Author and comedian David Downs will be sharing his experience with cancer in this series 'A mild touch of the cancer'.

I'll start in the middle, where the cancer has started, right in the guts. I'm in the waiting period between knowing I probably have cancer, but not knowing much what that means. I've had tests, I'll do more, and then the doctors will be able to tell me what happens next. So given the future is a mystery, let's go back to the past.

For the past month or so I've been feeling a bit under the weather – not sick, as such, just a bit 'bleh'. Tired, little cough, hot and sweaty at night (and not in the right way). A mild flu. Nothing major, certainly not worth troubling the doctor about. It started in early January we went to Fiji for a short holiday (it wasn't the best idea – it rained most days, I got bad sunburn and both my wife and son got sick there. Also the cocktails were overpriced and they now charge for the Bula Bus. Scandalous!)

Supplied When my wife heard about the ultrasound, she thought I might need some fruit of appropriate proportion.

My son did relent and go to a doctor (weak – he clearly hasn't learned that men stubbornly only go to the doctor when something is bleeding or turned black), and they suspected he might have Zika virus. The symptoms sounded very like what I had, so of course, I thought I might also have it. It also sounds quite cool, and exotic, and relatively benign given I already had my kids. Got me come cachet around the office when I casually dropped it into conversation to – but it turned out he didn't have it, and therefore, probably neither did I. His illness cleared up, mine didn't.

So after a month of feeling the same way, and getting slowly worse, I relented and went and saw the GP. GPs have a way of making you feel guilty and sick, all at the same time. Also a little patronised – no, not patronised - indulged. Symptoms emerge while you are talking to doctors – I remembered having cramps in my legs. I remembered being short of breath climbing stairs. She did a few tests and managed to eliminate most of the likely culprits, but there was a reading that indicated my body was fighting something. (Useful reading that one, didn't know they could do it. They could use it to check to see if everybody really was kung-fu fighting, or if some are only pretending. I've always thought that claim was a bit suspect.)

* READ MORE: A mild touch of the cancer - all columns

Supplied Wow – maybe hospital food not so bad after all?

More tests – another hypothesis. Maybe I have a DVT, a blood clot? Well yes, I do travel a lot on planes, but not long haul that often. Still, all the same, might be a good idea to get you scanned. Given it was a Friday, they suggested I get it done in the hospital rather than in a clinic as I'd get more attention over the weekend.

Another day, another medical professional. Honestly (at only three) I've now seen more doctors in a week than I have in five years – I don't habitually go to the doctor. Doctors are for other people. Sick people. People who want to be indulged. But here I was, in a hospital none-the-less and with doctors coming to talk to me. They wanted me to start at the beginning, describe the symptoms. More blood tests. They didn't want to do the leg scan the GP thought they would, they wanted to scan my chest, conjecturing I might have had a heart attack. (Heart attack? An out of breath nearly 50-year old male with a bit of a belly? What made them think that?)

CT scan done, and then waiting. Not something I am good at, particularly in a hospital bed, with other people around me who clearly are proper sick. They really need help, I feel like a bit of a pretender, lying in the bed, taping away on my laptop (work email). After hours and hours, I decide to check myself and go home – surely, they haven't found anything or they'd have told me by now. But the lovely nurse and my lovely wife convince me to wait for the test. It comes, around 9pm, and the good news is I haven't had a heart attack, nor do I have a blood clot in my lungs. They have, however, caught something they want to take another look at further down, in my abdomen.

Supplied Ah no – the lamingtons were a gift from another patient. This is the hospital meal. Boiled Fish. It’s like we are still in the 1970s.

So they suggested I stay in overnight and get it done – which, partly to experience what it's like to stay in hospital if I'm honest, I agreed to. They woke me at 3am and took me to the CT room again, did another scan and sent me back to bed. Despite all that, I slept fairly well, even with all the beeping and pinging of all the machines for the other patients (see – proper sick folk). Next morning, the doctors came and did their rounds and the nice tall Dutch chap with his team of two others came for a chat. Yes, they'd found something, and they wanted more tests. And can he have a feel of my nuts please. Bit forward, I thought, but that's the Dutch for you. Whip down the shorts, try my hardest not to meet the eye of the rather beautiful female doctor who must be in her late 20s and let him go for it. "We'll need to check those more" is the prognosis, and my cornies arrive for breakfast. Oh joy. I love cornies.

