To bastardise the title of the Sillitoe classic, loneliness is a long-distance runner.
You may have the largest, most close-knit family in the world, a great support network of friends and colleagues, the best boss in the world - each man's cancer, whilst impacting others in non physical ways, is very much a personal battle of both of the physical and the psychological going on inside the man. To that end, it is a uniquely individual battle where loneliness, at some point, despite the support, is de rigueur for the journey. It can hit at any time, during a sentence uttered by a medical professional in the cream-walled comfort of a consulting room, the door shutting whilst you lay flat on the radiotherapy table or passed through the giant Polo mint hole of the CT scanner. It can be whilst you lay prone on a flat bed bone scanner floating one inch above your body or during a simple blood test.
Loneliness has no boundaries. It can strike just like the cancer, out of the blue - around a dinner table full of friends and family, when doing the dishes, watching Coronation Street, seeing an advert for funeral advice plans or cancer research comes on the telly. Suddenly, the cacophony of background sound fades into kind of white noise as the loneliness hits over you in waves, reinforcing the message you know so well that you have cancer - and that despite the love that surrounds you, you are alone and that this is not happening to anyone else but you.
It can strike during a dog walk in the park, taking idle or happy thoughts from your mind in a thrice; in the supermarket as you pass a woman wearing a bandana, or simply driving along in the car listening to Radio 2 (if that is your predilection). Yes, loneliness is a long-distance runner with the stamina and capacity to inflict its pain at all times, so randomly that in itself, it becomes just as much an enemy as the cancer itself.
So Brian is right, isolation is one of the unique gifts of cancer despite the love that surrounds you. No-one but those in the same position could ever understand it. However, it is the love, the kindness, the support of family, of loved ones and of the dedicated medical professionals which does, in some way, mitigate some of its effects. We know deep down that although we are alone, our cries are heard, our deepest despairs are sympathised with and our pain will be hopefully eased.
Loneliness is a long-distance runner, but in the final analysis, we as the individual men going through this disease, whatever stage we may be at, must make sure we are wearing the best shoes to keep pace with it. Then and only then can we begin to chip away at the psychological demons that domicile our world.
Bazza