So that was that, right? You’ve signed off, Attila. What’s all this about? I had indeed signed off. The final pre-production checks were just about to get underway. But in a truly poetic coincidence, almost the very day I finished this book I came face to face with the fundamentals of life, and given that this is my autobiography I very much wanted to include that experience here, along with a rather silly poem and a very serious message.

I’ve always been blessed with pretty good health. Loads of cycling keeps me fit, I don’t smoke and apart from a bit of high blood pressure, a cycle-related broken leg and a football-related torn hamstring I’ve been pretty fortunate through the years. But in the early months of 2015 I’d been having some pains and weird feelings down below, and at my second visit to the doctor blood was detected in my urine and I was sent off for tests. Kidneys, fine: huge sigh of relief. Prostate fine too: another one. Then I was told I needed to have a flexible cystoscopy. Do you know what a flexible cystoscopy is? I certainly didn’t. But I soon found out. A camera was going to be sent up my knob to have a look at my bladder. I’d be able to see it on a big screen in front of me, if I wanted to. (If I wanted to? I’d never missed seeing one of my TV appearances, and wasn’t going to start now.)

I’m used to people taking pictures of me, but it has always tended to be an essentially external experience. Given the very small space the camera was going to have to go through, I did hope they weren’t intending to send an entire outside broadcast unit up there, complete with sound crew and the ubiquitous fluffy mic. Dr Bong answered my questions calmly and reassuringly, some anaesthetic was shoved up my helmet, a wire was inserted into the very heart of my being and, amidst considerable discomfort, the show began on the big screen.

First a voyage up a little tunnel. ‘That’s your urethra.’ (With deference to Kraftwerk, I nicknamed the camera the Trans Urethra Express.) And then into a wide, cavernous space, pinkish in colour. ‘Here’s your bladder. Those holes lead to your kidneys.’

Pink expanses. So that’s what my bladder looks like. Hang on a minute, what’s that? A horrid-looking, dark, veiny eruption. Then another. And another, and another. They aren’t supposed to be there. I know that. Bloody hell…

‘We’d better get some pictures of those’ said Dr. Bong.

I went into that clinic for reassurance, and came out with an extremely sore willy and the news that I may well have bladder cancer. I needed an operation: the Trans Urethra Express had to return as soon as possible, equipped with a ray gun to zap the tumours and a bucket to bring some samples out for biopsy – and I was booked in for an abdominal CT scan to find out if the nasties in my bladder had spread anywhere else. My whole world turned upside down, and it was only by sheer effort of will and with Robina’s fantastic support that I managed to turn it the right way up again.

I’m 57, I thought. I’m not 20 any more. I’ve travelled all over the world, done nearly everything I have ever wanted to do and just finished my autobiography. And whatever happens, whatever I am told, I am a strong, confident person and will fight this to the bitter end. I want to live…!

I pissed razor blades for a few days. I had the abdominal scan the day after the f***ing Tories had ‘won’ the election with their 38%: the wonderful care I was receiving made me even more passionate about the NHS and angry at the bastards cutting its funding in order to fund weapons of mass destruction. I then had to wait for the results: everyone says the waiting is the worst part, and everyone is right. But at the very least I knew that I had gone to the doctor as soon as I felt something was wrong: fear of waiting for the news is one of the main reasons why people leave seeking a diagnosis until it’s too late. I was booked in for my operation on May 11th, 2015, and it was while waiting in pre-surgical reception that day that I received the news that my CT scans were normal.

‘At least one bit of you is!’ said Robina with a huge sigh of relief.

The operation, called a TURBT (transurethral resection of a bladder tumour) went well, and I was discharged that evening, sore but in good spirits. Then another awful wait, pissing not just razor blades but sulphuric acid as well, followed by the biopsy results. Superficial, low grade skin cancer in my bladder, thoroughly zapped. Another Trans Urethra Express in four months’ time, just to check all is well, and as long as it is, once a year from then on. Caught early – hopefully, the end of the matter, though of course one can never be sure. But I sure hope so.

I have one message for you all, especially for blokes of a certain age who tend to get embarrassed about such things. If you’re feeling strange around there, don’t put it off – get your knob out for the doc. In general, if you’re worried about your health, get yourself looked at. You owe it to yourselves, and to our wonderful and under-resourced NHS.

And, of course, I’ve written a poem. I hope that it quite literally saves lives: the first knob poem to do so.

Now I really am checking out. Take care, and hope to see you at a gig somewhere.

CANDID CAMERA

(An Ode to Flexible Cystoscopy)

 

I know I sometimes can be

A loud-mouthed, stroppy prat

I know I’m a control freak

(And a bossy one at that)

My wife says when I’m eating

I am a total slob -

I’m still not sure that I deserved

A camera up my knob.

 

The poor thing shrivelled up in fear

Till it was hardly there

A tiny little pimple

In a nest of pubic hair

The camera made its entrance

The pain cut like a knife

And then I saw my bladder

For the first time in my life.

 

I’m glad that it went up there

Though sad at what it found

And it can come back anytime

To help me stay around

So three cheers for the NHS

And to that camera crew -

And if you’re feeling odd down there

You get it checked out too.