People, it is alleged, are greatly fond of talking about their "cancer journey". My own experience has, so far, been more of an enforced "staycation". Problems with transport emerged straight after the diagnosis of a tumour in my left breast. As I set about getting into a cab home from the hospital – after an abortive attempt at walking – a man rushed up, insisting that he had hailed the cab first, yanked on the door, and leaped in. Bizarrely, it was Terry Christian, the superannuated youth-television presenter whom I'd always thought had been criticised surprisingly harshly. Until that moment.

Journeying matters did not improve. I cancelled a week in France in favour of a sentinel node biopsy, a week in Spain to make way for a mastectomy, then a few days in Scotland to have a post-operative seroma drained. Next will come six months of chemotherapy, followed by three months of radiotherapy. So near-future opportunities for travel seem limited also.

I understand that my "journey" is meant to be spiritual, not least because kind people keep calling up and asking: "How are your spirits?" I feel bound to inform them that, as far as I can imagine, my spirits have breast cancer too – but in an up-n-lite way.

It is always emphasised that it is of supreme importance for people with cancer to be "positive". This makes no difference to clinical outcomes at all, as studies have clearly shown. But it does wonders for the supply of relaxed people willing to hang out with you as you skip merrily to the hospital, or pluckily convalesce in a witty nightie.