93. One breast and a couple of prostates (on bikes)

Yes, there is a certain amount of vulnerability and sadness in the radiotherapy waiting room, but since you are all thrown into this together, it can also be quite a jolly affair. You smile at each other as you enter and make light of your daily ordeal.

Most mornings I share the waiting room with Mr A and Mr B.

They chat about the difficulties of getting the daily post-chemotherapy immune-system-boosting injections when you are abroad. (Abroad? Post-chemotherapy? They’re not talking France. They are talking Far East.) Anyway, when abroad, Mr B couldn’t find a doctor or nurse willing to administer his injections, so he did it himself in the end. Not wanting to just chuck his spent syringe in the bin, he tried to smash it flat, but then found that it wasn’t made of plastic. It fragmented into a spray of glass.

We all laugh heartily. I advocate the merits of do-it-yourself, and so, having found out how easy it is, does Mr B. Mr A sticks with his trips to the health centre around the corner, looking away when the nurse gives his injections.

Ah, the things you talk about.

We exchange journeys (I’m let off lightly with my commute from Clapham) and length of treatment (I’m let off even more lightly with my three weeks. The chaps all seem to need 7½ weeks).

“I’m staying with friends,” one of them offers. He wins.

And you should see how freely we exchange intimate body parts with perfect strangers, as easy as sunshine or rain.

Like the other day when I felt too weary to walk (and anyway I’d overslept so needed to get there swiftly, which meant bike).

I breeze into the waiting room with my fluorescent cycling jacket and my paper cup of cappuccino from the machine. There are Mr A, Mr B, and a somewhat elderly Mr C whom I haven’t seen before.

Have I cycled? How splendid. Mr B tried cycling from Roehampton last week. He sailed along, arriving in a state of exultation. How easy it was! Until he tried to get home on that blustery day, and realised why it had been as easy as all that.

“I used to cycle lots,” says Mr C. “I’d like to do it again, but aren’t they saying you shouldn’t be cycling with prostate?” He looks at me for confirmation of this hypothesis.

“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I haven’t got a prostrate. I’ve got a breast.”

We all hoot with laughter.

“Yes, you can definitely cycle with breasts,” agrees Mr C. He worries on, “I’ve even heard that cycling can cause prostate. Is that true?”

Mr A and Mr B look doubtful. Again, for some reason, they all look at me, clearly the bicycle expert with my fluorescent jacket.

“I have never ever heard that before,” I say, doubtfully. “I come from Holland, and if it is true, wouldn’t Holland be riddled with prostate?”

(Note how we don’t even mention the word cancer. No need for the seasoned patients in the radiotherapy waiting room. It's just breasts and prostates all over the place. Oh, and I think I've just spotted a throat.)

We haven’t quite finished laughing when I am called into the zapping room. I haven’t even started on my cappuccino when the three of them go, Hahaha, cheerio, see you tomorrow.