Cycle Therapy

It had been twenty years since I last went on a cycle tour, youth hostelling from St Malo with my then young son. The reason for this trip had began six months earlier on Christmas Eve with a visit to our health centre. A friend's wife had been successfully treated for breast cancer. Her husband had gone to his doctor and requested a prostate test, as anyone now can. His was OK. Now he was urging his friends to do the same. "Just a small prick and its over", he said. During our idle week between Christmas and New Year, I had a call from the centre. My result was "highly elevated". My local doctor was marvellous. I was with him the next day on New Year's Eve. He confirmed the bad news with his gentle finger. Next he was on the phone to the hospital fixing up an appointment in two weeks time. It could have been earlier but we were booked to go to France the next day on New Year's Day. We had bought a little house in a Normandy village just 8 months before. The doctor said go and enjoy the holiday and we did.

The consultant at the hospital was very frank. My test result was so high that it was likely that the cancer had spread outside the prostate. Surgery and radiation could only tackle the prostate area and so were unlikely to be successful. Hormones were the only option. I wondered down the hospital corridors in shock. I wanted to know more and found the hospital cancer library. It was called the "Maggie Centre" and staffed by the kindest lady. She gave me tea and comfort and directed me to all the books that might help. Worse was to come. My biopsy found moderately aggressive cancer in all 8 needles. The dear old National Health Service swung into action. They put me on the hormones and arranged magnetic resonance image and bone scans and fixed up an appointment with the consultant two months later on June 15th when all the results would be in.

When you fall in love your waking mind circles continuously around your beloved, and so it was with my new reality. Hormones gave no cure. After a year or so hormone resistant cancers could develop. Cycling to work, I planned my therapy. I was ready for the worst and wanted time by myself to come to terms with my situation. My therapy during January had been long lone walks in the countryside. On one such walk, I had seen discarded in a skip an old 1930's Rayeigh bike with rod brakes and a hub dynamo. It was soon done up with new tyres and a coat of paint. My therapy this time would be to ride it alone the 100 miles to our house in France.

June 15th came and my dreams unfolded according to plan. We saw the consultant at 9.00am. The news was not bad. My cancer had responded well to the hormones, and had not measurably spread. He talked of possible radiotherapy treatment. We walked out of the hospital and took off! By taking off the front wheel, my bike would fit in our Ford Ka, and my dear partner took me down to Portsmouth. I wanted a happy day for us both to remember before we said goodbye. We went around Nelson's "Victory" in Portsmouth harbour. It turned warm and we lay in the sun on Southsea beach. I swam in the rather chilly sea. We had a romantic evening meal together in a Thai restaurant. Then at 9.45pm she left me at the terminal.

On the ferry I slept well under blankets on the lounge floor. At 7.30am, I was almost the first off the boat at Ouistraham. My ride began along the towpath of the wide canal between there and Caen. The old bike behaved perfectly, but the new tyres let me down. I extracted my little bag of essential tools and upturned the bike by the road. The cows nearby had never seen anything like it and came over to watch. But it was a tear along the seam and my repair was not effective. Every few miles or so I had to stop and give it a quick pump. The interval between pumps decreased and I upturned it again, getting out a larger patch for my inner tube. Then the good Samaritan arrived! A young Frenchman came up on his motor scooter and produced an enormous bag of tools. It included one of those sprays that inject a sealant into the inner tube. We chatted continuously. He seemed incredulous that I had cycled all the way from Ouistraham on such a bike! "Where was I going?", "Where would I stay?" The 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings had been a couple of weeks before and he was full of friendship. Soon he was pumping up my tyre with his big pump, and with a wave he was off. I cycled on in good heart, but I fear that he had pumped up my tyre just a little too hard. In half a mile it was down again and impossible to pump up! Fortunately I was not far from Falaise, a big town. I pushed my bike down one hill, and up another into the town. More kind people there told me the location of a cycle shop and a new inner tube was soon bought and fitted. All was well again!

I was to spend the night with an old friend of 20 years ago, who had sold her house in England early in the year and bought one in rural France. My partner had actually suggested the visit. The hormones take away your libido so she felt quite safe. But there must have been a bit left, for there was a spring in my tired legs as I cycled up the enormous long hill up to her village. With the now hot day, the long hill and my tendency to hot flushes, (its the hormones you know), I steamed up to her house. Straightaway she sent me into the shower and put my clothes into her washing machine. I emerged in my spare clothes so happily. I had managed the first day, and here I was in her lovely garden drinking tea and sharing a French pastry.

I cycled off the next day with a good French breakfast in my tummy and a packed lunch of baguette, egg, an apple and yoghurt in my pannier. Touchingly she got out her bike and cycled with me for the first mile. The forecast had been for wind and rain, and it did try. But miraculously the wind was almost behind me and the rain was half-hearted. I bowled along at relatively high speed in my normally underused third gear. That afternoon I did get a bit tired. The nice wind had dropped. The sun was bright overhead - it was nearly mid-summer day. Roads that had seemed more or less flat in the car were mysteriously transformed into tiresome hills! But at the top of one extra long hill I saw to my delight in the distance a familiar long blue-green shadow. This was the hill-top mediaeval forest of Belleme and our house was just at its edge on the other side. My legs had new life and soon I was in the cool confines of the old trees. Then down the hill at a dangerously high speed and there was our house. The first thing I needed was a long drink. In the centre of the green in front of the house is a spring-fed fountain with its everlasting supply of refreshing cool water. Our neighbours saw me there and came out to greet me. I think they thought me a typical mad Englishman even to contemplate such a journey. "Did I need to be taken by car (the mile) to the local supermarket?"

That evening sitting in the garden after supper I suddenly realised that I had hardly thought of my cancer or the impending treatment. My therapy had worked!