It's Great, That Google, Eh? by Dugald Macleod

A tumour threatens more than your body; it poisons your mind too. That spring morning in Dumfriesshire I was angry. Why should this have happened to me? Why couldn’t my surgeon have been more careful? Why were people giving me such silly advice? It was all their fault, this destruction of my life. But a few clicks of the computer mouse were to change that attitude, in time.

I was alone in the house, wearing my long john pyjamas and dressing gown. Joyce was at work. Outside, the sun was shining on the south-facing hillside. It was a good year for the daffodils, as they cascaded down the hill.

I needed a job.  A friend had been working as a self-employed accountant in Guernsey, and enjoyed it. I sat down at my computer, opened up Google and typed ‘trust accountant offshore’.

* 

At Christmas, I went to my GP for a check-up. ‘Give me a thorough examination,’ I said.

I got a phone call unexpectedly quickly. Blood had been found where it shouldn’t be found. I was to be examined by a specialist. He diagnosed cancer of the colon. It was in its early stages, seven centimetres above the sphincter, the size of a fifty pence piece.

When you’re told you’ve got cancer, you think the worst. You think about death, about putting your affairs in order. Joyce and I had been married for twenty-six years. I found that I wasn’t scared. I wanted to face up to it. That meant an operation, to get this growing lump out of my body.

I was admitted to the surgical ward of Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary the following week.

The surgeon explained that abdominal surgery is intricate and it would be a long operation. I signed the consent form and fasted the day before.

I woke up in Intensive Care with monitors all over my body, a drip in my arm, a canula up my nose, and a tube down my throat. Computers were making beeping noises behind me. I found I was too weak to move and if I tried to move, my stomach muscles were very painful. Joyce was sitting by my bed. A junior doctor came by and told me that the surgery had lasted six hours and I had lost two thirds of my blood. ‘Still,’ he said cheerily, ‘you’re young enough to recover quickly.’

But… they had succeeded in getting the tumour out, and the cancer had not penetrated the wall of the colon. There was no sign of it in my lymph glands.

Visitors came, friends and family. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk to them or to Joyce or to the nurses. I couldn’t eat the fruit they brought. The quick recovery didn’t happen. The physiotherapist was cajoling me to get up and walk but I couldn’t. I was vomiting regularly, without having eaten anything. I had never felt worse in my life.

The doctor sent me down for an X-ray on Saturday. I was so sore by then that even moving from my bed to the trolley had me grimacing. The surgeon took me into a side room. ‘You’ve got an infection,’ he said. ‘Your wound has gone gangrenous. You need to sign this consent form. It’s a matter of life and death.’ ‘Is he joking?’ I thought. Joyce came in, looking tense. She walked beside the trolley when they wheeled me down to the operating theatre.

This time when I woke up I was calmer. I’d seen the Intensive Care ward before. I wasn’t so worried by the alarms warning the nurses that my body was short of this or that. I was less conscious, maybe hallucinating a bit from morphine. I don’t know how long I was there before they moved me back to the surgical ward. I couldn’t eat anything but dreamed of Coke and Mars bar.

Little by little I got stronger. It was an achievement to walk round the corridor; I’d be exhausted after that. I didn’t want to read or watch television or talk. I was being fed by a tube into my veins.

Finally the day came to go home. I was wheeled me down to the car. Outside the April evening felt cold.

*

It’s a great thing, Google. I typed in ‘trust accountant offshore’. A website in Cayman came up. I sent off my CV.

That same day a reply came. ‘We don’t think you’re suitable for that job,’ it said. ‘But we have another that might be suitable, in our captive insurance department. Might that be of interest?’ Yes, I replied. I didn’t know anything about insurance.

I ended up boarding a plane for George Town, Grand Cayman. I was met by my new boss and his family. He had taken a risk, offering a job to a cancer survivor. I appreciated that.

They took me for dinner al fresco, on Seven Mile Beach. We watched the sun go down over a clear sea, our bare feet on clean sand. I could see a rain shower on the horizon. It reminded me of the Barra of my boyhood.

I settled well into the insurance job. Joyce came out to join me and our children came to visit. I was taking pleasure in life again. I snorkelled for the first time, delighting in the sea life among the coral. When my daughter Alison came to visit, we learned to dive together. After my pipes had lain unplayed in their box for thirty years, I picked them up and started playing again. The tunes of my young days had not lost their attraction.

It’s now been five years since my operations. I’ve been back to the hospital regularly for examinations and so far I’m still clear of cancer. With each year that passes, the incidence of re-occurrence reduces. The anger that I felt in my mind has also reduced. That’s the best thing.

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