Remember, remember, November 5th. For most of us, this rhyme conjures visions of fireworks, bonfires, and family fun. But it has stuck in my memory for a completely different reason.
It was that day that I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, as I sat in a dark ward at Maidstone Hospital in Kent.
It was a bout of vomiting that came without warning that prompted my trip to the ER, but the signs that something was wrong had been building up over months.
He needed to urinate more and more often, to the point of going to the bathroom twice an hour during the day and three or four times at night.
And I didn’t know it then, but the tumor was also the reason why, even though I was 17, it had stopped growing at least two years earlier. Thin and fawn-like, with strangely long legs and large feet but a completely underdeveloped upper body, he still looked more like a 14-year-old boy.
It was also the reason I had been having what I considered the worst headaches of my life.
Harry Howard recovers at King’s College Hospital in November 2011, shortly after his second brain operation within days.
But while I waited to be seen, lying on several seats in the emergency waiting room with my head resting on my mother’s lap, I had no idea how my life was about to change.
Not only the brain surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy I would endure, but the impact of my cancer and its treatment would last a lifetime.
My treatment saved my life, but its consequences and those of the tumor itself made me change one disease for another, with which I still live, 13 years later.
And cancer causes changes beyond the physical. It is a life-changing trauma and I shared it with my mother.
While he was waiting with me in the ER, he had no idea that he had his own doctor’s appointment booked. A few weeks later, the same day I started chemotherapy, Mom was told she had breast cancer. It was a surprising and cruel coincidence that surprised even the doctors. But it also allowed us to support each other.
Knowing that Mom was also sick helped me put my situation in perspective and control any thoughts of self-pity. My mood could easily have worsened, given that the cancer struck just as my classmates were about to leave school.
Harry’s mother, who at the same time underwent her own treatment for breast cancer. Now she is also cancer free.
It was after starting my final year of A-levels in 2011, that in addition to my urinary symptoms I began to experience increasing fatigue and lethargy.
My schoolwork became ten times more difficult. Seeing friends after school or on weekends became an increasing challenge.
Then came the terrible headaches. I had what is known as pineal germinoma. Throughout my life, a group of germ cells (those that normally become reproductive cells in the testicles) had grown near my pineal gland, which is located in the center of the brain and secretes melatonin, the “sleep hormone.” dream”.
As the tumor grew, it began to impact my pituitary gland (and my development, as the gland produces hormones that control growth), as well as my thyroid and kidney urine production, which explains why he needed to urinate. further.
At first, the GP was surprisingly indifferent. At one point he asked me if I was eating too many bags of chips, because the sodium (or salt) levels in my blood were very high, although this was actually due to severe dehydration caused by all the urination.
Mom and I turned to Google and told her again the name of a condition usually caused by a brain tumor that occurs with constant urination: it’s called diabetes insipidus.
Harry walking on the North Downs in Kent. His cancer treatment left him with a lifelong dependence on medications to keep his body strong and healthy.
He leaned back in his chair and said that in 30 years of practice he had never seen a case.
Finally, about six weeks after my first visit, he referred me to an endocrinologist. But I would find myself in the ER on Bonfire Night before I could make that appointment.
The doctors sent me to have a CT scan and it was this that revealed that I had a brain tumor.
The surprise was the nurse with the box of tissues who followed the doctor to my bed when they came to tell me the news.
Both Mom and I were crying, but I don’t think I could fully absorb the implications of what they were telling me.
They needed to have an MRI to get a clearer picture, so that night I was taken in an ambulance to King’s College Hospital in London. I felt a childlike sense of excitement at the honor of receiving a blue light.
Harry Howard on his 18th birthday with his father John, mother Helen and brother Tom.
At King’s I had two brain operations in a matter of days. One was to relieve the pressure inside my skull caused by the tumor blocking the normal flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). As a result, the fluid had nowhere to go and the resulting pressure, known as hydrocephalus, was what was causing my extreme headaches.
The second procedure was a biopsy: taking a sample of the tumor to determine what type it was.
Fifteen days later I was beginning my treatment at the Royal Marsden in London.
Luckily, it was less than an hour from my home in Kent and where Dad lived (he and my mother had separated when I was very young) in London.
As the countdown to my radiotherapy began, I developed blurred vision as the tumor began to press on my optic nerve, so I needed chemotherapy to reduce it quickly and avoid the risk of permanent vision problems.
The same day I started chemotherapy, Mom was told she had breast cancer.
Harry on the day he graduated from his master’s degree in journalism at the University of Kent
When my shocked father told my brother and me the news a few weeks later, I remember burying my face in my brother’s shoulder and bursting into tears.
My brother, who faced the prospect of losing Mom and me, never complained about how his early 20s (he turned 20 nine days after my diagnosis) were dominated by our illnesses and recovery.
My treatment ended at the end of February 2012 and Mom was declared cancer-free just a few weeks before.
But for both of them it was not like the final curtain: cancer treatment is not like that.
My pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, should have been releasing hormones to boost growth, thyroid function, urine production from my kidneys, and more. But the radiotherapy dealt a fatal blow and so I live with a permanent condition called panhypopituitarism, which means it doesn’t release those hormones, so I have to take several different types of medication each day to replicate its effects.
They include hydrocortisone, which replaces cortisol, our “stress hormone” that plays a role in everything from the sleep-wake cycle and metabolism to blood sugar levels and immune function. Without it, you can’t survive.
I also have to take desmopressin, an antidiuretic medication that prevents me from needing to urinate all the time. It means I have to control the amount of liquid I drink.
So a pint of beer won’t send you rushing to the pub toilet. Quite the opposite: the liquid stays in my system for much longer, so if I drink too much I can end up with dangerously low blood sodium levels (hyponatremia), as the sodium is effectively diluted.
Symptoms include severe headache, nausea, confusion, and in severe cases, seizures and even coma.
There have been other impacts as well.
I used to find it difficult to explain what had happened to my new friends, especially because I felt uncomfortable with how surprised they always were. My cancer also meant that I didn’t start looking like a “real man” until I was in my 20s, after a couple of years of taking growth hormone. So with that came an inevitable delay in my love life, as my self-confidence levels caught up.
Fortunately, my story doesn’t seem to have discouraged my romantic partners, except for one.
A couple of years ago, I agreed to go out to lunch with a girl after we started talking on a dating app. I ended up telling him in passing that I had had cancer when I was a teenager, although it’s not something I would normally reveal so soon.
A few days later she canceled the meal because she was worried that I would come back or that I might pass it on to any children we had. If ever you had to put the cart before the horse, this was it.
I am now a healthy 30-year-old person and have been a journalist at MailOnline for six years. Still, when I have an ailment that doesn’t have an immediately obvious cause, I tend to think: Has the cancer returned? Did my number finally go up?
But although it may seem strange, I would not go back and change what happened, because I feel that the experience has made me a stronger and more mature person.
Although for those who believe that the impact of cancer ends with a clean bill of health, that things simply go back to the way they were, millions of survivors will tell you otherwise.
I am not the person I was 13 years ago. I have gone through something that totally changed my outlook on life, for the better. But there was a price and I will pay it forever.