The only times I've seen ultrasound before is with my pregnant wife, as we strained our eyes trying to interpret the grainy images in front of us as parts of one of our kids. "Look, there is the spine, there's the heart beating, and there's the… wait, did you want to find out what sex it is?" Too late, it was the only bit on the ultrasound that was clearly visible. There was no mistaking it was a boy - it was like a tiny porn show. Ironic then to find out they can use those scanners also to scan testicles in their full adult glory. Warm gel applied liberally, and a makeshift tent erected ('scuse the pun) to 'preserve my dignity'. Yeah right. My dignity is about as well preserved as 100 year-old peaches in a rusty agee jar. Still, the scan shows me two things – 1, nothing wrong with my fellas, and 2, blokes are lucky we don't have other people fiddling with our bits as often as women do. It amuses my wife no end that I am mildly upset about the experience ("Try having them compressed in a vice, or getting a probe shoved up there – then you'll know what we put up with". Ah, no thanks).

So, after a couple of days of tests, there is a clue, but nothing conclusive. They really want me to have another test and start using a word I am vaguely familiar with and associate with bad things. A Biopsy. That was the first clue (for me anyway, I'm slow) that this might be a bit more serious than man-flu. The issue is that in the public system it might take a while to get me into the queue for the biopsy, so how did I feel about staying the week, to ensure I stayed in the front of the queue? Not great, thanks anyway, I have to get home and get the gel off my nether regions. Then the doctor came up with another solution – what if I went home each day, but came back at night and stayed over, then I'd still be an in-patient. Better, but not ideal. Trust the nurses to come up with a more pragmatic solution – in what I think might be a recurring theme in these columnss, nurses seem very switched on and 'street smart' about such things. 'How about you just go home Mr Downs. Be back by 7am Monday and no-one will ever know whether you were here overnight or not'. Done.

Supplied My wife has banned me from taking photos that look like this, although I think its quite cool. Nothing metaphorical at all.

7am Monday I'm back in the waiting area, not having had breakfast (as instructed), and keen to get this thing over with. But there is a reason they call them 'waiting' rooms, and not 'we'll be right with you' rooms. It's not until 1pm I am brought in for my procedure, which is almost anticlimactic in its lack of pain and drama. Nice doctor, great nurses, stick a needle through my back and grab some 'matter' from the growth they have found for further analysis. Done in 20 mins, but I need to wait around for 4 hours to make sure I don't develop complications. Not sure what complications they'd be, falling in love with one of the doctors? That would be complicated alright, but I think we could deal with it. We could agree to keep things purely professional and just see each other on weekends.

I'm fairly sure the reason they wanted me to stay around is so that a doctor from the haematology unit could 'casually' come by and sort of break it to me softly that it's probably cancer. "We think Lymphoma, but the tests we are doing will tell us more". It was softening me up for the confirmation, likely to come next week. Brilliant technique actually - while there remains an element of plausible deniability, the human mind doesn't adopt the hypothesis as the only conclusion. It allows for the news to slowly sink in, rather than be a big, conclusive, undeniable, surprise. I'm going to use the same technique on the kids when I need something "Look, I can't say for sure yet, but that pile over there looks like dirty dishes, and if it is, I might need you to wash them. Don't do anything yet though, until the tests come back."

I took the week off work. First time ever I've taken so much sick leave. Clearly spooked my lovely workmates who've been sending me messages, txts, even a card. I've had plenty to occupy me, I'm writing a book at the moment and with an impending deadline the extra time is appreciated. I have a lunch date with my wife. We contemplate going to the movies in the daytime until I decided that was really giving up on myself. I'm not at the 'movies in the daytime' phase yet, nor the 'pyjamas on the couch watching soap operas'. Shoot me if I start recording Emmerdale.

On Friday I got the call that I need to go back on Monday for a meeting with the haematologist and another test with slightly sinister overtones, 'a bone marrow biopsy'. Unfair. That's taking two not nice terms and adding them together to make a very not nice one. Like 'Trump', and 'Immigration plan'.

Over the past day or two, and coming up over the weekend, I'm telling close friends and family. It's hard to keep a lid on this anyway, and they are noticing things ('you've lost heaps of weight!' on friend told me. Yep, 9 kilos in 5 weeks…). But for now, I've decided that I'll keep positive for a long as I can, and write about my experiences. It's a way of keeping friends up to date.

I've also been reading and watching videos about cancer, and I've found them useful, but nothing in 'real time', so that's my aim with this column. It will be real time, honest and open. It's not in my nature to be too solemn, but I am worried about coming across as flippant – not for me, but for others who suffer.

I'm not trivialising, I'm giving a personal account. Feel free to follow along until we all get out of this. It's likely to be graphic, a bit emotionally raw, and probably boring in parts. If the column stops abruptly, don't assume the worst, it's probably just I haven't had a chance to get to a keyboard in a while. No flowers by request.

For now though, at least until it's confirmed in a few days and a treatment plan established, I'm thinking of it as a mild touch of the cancer.

﻿David Downs has been, at various times, an author, radio and TV actor, comedian and public speaker. With careers in TV, IT and now the public sector, where he helps New Zealand companies grow internationally, David lives in Auckland with his wife and three teenage boys.