Magic Potions

Magic plays a big role in the Odyssey, for good and for ill - mostly for ill. The witch Circe comes to mind, the one who turned Odysseus' men into pigs. Odysseus was not a magician, but he escaped their fate, thanks to one of the Gods, not Athena for a change, but Hermes. He offered Odysseus something called 'moly' - which might be derived from the root of the snowdrop, or it might be something entirely made up - and tells him to chew on it. It neutralised Circe's potions and allowed him to remain human. Here is Hermes, wearing his trade-mark winged hat, passing on his magic herb.

My prescribed immunotherapy treatment does not address my long-standing hacking cough, and the oncologists don't seem to know what to do about it, so I decided to seek advice privately. I have found a respiratory specialist at the Brompton, who has given me some modern magic powder, called colomycin. I have to mix it with some sodium chloride and beathe it in through a nebuliser, which pumps the liquid out as a gas directly into my lungs and attacks the pseudonomas infection where it sits.

The initial effects have been remarkable. It has turned me from something that sounds like a constantly barking dog into something more human. The cough hasn't gone away entirely, but it is early days. The Brompton is a few steps away from the Marsden, but I had to find this chap for myself. The two hospitals belong to different trusts and therefore have dfferent systems. Picking up a telephone does not seem to have occurred to anyone.

The PET scan done a few weeks ago turned out to be highly ambiguous. Some things seemed to have improved, but new areas were lighting up. They couldn't tell if they were lymphoma or infection. So there was a pause to enable the white coats to confer. They have decided to go ahead with the immunotherapy and the next round is imminent. If the colomycin continues to work, it might reveal whether the suspicious areas are infection or lymphoma.

However, even magic does not run smoothly. The cough has come back, though it is less severe, so I consulted the magician himself. He told me that colomycin can constrict airways, which would lead to a dry cough, so he has given me another potion to relax them. I will see how it works. Always good to have a friendly magician on the end of a phone.

So I am continuing with a mixture of perseverence and magic. I confess that after nearly two years I am finding the process increasingly wearisome, so perseverance is coming under strain and a bit of magic is very welcome. I have an agenda beyond the lymphoma: I want to get the atrial fibrillation sorted out because it contributes to low blood pressure and low energy. I want to get my tooth filled before the decay worsens. I want to make sure the psoriasis does not come back. But the oncology team don't want me to undergo any other treatment while theirs is going on. That looks like taking another six months.

Throughout all his trials, Odysseus kept going, and so he is in some ways a source of inspiration. His watchword, like mine, is Churchill's celebrated edict 'KBO' - 'Keep Buggering On'.