Famous last words: Letters from Miles Kington

Dear Gill,

When you've got cancer, and you feel it entitles you to start sentences with the rather flashy words, "When you've got cancer", it must be extremely irritating for all those other people who have not got cancer to hear us say, "When you have got cancer", as if it automatically makes us wiser or morally superior or more experienced in life or more dignified, whereas we are nothing of the sort. Just a bit more ill...

Love, Miles

Dear Gill,

I have noticed that when people get any kind of illness these days, they go on to the internet to research it, or they go out and buy a book about it, or, judging from my Amazon-fixated friends, they combine the two by going on the internet to buy a book about it. I am much more in favour of them buying a book, as I have no idea how to make money out of the internet, but I can't see me writing an introductory book to the basic facts about cancer. Can you imagine it? The Do's and Don'ts of Cancer, or An Introduction to Cancer, or, as they would say these days, Cancer – the FAQs by Dr Miles Kington. I don't see it. It's not my bag.

But I do see an area which I could explore, and which I suspect has not been opened up yet, and that is the odd hinterland of cancer which has been totally ignored in the rush to make things scientific and simple and unscary.

Cancer – the infrequently asked questions. The things about cancer that nobody tells you, because you've never asked and they wouldn't know the answer anyway.

Questions like these:

1. Who is the patron saint of cancer?

2. Can the experience of dying of cancer be offered as part of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme?

3. Who was the first person to dare to use the word "cancer" on radio or TV? (Kenneth Tynan? Johnny Rotten? Dr Anthony Clare?)

4. If your spouse dies of cancer, can you offload the penalty points from your driving licence on to his or her unexpired driving licence, and then start again with a clean sheet?

5. It is well known that George VI died of cancer, but was there any link between that and his lifelong hobby of philately?

6. That is, is there any connection between the licking of stamps and stamp hinges, and the contraction of cancer?

7. Has any research been done into this?

8. Why not?

9. Did the king actually lick his own stamp hinges, or was there a Philatelist Royal who did it for him?

10. If so, is there any record of whether the man who licked the stamp hinges for George got cancer or not?

11. Why not?

You see what I am driving at, Gill. The lateral approach to cancer. They may not be questions which everyone with cancer wants to ask, but you cannot deny that you wanted to know the answers, can you? Here are some more questions about cancer:

12. What does it mean to be in denial about cancer?

13. We all think we know what it means to be in denial, that is, to flagrantly ignore the cold facts, but how can you be in denial over cancer?

14. If you're told you've got cancer, how can you deny it, apart from demanding a second opinion?

15. If the second opinion says you've got cancer, how long do you go on disbelieving all the tests and experts?

16. Or does it mean that although deep down you know you've got cancer, you would rather not think about it?

17. Which, actually, is not so much denial, is it, as just cold-shouldering?

18. And there again, if you are one of those cheery customers who have been told you have got cancer but who prefer to carry on regardless, is that denial?

19. Or reckless bravery?

20. And if you are one of those tough cookies who say, "Dammit! I can be cured! I will recover! I am not going to lie down and give in!" What then? Is that denial? Or is it denial of denial?

21. And if you pursue all other kinds of alternative treatment, in search of a cure, are you in denial of the plain statistic that most people will not be cured by alternative treatment?

22. Are optimism and hopefulness only disguised forms of denial?

23. Will I just shut up about denial for a moment?...

Love, Miles

Dear Gill,

Here's an idea ...

One of the cancer specialists at the hospital told me that statistically my chances of getting through another year were not great.

"But statistics are misleading," he said. "You could be the exception who goes on and on. I have seen it happen. It all depends on your will to live."

"How's my will to live?" I said.

"I've no idea," he said. "That's up to you."

I was amazed. I was so used to having tests done on everything that I assumed there'd be a test for that as well. If they take blood from you, they can test the blood for almost everything – iron level, genes, bilirubin, whatever the man needs to know.

Why not the will to live? So, Gill, Test Your Own Will to Live! Why not?

Love, Miles

Dear Gill,

Famous last words have rather gone out of fashion recently. All the famous famous last words were said by people who died a long time ago. Nobody has recently said anything memorable on their deathbeds, and do you know why? It is because people don't have deathbeds any more.

Oh yes, they die in bed all right, but not in the old-fashioned way, surrounded by grieving or greedy relations, old friends, doctors and priests. The dying man or woman would be propped up on their pillow, and everyone while pretending to weep would be secretly waiting for the dying mouth to open and say something, which I guess is how we know that Goethe said, "More light!" and Pitt said, "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies", the only example I know of product placement in dying words.

Dying words like those are pretty banal, but of course when they were uttered, the utterer didn't know they were going to be the last words he would ever utter. You can't hang on till you think of something more pithy and then lapse into intentional silence so that that remains your dying statement.

Nevertheless, some quite pithy last words have been recorded... Oscar Wilde, famously, is remembered for two quite different exit lines. One is: "I shall die as I have lived – beyond my means." The other is: "Either that wallpaper goes or I do!"...

My favourite dying words came from the Mexican revolutionary figure Pancho Villa, who lay dying in some flyblown corner of Mexico and found one of his men leaning over him ready to catch his parting words.

"Tell them," said Pancho Villa, "tell them that I said something interesting."

Then he died.

Today, I am afraid, we all pass away cocooned in a final swaddling of drugs and painkillers and would find it impossible to utter any dying words even if we wanted to. As far as I can make out, the only people whose dying words are recorded these days are people who die in accidents or crashes or from sudden untimely death. Lady Diana, for instance, who said something like, "My God ..." which is quite understandable if you've just hit a concrete pillar at over 100mph.

Well, I have a small proposal to put all this right. I propose that we should all be able to register our final words in advance of our death. I propose that, once we have evolved and perfected our final statement, we should get over the difficulties of actually making it the last thing we physically say by setting up a simple, binding legal procedure to safeguard our final words, by ring-fencing them well in advance.

Love, Miles

'How Shall I Tell the Dog?' is published by Profile Books (£9.99)