In what is loosely termed as a "miracle of modern science" it was whipped out in a jiffy – and quite painlessly – via minimally invasive surgery which left him with a few small holes in his belly rather than a large cut.

I'm absolutely delighted for him that all went OK and he is now champing at the bit to get back to Valley Parade where, strangely, his idea of a good time is watching Bradford City.

But it also left me with a deep feeling of unease about the two-tier diagnostic process which clearly exists in this country and how the speed at which you are diagnosed and treated often has less to do with science and more to do with cold, hard brass.

I am certainly not going to criticise my parents for opting to pay for their private health care – it's absolutely their right to spend their hard earned dosh in whatever way they like and, heaven knows, had I the money I'd probably consider it myself.

But is it right that money can buy you almost instant access to a healthcare system which the majority of us have to wait for?

When I think back to the long and laborious trail that led to my eventual diagnosis, all I can think of is weeks of stress and frustration.

I'm not sure, to be honest, whether I got to see a cancer specialist within the Government's much heralded two-week time frame. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did not.

I do know that I underwent a series of tests which involved cameras going down – and, joy of all joys, up – various parts of my body, as well as an ultrasound scan and, eventually, a CT scan which confirmed everyone's worst fears.

While all this was going on, weeks and months passed. There was, typically, a two to three-week gap between each scan and who knows what dark and menacing advances my cancer made during this prolonged waiting time.

When my dad finally decided to get his stomach problem sorted out his medical insurance meant the whole matter was sorted – from consultation with a top specialist and scans to diagnosis and his operation – within just three weeks. My subsequent bitterness and jealousy – I'll freely admit I was temporarily consumed by these two monsters – almost drove a wedge between us.

I was unfairly hard on him because I felt – no, I knew – his treatment regime had been much different to mine thanks to money.

It wasn't that I resented the fact that he had been quickly and successfully treated – although it may have come across that way to him – it was just that I resented the fact that such speed had never been possible in my case.

And it goes on. As I sit here now, I am waiting for a date for a follow-up CT scan almost two weeks on from when it was requested by the registrar at Jimmy's.

If I dipped into what precious little savings I have, and pulled out a big handful of tenners, I bet a scan appointment time would mysteriously become available in a flash.

It ain't right but it's the world we live in.

The NHS is a great and glorious institution but how much greater and more glorious might it be, how much quicker for all of us might the diagnostic process resolve itself, if there was a genuinely universal treatment regime instead of one often sidetracked, some might say corrupted, by the smell of money?


What a relief...I've got shingles

WHILE we're on the theme of medical matters this week can I bring you the latest update on my own condition?

For a couple of weeks or so I've had an increasingly uncomfortable feeling in my back and shoulder.

The sensation comes and goes but has gradually got worse to the point where in the last few days it has felt at times like someone has shot me in the shoulder and a horse has kicked me in the back.

As is natural with someone who has been through what I have been through – and there are plenty of us out there – I was scared to go to the doctors, fearing the worst possible news.

I almost burst out laughing when the GP diagnosed shingles on Monday.

Not that shingles is a laughing matter – it's bl**dy painful as I have hopefully described – but I had to see the funny side of it.

After getting through all I have got through in recent months – and just started back at work – to be then diagnosed with shingles was surely mother nature's humour of the blackest kind.

This especially uncomfortable resurfacing of the dormant childhood chicken pox virus which resides in most of us is by all accounts a not uncommon affliction for those whose immune systems have been compromised by chemotherapy. I'm on antibiotics now so, hopefully, in a week or so I'll be fully functional again.

There is though one slight coda to this.

At time of writing I am about to nip off to the doctors to have the swine flu jab and, indeed, the standard seasonal flu jab.

Knowing my luck this year, I'll no doubt have some sort of severe reaction and turn into a sneezing pig.



Brilliant Lenny has last laugh

TIME to eat humble pie.

Like many I mocked the announcement that Lenny Henry was to play Othello in the Northern Broadsides production at West Yorkshire Playhouse earlier this year which later transferred to London's West End.

But, as is fitting for a one-time TV comedian, old Lenny has had the last laugh on all of us would-be detractors by scooping a prestigious theatre award for his outstanding performance.

The 51-year-old, who says his previous stage acting experience was limited to a nativity play as a youngster, was this week presented with the Milton Shulman Award for outstanding newcomer at the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

He joked: "I must be the oldest newcomer there has ever been – which means there is hope for Bruce Forsyth's King Lear."
Good on him.

My only regret is that I didn't get to see the performance – although having made a few cheap jibes in his direction in this column I fully accept that I didn't deserve the privilege.