“In June 2021 my cancer decided it was fed up with waiting.
I’d been living with a diagnosis of an incurable Lymphoma since 2015, and it abruptly jumped to stage 4. I was due to start Chemotherapy on the 30th June, where I was to have a PET-CT scan in the morning and begin Chemo in the afternoon.
Whilst waiting for the injection of tracer chemicals to whizz around my body prior to the scan, I received a loud knocking on the door from a nurse, who waved to me to come to the door.
This was in a mobile scanner in the car park of the hospital – stylish! – but the real problem was that the tracer fluid has a half life of 60 minutes. During that time you have to sit completely still: no phone scrolling, no talking and definitely no moving. I could only sit there like a mannequin. I certainly couldn’t go to the door.
Eventually one of the scanner technicians came into the waiting area and passed me a note, which simply said “Dear Mr Page, the director of the Montefiore Hospital (Hove) has banned you from re-entering the hospital due to the fact that you will be radioactive for 6 hours, therefore your treatment has been cancelled, kind regards The Chemo Ward Team”.
After the scan was completed, I was effectively booted out onto the street. I rang my Oncologist to enquire “what the hell is going on?”
It was 12pm. My partner wasn’t due to pick me up til 5.15pm. I had no coat – why would I need one? I thought I was going to be in a hospital all day.
I sat in the local park across from the hospital, thinking my life surely couldn’t get any worse. The phone rang. My Oncologist confirmed I had been banned from the hospital and my treatment was rearranged for the next day.
It started raining. I couldn’t enter the hospital to seek shelter, so I clung to a big tree with a dense enough canopy to keep me semi-dry. I prayed that there wouldn’t be any lightning!
I opened Spotify on my phone and clicked on my curated “Pandora’s Box” playlist. I heard the words “Hello Darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again”. I thought to myself “Well, the Devil obviously doesn’t have anything else to do today other than f**k me off!”.
D:REAM once sang about how “Things Can Only Get Better”. Yeah right – dream on! That night around 9pm, while I was getting my stuff ready for the next day’s treatment, my phone pinged with a sound I’d never heard before. It was a message from the NHS Track and Trace app, notifying me that I’d been in contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid, and that I was instructed to isolate for nine days.
“How did the Devil have my number?” I wondered. Then, “Why, when I was having my bloods taken, did the receptionist suddenly get up and walk out of the hospital without saying a word?”. Then, “What the hell does isolate mean, and will it affect my treatment tomorrow?!”.
I rang my Oncologist again. He confirmed I would be on the hospital’s banned list and wouldn’t be allowed to enter.
I could hear Simon & Garfunkel tuning up.
The next morning, my Oncologist escalated my case to the medical board. They reviewed my blood results and PET-CT scan, and told the hospital that I would not survive another nine days. They said Chemotherapy treatment MUST and WILL start today. The hospital was instructed to make a RED ROUTE available upon my arrival: a route through the hospital where I wouldn’t come into contact with anyone in case I had Covid.
I was told to meet someone at the rear entrance door of the hospital. I wondered how I would know who it was when I got there, but when I arrived a young girl from
the Pharmacy dept was waiting by the back door in a bright yellow Hazmat suit. I walked and she awkwardly waddled through tiny corridors and small rooms
until we got to the ward, which was located in the basement of the hospital – probably closer to the mortuary! After completing my Covid test (which was negative) I was finally assigned to my cubicle.
Now to the relevance of how Penfriend entered my life.
Being located in the basement, the Oncology ward is unable to get a mobile phone signal, but they did have a guest wifi system I could join. I was told it was a bit hit and miss as to whether it worked or not.
It was July 2021, and Covid was still very problematic, so the hospital had a strict policy that you weren’t allowed any friends or family to sit with you during the treatment. I had to go through the entire process on my own. To be frank, I was bricking it, and you couldn’t even get a reassuring smile from a nurse because they were all wearing masks.
I had my pre-meds and then was fitted with a cannula in my arm, so that the Chemotherapy Infusion Pump machine could be connected. It’s at times like that the concept of mortality really sinks in.
“Try and relax”, they said, so I thought I’d try and connect to the wifi. Obviously the Devil was on his tea break, as I managed to connect. I thought I’d listen to some music on Spotify, so I clicked on my “Pandora’s Box” playlist and prayed that Simon & Garfunkel were on tour in someone else’s nightmare. Thankfully they were.
The music started. The first random song to play was Morrissey’s “First of the Gang to Die”. A bit menacing, but nevertheless a good tune. That was followed by AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. At this point, I was convinced I was starring in the next Final Destination movie. Music wasn’t having the calming influence I’d hoped for.
I turned it off and opened the Facebook app. Scrolling mindlessly (as you do), I saw an advert for something called “Exotic Monsters” which, if I remember correctly, had a beady monster eye looking out from below some guitar strings. It was by an artist called Penfriend.
“Who? Never heard of them.” BUT I was intrigued. Was it on Spotify? I did a search – there it was. When I come across an unknown album I normally pick a song at random to see if it resonates with me, and then either move on or
jump down the rabbit hole.
The song I picked – completely randomly – was “Black Car”.
“Remember the summer when everyone stayed at home” … WTF? Yes I do remember, being in the “Extremely Critically Vulnerable Persons” group, not only did I have to stay at home but I was told by the Government that I wasn’t allowed to leave my flat, not even for exercise.
As the song played out, I got to the verse regarding “the worst of days” and “machines taking over our minds”. WOW !!! The worst of Days [tick] Being connected to a machine [tick].
Literally, as the song ended the nurse walked in with the first of the Chemo drugs. Now I’m not into astrology, but was it fate or coincidence that led me to that song, on that album, at that exact point in time in the universe? Who knows, but one thing I do know is that my life has been enriched by it.
There was only one thing to do, and that was to jump into the rabbit hole. “Exotic Monsters” and several of the She Makes War albums got me through Chemotherapy that day – a debt that I cannot repay.
Keep your loved ones close xx”
Dean Page
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