At 48 years old, features editor George Frew has been told he might not make 49.
Eight months on from a diagnosis of incurable lung cancer, George, of the Western Daily Press and formerly the Oxford Mail, is peering out at what lies ahead, in what he's labelling his "final words" on the subject.

Until last summer, I had the same sort of relationship with hospitals as Jewish caterers have with pork pies.

Since August, I have often thought I should have been issued with a season ticket to Bristol Royal Infirmary.

After I was diagnosed with terminal small cell lung cancer on a bright afternoon last year, the doctors arranged a six-month course of chemotherapy, which was carried out at the oncology unit - a place as hard to find as the cancer statistics would lead you to believe the illness is difficult to avoid.

One in three of us will end up in an oncology unit somewhere. Naturally, I hope that you will be one of the two who don't but, if fate decides otherwise, you could do a lot worse than be treated at the BRI by Sister Rachel Herrington and her colleagues.

These days, chemotherapy is designer treatment, in as much as each dose is tailored to the individual. So I would sit on one of the high-back armchairs in the cosy unit and Sister Rachel would slip the tiny needle into a vein in my hand.

Coming in off the winter streets, some patients needed a bowl of hot water to immerse their cold hands in and, therefore, tease the veins up. Coward that I am, I learned straight-off to look away and chatter like a chimp while Rachel 'needled' me.

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