Iain Banks: I may reject chemotherapy

File photo of Scottish author Iain (M) Banks. Picture: Phil Wilkinson

He is to have a scan later this month, which will reveal whether treatment is an option.

Banks, 59, announced last month he has cancer in his gall bladder, liver, lymph nodes and probably his pancreas, and has been told by doctors he is unlikely to live longer than a year.

In his characteristic black humour, the author of The Crow Road and The Wasp Factory said that he had asked his long-term girlfriend Adele Hartley if she would “do me the honour of becoming my widow”.

The couple wed at Inverlochy Castle Hotel in Fort William, one of the author’s favourite places in the world, over the Easter weekend.

In his online blog, Banks said yesterday that chemotherapy may be an option, but insisted he would not pursue it if the side-effects were intolerable.

He said: “The latest medical news is that my bilirubin level continues to fall and I have an appointment for a CT scan at the end of the month.”

Elevated levels of bilirubin may indicate certain diseases. It may reach high levels in patients with pancreatic cancer due to blockage of the common bile duct by a tumour.

Banks continued: “If my bilirubin is below 50, and if the tumours have behaved themselves, then chemotherapy will be an option, with these new CT results forming the baseline for measuring the improvements chemo might provide.

“If the scan shows the tumours have been over-enthusiastic during the last couple of months then, as I understand it, chemo would be pointless. Assuming it is an option, I’ll probably try chemo and see how I react, but if it wipes me out each time I shan’t be persevering.”

Banks told how he and his new wife had just enjoyed a short holiday on the island of Barra where they enjoyed long walks along its beaches.

The writer, who lives in North Queensferry, Fife, also said he had bought a BMW to go on drives around the Highlands.

Banks sold his expensive car collection and gave up flying six years ago after becoming concerned about his carbon footprint. However, he told how he had decided to indulge himself in light of his diagnosis.

He said: “I decided that, as it looked like I was going to be saving on the next 20-30 years of personal carbon output, I could indulge myself a bit.

“Hence flying to Venice. And also hence, even before we got married, buying a six-year-old BMW M5. An M5 V10 with 500 of your Earth horsepowers.

“So I am back to scudding round the Highland roads again with a big grin on my fizzog. Well, when I can grin, and the acceleration/braking force isn’t distorting my face like somebody taking part in an early Nasa rocket sled experiment. Got heated leather seats, too.”

Banks also thanked his fans and friends once more for the hundreds of tributes and messages of support he has received since revealing his diagnosis.

He said: “It means a lot, almost more than I can say, and, whatever type or size of screen I read the comments on, I come away from the computer, laptop, iPad or phone with a happy smile on my face.”

Banks’s final book, The Quarry, is to be published on 25 June.