Cancer 221

I am feeling increasingly like I am fighting the battle of Stalingrad – and I am the Germans. I have limited resources, resources that in the past I would use outside, whether for working in the garden, working at my career, making a meal, driving long distances, mending something in the house, or whatever. These resources are being increasingly used to control my body, to enable me to function, often in the most basic manner. I am still able to do things. I can still drive, though over shorter distances. My record drive to Crimea and back, around 6,000 miles, I am not going to repeat. I do virtually nothing in the garden because it is too difficult. I walk only short distances. I do little in the house. Only a few months ago I always made breakfast and cooked at least one evening a week. Now I do virtually no cooking. When I do cook, I get exhausted. I chop a few bits on the chopping board, I fry something in the pan, and I am exhausted. I can still do my intellectual work, but nothing like the level I could even a few months ago. I started my MA in History with enthusiasm, believing I would get it finished before I died. I am still enthusiastic, but I find it difficult to get motivated to start working.

Motivation, that is one of the key concepts. Usually as people we are motivated to do a lot of things. My motivation to act has reduced dramatically in the last few months. I have less energy to focus on the outside world. I have to use a greater proportion of my resources to deal with what I have to deal with. Inside I am fighting these growing tumours in my abdomen. I am dealing with the poisonous chemotherapy drugs, which I know are helping, but at the same time they are killing me. I appreciate their value, I know they are keeping me alive longer than I would live without them, but at the same time they are destroying me. It is like friendly fire. Some of the enemy around Stalingrad are being killed, but my own artillery is bombarding those parts that are still working.

I am less motivated to eat. I now have a diet sheet that tells me to eat all the things we are told not to eat. Food with lots of calories. I just don’t feel motivated to eat enough of it. Christmas approaches. I have never been a great fan, but I do like, or I did like, a big dinner. I have at least two big beef dinners coming up. In the past, I would look forward to them. Now I am wondering which of the elements I should bother putting on my plate. One slice of beef instead of four? Half a Yorkshire pudding? Two Brussels? One roast potato? I am not sure I could manage all that and then eat any pudding (If it is Christmas pudding, I wouldn’t miss that – yuk!). When I wake up on Christmas Day, I will be on the third day of my 46th round of chemotherapy. In the middle of the day, around the time we eat Christmas dinner, I will flush my system and remove the needle. I hope my side effects will not be too bad.

The less I eat, the less energy I have to continue the fight. I can see the graph before me, the y axis of time against the x axis of sustainable life, approaching the red horizontal line indicating the final stages that is approaching. I am not sure when I will cross that line, that line indicating imminent death, whether it is weeks or months, but I really feel this is my last Christmas, and, for the first time since I was a child, I want to somehow mark it. Everything is now the last time. It is my birthday in a couple of months, likely my last birthday. I am hoping to reach 63. When I die, everyone will say, ‘That’s no age.’

The only real weapons I have, apart from the chemotherapy, are the social support I get from family and friends, and my own inner strength. I have a lot of support (and it is appreciated, folks), and my inner strength is still functioning, though battered. Here in Stalingrad, I still have some artillery, some troops, some ammunition, andsome will to defend myself. My question is just how long can it go on? I am continually tired, yet I only sleep a few hours at night at best. It is now 0230, and I haven’t had any sleep. Perhaps I just don’t want to spend whatever time I have left sleeping.

Enough. I try to stay positive. I try to engage with the world. I read books that come out. I still look at the news. I just care a little less than I did, and that is worrying.