SOME of the more astute among you may have noticed that this column has been missing for a week or so.

Sadly, I cannot put this down to a jet-setting lifestyle taking me away from all of this – I wish!

The truth is that there is only so much that a rank amateur scribe, such as I, can say that will be of interest to readers every other week.

Also, I have decided to reappraise just how I spend my time, since my wife’s own cancer diagnosis.

It may seem strange to some, but even after being together for almost 40 years there is still so much that we still want to do and see together.

Therefore, we want to make the most of each day when we are not committed to hospital visits, for consultations, scans and clinical procedures.

Such is the nature of living with cancer.

So, the editor has kindly agreed to my request to publish this on a monthly basis from now on.

However, just as we were looking forward to a bit more ‘down time’, I find that I need another operation to remove more new cancer.

As I write, this is scheduled for tomorrow.

By the time you read this, hopefully, I will be recovering at home, once again in the good hands of my wife who has done so much to support me. Long awaited plans for a holiday have yet again been put on the back burner!

We continue to be fully involved with our local support group for kidney cancer patients, Friends of Renal Oncology Group (FROG). Our patient number has now grown to almost 40, and it is considered to be the largest such group in the country and has proved to be of invaluable support to many.

I am also committed to fundraising, when I can, for UCARE, my favourite local cancer charity, and would dearly like to do more for them.

It will come as no surprise that our campaign for access to cancer drugs is perhaps the most pressing priority. We have to carry on with this until we match treatments found in other countries.

Last time I told you about David Cameron’s visit to see us, as our MP, when he announced his intention to set up a Cancer Drug Fund if the Conservatives were to win the General Election.

This was the best news possible and I awaited the election result eagerly. The result did not turn out as many had expected and although he became our new prime minister, we now have a coalition.

We are now concerned that this pre-election promise may be diluted or even abandoned. A recent report from the Rarer Cancers Forum estimates that up to 16,000 patients may die prematurely while waiting for this fund to be introduced next year.

If there is indeed a genuine intention on behalf of the Government to help those of us with rarer cancers, then I would like to think that better use could be made of the massive NHS underspends that have been carried forward for the last four years which now stands at £1.47 billion and still patients are denied effective treatments!