23rd March 2020, Prof Watkin gets on the phone.

Bad news. Or maybe it isn’t

“Hello Mr Little, unfortunately we’re going to have to cancel your op this Wednesday. Our robotic surgeon, and two of my senior team are sick. All non emergency ops will be cancelled in a couple of weeks. We can’t offer you a new date so we’ll move to plan C.

You’re a large powerful man, with very large muscles so it’s counter productive to use traditional surgical techniques. You would be out of action for months recovering.

I’ll confirm with the Royal Marsden tomorrow but we’re going to move you straight to radiotherapy as soon as possible”

“That’s fabulous news! You had me at cancelled. You didn’t have to say all those nice things about how magnificent I am and buy me dinner”

What’s next?

As far as anyone can tell, there’s no new disease, and it’s just a bit of radiotherapy to tidy everything up. (FOR 6 WEEKS, 5 DAYS A WEEK!) That’s what I heard anyway…

It’s probably the right answer though. I’ll now have radiotherapy both sides of my groin, and to my pelvic nodes. That will happen whether there’s any microscopic disease there or not.

I have a few weeks left on the antibiotics, so the sepsis doesn’t reoccur. My big surgical scars are really well healed and I’m able to work on my fitness again.

I actually managed most of the Joe Wickes PE session this morning, and I’ve been chasing Sam round the garden too. As far as I’m concerned, everything is moving in the right direction! I’ll be back on the road, running in no time.

Hopefully, I’ll be posting a pic of the mighty Cyberknife when I get to the marsden next week!