Captitano Chemo

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, the one and only (Cue drum roll) Capitano Chemo!

It feels quite fitting that my marathon blog evolves into my cancer journey blog. The similarities are numerous. For last year's (2022) Brighton marathon I trained for six months, which is the proposed length of my chemotherapy. I’d actually prepared for the 2020 Brighton marathon which was postponed due to lockdown and it was 2019 that I received my first diagnosis of lymphoma (See earlier post for more details).
Both are uncomfortable at times and there's always the possibility that you wont make it to the finish line!

So what’s Capitano Chemo all about? Truth is I’m not quite sure but I’m hoping he’ll reflect many aspects of my life so far: comedy, counselling, running and something I do extremely well i.e. sitting on a sofa doing sod all!

Let’s start with comedy. Captain Chemo has two main super powers: The aforementioned doing sod all and projectile vomiting hence his trusty bucket!

When you think about it, doing sod all a.k.a. mindful inaction, is an extremely useful tool. Take the water companies (please), they’ve done sod all apart from paying themselves massive bonuses for decades. Now they want heaps of public cash to clear up their polution, presumably so they can take the credit and pay themselves even more bonuses! See how doing sod all works every time.

I did my last stand up gig last week and won’t be doing any more until for six months due to my immune system being effectively wiped out by Chemo for weeks on end. Comedy gigs are full of social people hurling bugs at the stage as they laugh. People who’ve seen my comedy know this is seldom an issue for me while I’m on stage, but gigs are crowded and poorly ventilated. This also wipes out theatre or cinema. I need to contain my comedy to writing and possibly some video clips if the mood takes me.

Here’s a dark little joke for you: Lymphoma is like an incurable romantic, but without the romance! Too dark?

Sigmund Freud wrote a paper on comedy. Not many laughs in it, I blame his mother! He actually did, and one of the ideas was his concept of 'sublimation by humour'. This is a way that difficult topics may be expressed by wrapping them within humour. It's very different from making fun of the topics or those affected. I say that as they'll always be a few wagging fingers who feel they are the abeiters of what's appopriate and what's not. 

That was a slick segway to psychotherapy.

I've had a lot of therapy training and experience, so it's about time I walked the walk as opposed to talking the talk, or listening the listen? This is a chance to put my learning and my experience, especially my counselling experience at the Nightingale Cancer Support Centre, to good use i.e on me.

By the way, in therapy we practise 'active listening', which is like normal listening, but we get paid for it!  (That's one for the therapists)

A joke by the famous writer Anon: A man walks past a big cactus in the US and notices a man, stark naked, clinging to it. 'Why are you doing that? he asks and the man replies ...'It's nice when I get off!'

I’m looking forward to finishing my chemo, hopefully by Christmas, which means I can embrace the next five years fully until the next round. There is hope and challenge and although I didn't sign up for it, a massive opportunity to gain awareness from this experience. There is also fear and negativity. Pumping myself full of poison to hopefully acheive a desired effect is tough, but I manage to do it most nights with red wine! There's also loss, I'm giving up red wine! red meat! and father Christmas! well he's always dressed in red. And like they used to say in the First World War, 'it'll all be over by Christmas!'