Cancer 96

It has been a while since my last post, partly because I was still enjoying my holiday in France. I did manage to drive all the way to the Pyrenees and back, though I found it more tiring than I used to and had to stop by 3pm. My day seems to be shifting earlier. I get up ever earlier and fade in the evening by 8pm. If I keep going then I will be working the night shift and eventually get back to being able to have wild evenings at nightclubs – oh yes, I have never done that. I forgot.

The good news at the moment is that I am now retiring from The University of Nottingham at the end of January. It is of course quite exciting as it means I do not have to pander to the modern nonsenses expounded by our universities, though it has been rather badly organised. I only found out that I was retiring 11 days before I retire, and then only because I emailed the pension provider.

There will be no party at my retirement. My immense popularity at Nottingham means that I have tried to inform those I get on with best – count them on the fingers of one hand. If I have missed anyone who works there I blame chemobrain (my excuse for any failure from now on until my untimely death). In any case, what is a party if I don’t drink alcohol? It is just a conglameration of people having a better time than me.

People with cancer that is going to kill them tend to gradually close in on themselves and cease to have an interest in the world. Then they die. I may have already mentioned that I like to read long books so that I cannot die while I am in the middle of them. We have also just got two kittens, so I will need to look after them for the next 10-15 years (unless of course they get run over which is highly likely given what has happened to previous cats). These strategies of avoiding death should be taken up by the oncologists. I can teach them a thing or two about living with cancer. Read long books and have kittens are just two of them. Perhaps I should develop some CPD courses.

Anyway, retirement won’t really change my life as I have been off work for nearly a year. People talk about retirement being the start of a new adventure, being able to go places and do things that you couldn’t do when you were at work. In my case I have already been doing the things I want to, long before I became ill, so what I do is unlikely to change very much – apart from the cancer treatment and dying in agony of course (I must remember to stock up on morphine).

The treatment is beginning again after a good break. I am almost looking forward to it. It has been suggested that I am institutionalised, and that is probably right, but it helps me to deal with the routine that starts off ok but gradually gets more tedious over time. By my 13th treatment cycle in December I had certainly had enough of chemotherapy. I would have been ready to jump into a deep well filled with sulphuric acid had it not been for family, friends and the nurses – so social support does work. People are practical and says it like it is, which works for me.

At the moment I have no idea how many cycles I will have before I get another break; indeed, I don’t know if I will last through another full set of treatment, either I could fall under a bus (unlikely as I don’t go near public transport), the treatment might stop working, or the Conservative Government might abolish the NHS, but I prefer to plan ahead (another CPD strategy), so once I get dates we will be planning where to go. In the meantime, I will have my 6 day gaps in treatment and no doubt we will be off to the Lake District (already booked), Northumberland, Scotland, etc. If anyone has any good ideas of where to go for a 6 day break let me know – obviously excluding Wales. I don’t think I could get a visa.

Right, I am hungry so I am going to try and eat salad. They weigh me every time I go for treatment and the scales go further out of kilter each time, recording my weight as increasing (a good thing for cancer patients? Another CPD course, eat lots), so I am going to try and eat healthily. The problem with this statement is that it is always future biased, ‘I am going to’ rather than ‘I am’. Also, these bloody kittens are being very annoying. I’d send a picture but just look on the Internet at any cat photos, they all look alike. I much prefer dogs and chickens.