, your home life, your identity, the constant admin, and the uneasy feeling that your whole world has hit pause while everyone else’s keeps fast-forwarding.

It’s the ripple effect nobody warns you about. It doesn’t show up in the leaflets or gets mentioned in consultations. But it’s there — in the gaps between appointments, the silences at 3 a.m., and the long afternoons where the world carries on without you.

💼 Life on Hold, Bills on the Table

Cancer doesn’t just attack your body. It blows up your normal life. Work? On hold. Routines? Gone. Identity? Rewritten overnight. You go from being someone with a job title and a to-do list to someone whose calendar is now filled with scan dates and infusion times. The old “9 to 5” becomes “chemo to radiotherapy.”

I need my soup still

Because I spent years working abroad, I don’t qualify for a single penny of support. Not sick pay, not benefits, not even a sympathy biscuit fund. Doesn’t matter how many years I grafted or paid in before — the rules are the rules, and I accept that. But it leaves a gap big enough to drive a freight train through.

It’s a strange feeling, going from earning your way to suddenly relying on others — not through laziness, but because your body’s busy fighting for its life. I’ve worked since I was sixteen, through my Army Career, rail shutdowns, and heatwaves, and now my biggest daily challenge is staying upright long enough to microwave soup.

I’m lucky. Lou and my son are keeping things afloat while I’m knocked sideways by treatment. Not everyone has that. I see others in waiting rooms quietly juggling bills, mortgages, and jobs while going through the same fight — heroes in hoodies, holding clipboards instead of swords. You can see the worry in their eyes: not just will I beat this, but how do I pay for shopping and the electricity in the meantime?

The NHS gives me world-class treatment for free — and I’ll never stop being grateful for that — but life itself isn’t free. The electricity meter doesn’t care you’ve got cancer. The council tax man doesn’t pause his letters. And Amazon still thinks you need “motivational” gym shorts.

That’s the hidden side effect nobody prepares you for — the quiet financial aftershock that rumbles underneath everything else. The cost of living doesn’t take sick leave, and it certainly doesn’t do sympathy.

⏸️ The Bubble Effect

Here’s the strangest part: cancer stops your world dead in its tracks… but the rest of the world barrels on without you. You’re trapped in this bubble of appointments, side effects, and exhaustion, watching everything else carry on through the glass.

I'm on pause as the world still spins

Trips get cut down to the bare minimum because your immune system’s stripped. You weigh up every outing: is it worth the risk? Can I even manage it? And when real life happens — like my dad ending up in hospital — you’re stuck. You want to be there, you should be there, but you can’t. You’re sidelined in your own life.

So you cling to the small comforts. A bit of telly. A text from a mate. A mug of soup. And — for the first time in weeks — Manchester United actually won a game. Miracles do happen. Maybe the chemo’s working after all.

🧾 The Scoreboard So Far

• Chemo: 5/6 ✅

coffee is my friend

• Radiotherapy: 24/30 ✅

• Weight: 10 kg down — the NHS’s most aggressive (and unadvertised) slimming plan

• Mood: Still sarcastic, now with added wheezing and midnight coughing solos

• Taste Buds: On permanent strike; negotiations ongoing

• Hair: Starting to thin — I’ve gone from Darth Vader to Ming the Merciless

• Energy: Running on fumes, but somehow still idling along

🧑‍🦲 From Darth Vader to Ming the Merciless (The Prequel)

It’s happening. The first faint signs of hair loss have arrived — not dramatic, just the top and the right-hand side above my ear quietly packing their bags and leaving without notice. Subtle, but enough to make me look like I’ve been attacked by a confused lawnmower.

My new Hero

For weeks, I thought I’d dodged it. “Maybe I’ll keep my hair,” I said, like some naive fool in the opening scene of a horror film. Now, the mirror tells a different story — I’ve officially entered the Ming the Merciless phase. All I need now is a long red cape, a throne, and a few minions to shout “Yes, Emperor!” whenever I walk into radiotherapy.

It’s not quite full villain mode yet — more “Ming on his day off” — but give it time. If nothing else, it’s saving me on shampoo and making every pillow inspection a suspense thriller.

📠 Admin Olympics

Name Date of birth and address ....... again

And then there’s the paperwork. God help me, the paperwork. Forms, claims, signatures, proof you’re not secretly running a circus act. If beating cancer was judged by admin, I’d be holding a gold medal by now.

Hospital is my new office. Same commute every day. Radiographers acting like line managers.

Oncologists handing out performance reviews.

Scans as appraisals. And the staff kitchen? NHS tea that tastes well, I don't know now my tastes are fully gone. Forget a pension plan — my perks are free biscuits and ulcers.

🤝 Macmillan Support

Through all this, Macmillan have been incredible. Support, advice, listening ears, and genuine care. They might not be able to change the rules, but they help you understand them, and they make sure you don’t feel like you’re facing it all alone. Having someone in your corner like that makes a huge difference.

👥 The Supporting Cast

Family and friends

If cancer has a silver lining, it’s this: you see who your people are.

• Lou, who’s kept everything going while juggling her own worries.

• My son's future daughter-in-law and Grandsons, who’ve been there in ways big and small.

• My Dad, sister Kay, my mother-in-law, Kath, and my brother-in-law Steve, each stepping in to keep me moving forward.

• And yes, Mr D, whose pitch-black humour has made even the darkest days survivable.

Add in friends who send Oodies and hampers, and readers of this blog who take time to comment or share, and you realise — the support cast is what keeps you standing.

⚔️ The Bottom Line

Cancer isn’t just a medical fight. It’s a life fight. It hijacks your body, your finances, your family role, and even your football club loyalty. It traps you in a bubble where the outside world keeps moving, and all you can do is crawl forward one drip, one zap, one porridge pot at a time.

But here’s the truth: I’ve got one chemo session left, six radiotherapies still zapping away, and more blog chapters to bash out. Cancer doesn’t get the last word. I do.

Take Care

Love

Ash x