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I've discovered I have something in common with Jeremy Clarkson…
... beyond irascibility, blundering into things I don't really understand and generally screwing-up.
More than our mutual attachment to old Jaguars, we both drink Whispering Angel Rosé, and…
... we both have, or maybe still have, prostate cancer.
If you've ever had a dalliance with your prostate plumbing, make sure you watch the final two episodes of Clarkson's Farm, on Amazon Prime TV.
If you haven’t... watch anyway.
The moment Clarkson tells Kaleb and Charlie he has cancer is one of the most moving pieces of television I've seen in years.
Unscripted, shock, The look on their faces. The silence. One of them reduced to tears, and…
… captures one of the hardest things about cancer. Nobody knows what to say.
Cancer tiptoes, silently into your life. One minute things are moving along normally, the next it’s pushed everything else off the desk, off the agenda. Your diary, your plans, your work and your future are all rearranged around a single word.
Cancer.
Watching Clarkson, I was reminded how easily old blokes can suddenly get mugged by happenstance and plunged into the turmoil of cancer.
One day you're thinking about work, holidays and what needs doing next week. The next you're discussing biopsies, scans and treatment options.
Just like Clarkson, I was left wondering how to manage treatment around all the other things queueing-up in yer life.
The treatment itself is one thing. The consequences can be quite another.
Life, post-catheterisation, is not for the faint-hearted. Fortunately, I didn't have to drive a tractor. Clarkson does. Black humour at it’s best! Compelling belly-laugh, telly.
And then there is Poppy… the first cow born on Diddly Squat, and sent for slaughter after testing positive for bovine TB… that she didn’t have... dodgy test regime.
Clarkson is furious. He rails against a testing system that can have devastating consequences for farmers already battling the weather, rising costs and government policies that often seem designed by people who think food originates on supermarket shelves.
Watching the TB debacle, I found myself thinking about prostate cancer.
Not because the diseases are similar. Because the uncertainty is.
We don't test cows perfectly.
We don't test men perfectly.
Not because nobody cares. Not because nobody has failed to notice. Because biology is messy, science is imperfect and certainty remains stubbornly out of reach.
Farmers live with that uncertainty every day. So do some old geezers.
My cancer was discovered by luck.
There’s no perfect answer to bovine TB. The disease persists in cattle and wildlife. Every solution seems to create a fresh set of problems.
There’s no perfect answer to a national screening programme for prostate cancer. The tests available today create a fresh set of problems.
Screen everyone and some lives may be saved.
Screen everyone and many more men may undergo investigations and treatments they never needed… which you do not want.
Neither answer is satisfactory. Both leave people asking; ‘cows, blokes, surely we can do better? Perhaps we can? Dunno.
Science advances. Veterinary medicine advances. Medicine advances, but…
… for now, uncertainty remains.
That, for me, is the message from Clarkson's Farm.
Not farming. Not tractors. Not planning disputes. Not even cows.
It is about uncertainty.
Farming teaches a hard lesson. You can do everything right and still lose. The weather changes. Disease arrives. Markets collapse. Things beyond your control decide your future.
Cancer teaches the same hard lesson. It arrives silently and without invitation.
It doesn't care who you are, what you've achieved or what was in your diary for next week.
TV star, farmer, chief executive or old bloke with a fondness for Jaguars and Whispering Angel… none of us gets a guarantee.
The countryside looks beautiful on the telly: the birds with their chorus; deer bouncing through the cornfield; the tiny butterfly dancing in the sunshine; lofty, blue skies; and kestrels suspended over the fields.
The clatter of the combine harvester. The blistering sun. The gathering rain clouds. The scurrying field mice. The rush to gather-in the harvest.
Beneath all that beauty and majesty and wonder and endless days working dawn to dusk, lies uncertainty.
TB will strike where it wants and cancer will just, turn up...
... just like life... you can plan. You can prepare. You can do your best. Yet still, events will decide on your path, and fortune your destination.
The trick is making the most of the time between the droughts and the storms.
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