We had a very significant event this year that touched out department. One of our senior people was a well liked professional and friend who had been in the department almost since its birth. He had met his wife here and many of the staff had seen his kids come and grow. He exercised regularly and was in that 'prime' of life that occurs in the mid/late 40s and into the early 50s. By all accounts really enjoying himself.

He swam every morning until one day he was found lying at the bottom of the pool from what was later surmised to be a heart attack. This was shocking for us cancer workers. We are used to seeing the patients come and go and hearing that they have died. 70% of our radiation patients die as a result of the disease we are trying to cure. But that is them, not us! We don't have the problem, so death - while we see it constantly - is after a different group, not us.

I know of two other oncological deaths. As a medical student, I saw an oncologist discuss issues of death with a patient with metastatic prostate cancer. The patient was still running around 8 years later, playing the jazz saxophone and deteriorating slowly. The oncologist however died the next morning in a motor vehicle accident.

The other one was a young woman who was found slumped over her desk by one of my colleagues. She had been regarded as one of the shining lights.

We give our patients "time". I have always found this unhelpful, both for me and for the patient. "The doctor told me that I have 1 year" is the often trumpeted call from patients, and yet it is so wrong. The patient just gets today. And then when they wake up tomorrow, they get "today". And then when they wake up the next day, they get "today". And when they have done that 364 more times, they will be dead - that's what "you have 1 year" is actually like. One day after another!

So 2010 has some special flavours already. The bottom line here is that none of us has an assured survival, so we should start living today. I'd like to end with a quote from Cecelia Ahern:

"At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the fce of the clock the passsing of time is registered. Wew hear it, the hushed tick-tock sound that breaks any silence, and we see it, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life; comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm, when our time is gone, it too leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmmas morning.

Time can't be given. But it can be shared."

Hope 2010 goes well.