Cancer 225

It is the middle of the night (0347), it has been snowing, and we are supposed to be going on holiday to the Lake District today for few days – that 6 day period I get between hospital visits every fortnight. I am not sure yet whether we will be able to leave in the morning. I find that with cancer I am not as adventurous when driving. In the past I didn’t mind getting caught in snow and ice. As long as there was suitable kit in the car. I have cleared snow and ice with shovels, sand bags, big lumps of stone, sand, gravel, pushing, etc – not now though. If the road isn’t going to be clear then I am not going on it. Perhaps I have just learned to be sensible in my old(er) age. I am the same off road, no risky hills, bumps or mud. Boring I know, but there we are.

A heavy fall of snow used to be exciting. Snowballs, sledging, walking and getting wet and miserable, and ending up in the pub with everyone else from the village who was unable to get to work. Wellies at the pub door, socks on the pub floor, beer in the belly, pissed up against the wall. Joyous days of old!

We had a long weekend in Yorkshire last weekend. A nice hotel we have been to several times. The food is excellent, but I find that I can’t keep eating richer food all the time. Three days was too long. It is also difficult just eating at meal times. I prefer to eat little and often, when I am hungry (I have just eaten a bowl of cereal with slightly warm milk – I am not allowed cold things, another side effect from treatment is a nasty reaction to anything cold.

I am also worried about my bowel. The tumour around my bowel, at the entrance to the stoma, is expanding and starting to close up the bowel, OK, it has been doing this for ages but I like to keep my head in the sand. I really need to phone the hospital, but what will happen? I will go into hospital and they will say (a) we can;t do anything about it so it is time to die, or (b) we can operate but it is very risky and you may well die on the operatinv theatre – and we will have to stop the chemotherapy so you will die anyway. Actually, these are not the options I have been told about, they are the options I have devised in my head during my endless sleepless nights. They are probably pretty accurate though, because what else could they do? I have already been told that they won’t operate on the tumours. So it means I worry about eating because I worry about not having an exit strategy for my waste.

The other problem I need to ring up about is that my central line is failing. It was originally positioned wrongly so I have never been able to draw blood from it. When it was placed early last year (May time?) I was told it could either be left where it was as it will work for the chemo for some time before failing, or it could be changed with a lot of hassle. I opted to leave it. Nothing unusual there. I like to leave things as they are whenever I can as it means I don’t get to go into hospital every single day of my life. I know I am bad, but I just don’t want to be in hospital even if it does mean I am doing my health no good.

The other option is that I don’t like phones, so I don’t like to ring the rapid response line (yes, as cancer fold we get a special fast phone line to the hospital) nor the consultant, or anyone else. I ahave always been frightened of phones – I am not sure if that is the right word but I hate ringing people,. I am not too bad with people I know, but I am hopeless when it comes to ringing officialdom or anyone else I don’t know. Ringing call centres is awful, particularly when everyone has accents I have difficulty understanding. Why can’t I just send an email?

Still, hating phones helps my head stay firmly in the sand.

I hope the snow does go away.

If it does, I am still left with another problem. I have had constipation so I have taken several constipation remedies and they are just starting to work. Imagine emptying my stoma several times while travelling up the motorway. Problems, problems. Life is so many problems. At least I still have my own teeth.