The Fifth Day

Hello People

To say I am not even slightly religious this marks the second blog post with a Christianity reference embedded in the title. If you accept the creationist theory to explain how we ended up on this flying spinning molten rock, on the fifth day god created life, more specifically the fish and the birds. Now this sounds unrelated and its presence is rather pointless in a cancer blog, right? Well, cancer attacks most if not all living animals, including birds and fish and no, sharks are not exempt from the disease. Therefore if cancer were ever to be first created, it stands to reason that it was on this fifth day, that it originally began its killing spree. That being said the main reason I have labelled my post this is yet again the number mentioned, this being the fifth entry and all, no hidden religious meaning intended.

For dramatic effect and to once again give meaning to otherwise meaningless title, I am going to say it was a Friday (The fifth day of the week). We received a call. If you remember I said if they called it meant trouble was afoot. This was not the exception to the rule. The doctor on the phone played the pronoun game for awhile, actively avoiding saying anything substantial and just insisting to see me, hopefully before day's end. Five hours later (dramatic effect again) we were back in the Doctor's Surgery. The head Doctor (Doctor White) was busy that day so instead we would have to see one of his minions. For reasons I will explain later and to avoid naming and shaming I shall call him Dr Bishop.


There was to be no testicular fondling today, so when I was eventually called through, my Mother followed close behind. Dr Bishop welcomed us into his office and I instantly detected a problem. He spoke with a strong South African accent. One of my many flaws is getting distracted easily and not really paying attention and listening to my full ability. This works fine in most conversations, however when you have to decipher a thick accent and also translate medical jargon, total attention is advised, scratch that, required. It started off okay. He dealt with the pleasantries, Hi! How are you? Up to this point I was still in the conversation, I heard and understood everything uttered and even managed to spit out an answer when social convention dictated me to. The problem was the following sentences. "The results from your ultrasound has come in. "THERE IS A SINISTER MASS IN YOUR LEFT TESTICLE." I've Highlighted and put in bold the part of the conversation where I lost concentration.

I lost concentration and my mother lost her otherwise cool compose and began to cry, not unsurprisingly thanks to Dr Bishop. Of my understanding of being a Doctor, you need to have a reasonably good bedside manner and more importantly you shouldn't use the word sinister in a diagnosis, unless to say there is nothing sinister, that's the only exception. He continued talking but I wasn't listening. My mother next to me was sobbing and I was wondering whether I should be joining her in the emotional display. But then what would that achieve, two weeping Pattisons, a lot of tears and not much else. No instead I would remain stoic, unfeeling. I tried to tune back into Dr Bishop. "Have you got any questions?" I'd missed nearly everything he said but didn't really want him to repeat it. That being said, remembering my interview persona, I decided that I needed to ask something to sound polite and show I've been attentive to the ebb and flow of the conversation. "What happens next?" I asked, quite a sensible question I deemed, though I didn't hear the answer. Yet again his accent hid any of the words he was trying to voice. Mum was still crying and I knew further communication with Dr Bishop was futile so we left. We got out the office and I gave one of my rare hugs to my mother, in an attempt to stem the tide of sadness a little.

"You have to tell Dad!" The first audible words Mum uttered on our journey home. I knew she was right but still I pictured the potential ridicule in my head. I also knew that regardless I should have said something earlier than now, as at least two weeks since I noticed a problem, my dad was still metaphorically in the dark. That's the problem with secrets. The longer you keep them, the more they fester and the harder they are to speak at loud. "Do we have to?" I said. A storm was coming of that I knew, but did it have to be today? I was either going to make my dad smile as he was thinking of testicle jokes or much more, nearly 100% more likely, I was going to get the disappointed I didn't trust him face and that day was bad enough without having to see the hurt on my Dad's face as he learnt the SINISTER news.

Anyway enough about me for now, back to Doctor Bishop. I said his name had meaning and following the religious theme of this blog, take a look at the sentence he uttered once again. Note the word mass. Using one of the other meanings of the word mass, i.e. a religious ceremony held generally by the Roman Catholic Church and add that to the knowledge that it is taken by a priest. Next take note that Doctor Priest sounds a little weird to me, maybe because they are both well-known professions, and finally given my ignorance of the difference between a bishop and a priest you can see clearly why I named him so. A very witty pun if you ask me. Dr White's name however is arbitrary though, no cryptic pun hidden there, just a colour, sorry for disappointing you guys. Anywho that brings us to the end of yet another blog. "That's all folks!"