Cancer 232

It is Endgame. I obtained my latest CT scan results yesterday. A large number of tumours in my abdomen have grown significantly, so this new treatment isn’t working. IT is of course expected, but you never expect sometihng like this just now. We are in a state of shock.

There is going to be a MDT meeting net week to discuss what is going to happen next. They may carry on with this treatment, though it is unlikely as it doesn’t work. There may offer something else, but it will probably be a placebo (though with my powers of positive thinking a placebo could work, he says, desperately clinging to straws). They may offer nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat, ie painkilling drugs for palliative care. Have another swig of morphine before you die.

So I am not going to renew my taxpayer-bought car, or my cripstick that enables me to park on double yellow lines. I probably won’t finish Robert Service’s 700 page biography of Stalin, which I am reading beause I have always wanted to be a bit of a Stalinist, not the killing of millions or the being a priest part, but the writer, the family man, the destroyer of Nazism, the follower of the arts and the telling people what is best for them parts. We shouldn’t ignore the nuances of a person. Just because Stalin did some questionable things doesn’t make him all bad. OK, you are not convinced, but I don’t have time to publish my next five year plan – I don’t have one – or five.

I am still hoping to finish my History MA, though forget the biography of Sir John Gell, or my next PhD. I won’t finish my full length book on Wingfield Manor, nor publish the one and a half novels sitting on my computer. I won’t see the cats grow old (though with the speed of traffic along here I suspect they won’t grow old). I might even miss the change to the next Prime Minister. OK, that is too extreme. I will never know who will win the next World Cup or the next Ashes series. I won’t find out who won any medals at the Winter Olympics (Oh yes, that is because I never see or read anything about it because it is boring). I have no need to buy any new clothes – not that I ever did without protest – not even replace my worn out socks and slippers. I really cannot justify a new computer, though I keep looking.

The biggest tumour growths are around my stoma and my hernia, though there was a long list. The consultant told me about it over the phone while we were driving through Chatsworth. My next meeting will be face to face in two weeks, when I will get all the details. I remain positive. I remain scornful of any fear of death. I remain fully cognisant that death is the end of everything for me. There are hard parts. I have to think through the idea of missing future events by the knowledge that I won’t exist therefore I won’t miss anything. The feelings attached to that though create difficulties. At the moment I am alive, so I am aware that I am going to miss so many things, some predictable, some not. It is only when I am dead that they don’t matter, and while alive it can be difficult to think of non-existence as a thing.

As I have said many times, it is not fear of death that I have, but fear of dying. As these tumours grow, presumably the pains will grow. As they grow, they are likely to block my critical channels, both input and output. The consultant mentioned a growth in my stomach, which will presumably affect my diet. Last night I couldn’t eat my tea, but that was probably me being weak, thinking of problems ahead rather than problems today.

Again as I have said, Tuesday is my 50th round of chemotherapy. I never thought I would reach 50, and it looks like I won’t reach 51, but it is a target I have been looking forward to for a while. Perhaps not a target that any of us really want to achieve, but in my circumstances you really do.

A temporary advantage of ending chemotherapy will be a temporary end to these feelings of sickness that come with it. I hope to get at least a few weeks of feeling reasonably well. Perhaps we can go on holiday. Unlike last year when I wanted to be away all the time, this year I am not bothered about going anywhere. I am quite happy at home (that shrinkage of the world that happens to dying people). It would be nice to have a last holiday, but where to go? I just can’t drive the distances I used to, I wont fly, and I am definitely not using public transport, so it might mean staying in the UK, perhaps the Lake District, Northumberland or Scotland. The problem is that I cannot plan ahead as I do not know what my state of health is going to be a week or a month from now.

A glass of morphine anyone?