Cancer 114

For the first time in about three weeks, I am feeling fairly normal. I am sitting in the rooftop restaurant in the hospital waiting for my chemotherapy. Having cancer is a little like being in the armed forces. There is a lot of waiting involved and at the end of it a serious risk of death. Yesterday was a good day. I was in the hospital in the morning (lots of waiting) and we then went out in the afternoon. I had a meal and we went for a walk. By walk I mean I managed a good half kilometre on the flat, up the Monsal Trail from Hassop station which, by the way, advertises itself as a cafe and bookshop. It is a good cafe but there are no books for sale, just an area selling typical gifty junk, the sort of things I can’t believe anyone buys, the sort of thing that is a monstrous unpopped boil on society, wasteful, pointless, and designed to separate a fool from her (it usually is her) money.

I was in hospital yesterday to have my PICC line refitted. You may remember the last one slipped out a little during my last treatment. I have no idea how, and neither did hospital staff. Anyway, it was removed and I have just had a blissful week without a piece of plastic sticking out of a vein on my left upper arm, covered by a dressing and a sock. The skin under the dressing is in a dreadful state. Though I am colourblind I can see it is red. It recovered a little during the week but is still very sore.

The procedure for insterting a PICC line is straightforward, at least for the patient, who cannot see what is happening. The line is a thin tube of plastic that enters the upper arm, goes up to the shoulder, and across and down to just above the heart, so that drugs can be inserted straight to the point at which they will be pumped quickly around the body. It is an effective system, ensuring that patients don’t need endless cannulas, which for those who are lucky enough not to know, are not small Italian cakes but needles placed in a vein in the hand or arm – or elsewhere – strapped in place with a valve so that drugs can be administered. I have one fitted for each CT scan so the dye can be injected.

First the length of the required line is measured and cut to size. My line is 52cm underground and 3cm above ground. The patient is covered as for an operation, a little peeky hole where the nurse will insert the tube, and local anaesthetic applied – which is administered by needle and always stings. The patient is made to look elsewhere with the pretence that he or she needs to be in a certain position. I do think it is to ensure they don’t see the tube disappearing into their arm, then after a few seconds it is in, the nurse is finishing off by sticking a small plastic tube cover to the skin using fish hooks, barbed needles which hold the line in place, ensuring any mess is cleared up, which is usually nothing or very little, and chatting the whole time to reassure the patient who is often very nervous. I was not nervous. After all, it was the third time. I can now put up with most procedures with equanimity. The worst things that happen are a) sticking a camera up your backside. Given that I am missing a chunk of colon I am hoping that won’t happen to me again, and b) having a big stick up my nostrils as a Covid test, which I really hate. I know lots of you will have had that test many times and wonder what the fuss is about. I have had it three times and for me I would rather have a 30cm slit cut into my abdomen and half my guts ripped out by the surgeon’s teeth. At least for that I was unconscious.

So, my PICC line is in and I now need to go to the cancer ward (no they don’t call it that but a little Solzhenitsyn does no one any harm) and have a few pints of poison thrust into my body. The phrase, ‘Whats your poison?’ used to mean something so much nicer in the old days.