Cancer 181

Posted on March 28, 2025     Leave a Comment

Part A

I am rather nervous this morning. I am having my portacath fitted. The appointment is 0800, so my usual arrival time in order to get a parking space – 0730 – is for once appropriate. I am having tea at Costa Hell, with its unusable off centre saucers. I am surrounded by ill people, a common problem in hospitals.

I am not sure why I am nervous. The procedure is just about sticking a new tube up under my skin, piercing my jugular and poking the tube down through the vein to my heart. What could go wrong?

Perhaps I have just had enough of these procedures. It increasingly comes into my mind that I just might stop everything, the continual intrusiveness does get one down after a time. The problem is, so far these things are working, so I should stop feeling sorry for myself, realise that I am still having a pretty good life, and that others are far worse off than me. After all, I did eat pie and mash yesterday, followed by Bakewell pudding and custard.

Part B

My operation is complete but I am still abed under observation. The surgeon wasn’t aware that he had to remove the Hickman line as well as putting in the portacath, but after some discussion both happened.

I have discovered one reason why general anaesthetic is a good idea (I had local). When unconscious you don’t hear the surgeon using words like ‘hopefully’, ‘probably’ or phrases such as ‘this doesn’t normally happen’. He was a good chap though, I had full confidence and trust, which is important when you are being chopped up (his hands were very bloody when I saw them. Apparently I bled a bit more than normal).

Melzack and Wall were right about the psychological aspect of pain. I was anaesthetised around the working area so the pain was deferred to my opposite side, and at one point I felt the tube enter my heart which was painful – and also impossible as there are no pain receptors there! Neuroticism is very effective.

Hopefully I will get away soon. I am just waiting on the consultant, another set of obs and that is it. My bp does need to come down. One measure was 172 over 110, quite a bit higher than my usual.

Fish pie for tea tonight.

Cancer 180

Posted on March 24, 2025     Leave a Comment

Part One

It is a special day today. I am in London. I woke up this morning as though prepared to do battle, as there is nothing more frightening than the thought of going to London (ok, I know it is nothing like battle – I just wanted to make a point). What do I fear? Public transport, as apparently you have to share with other, unknown people, who all wear headphones which go kerching kerching and are really annoying. These people sit near you, eat smelly nonfoods, and wear strange clothes. When walking in London everybody runs into you, which  isn’t good when you have tubes coming out of your chest and a big shithole in your belly. I have my walking stick, with lead weights for bashing and a sharpened point for stabbing.

We have arrived fairly safely in the middle of London, and I am still alive. I had the brainy idea of getting a taxi, which meant avoiding the crush on the tube. The chap wouldn’t let me drive, so I was not in control, but at least we weren’t sharing with the public. As we are too early for the gallery (Courtaulds, From Goya to Impressionism) we are in a cafe. Fortunately there are no other customers.

Part Two

We have been round the exhibition and it was excellent. I know little about art – I am not only ignorant but also colourblind – but there were some very good and well known paintings. While it included Manet, Monet, van Gogh, Courbet, and so on, the star was of course Cezanne, just about my favourite painter, along with Vereshchagin (I love everything Russian). 

Part Three

Shockingly, we have made it home. I used trains twice, went into a busy gallery, used two taxis, walked around a bit of London, ate London food, and survived! I only used my stick on one piece of baggage. I wonder if it is like childbirth, eventually you forget the worst of it and become prepared to do it again?

Cancer 179

Posted on March 19, 2025     Leave a Comment

I am up in the middle of the night as usual. The pattern at the moment is to go to bed early, wake up around 1100 (yes, I now get up in the evening rather than the morning. It is rather odd), then go back to bed around 0500, getting up around 0700-0800. While in bed, I am asleep more than awake, so that is something. Part of my being up in the night at the moment is pain in my right shoulder/chest. I think it is muscular, but it makes it difficult to lie down. I am generally anti-painkillers, but I am taking my Tramadol, which eases it a little, particularly when taken in conjunction with paracetamol.

My other problem at the moment is my fingertips and fingernails. My fingertips are very sore, which makes things like typing somewhat painful. My fingernails are a total mess. Whenever I catch them, they break, they often bleed, and chunks fall off. They aren’t the best to look at either. The sensitivity of my fingertips and the uselessness of my fingernails means peeling an orange is difficult. I really struggle to unclip my watch. It is surprising how many normal activities rely on one’s fingertips, even turning the pages of a book. I have learned to use the sides of my fingers where I would normally use the tips.

Is this decline? This is the question I ask myself every time I have a problem, a new problem, or a problem that is or appears to be getting worse.

My treatment was cancelled this week, not because I have any problems (ha ha), but because the consultant thought it best not to risk the fitting of my portacath next week. The portacath is an internal line from under the skin on my chest, into my jugular vein, and down to my heart, basically the same path as my current Hickman Line, but with the advantage that, for the first time since June 2023, I will not have a plastic tube dangling out of my chest or my arm. The feeding end of the portacath is a small chamber that sits under the skin and is used for inputting chemo drugs and extracting blood. The advantage is that I can shower and go swimming, and not having a tube dangling from my body means I will be more comfortable. The disadvantage is that I cannot take my blood samples or clean the line. I will have to go to the hospital instead. At the moment, I go to the hospital once or twice every fortnight. I will be going in two or three times in the future, so it is not so bad.

Again on the positive side, I am getting into my new role as historian rather than psychologist. I do wish I could have had the chance to start this earlier and perhaps not have life-shortening cancer at the same time. My digging around re the history of Wingfield Manor is sending me off in all sorts of directions in relation to the people who lived there. I am currently – yes currently, in the middle of the night – reading a PhD thesis from 1974 which is the most detailed biography of Ralph Lord Cromwell. I am hoping to write an article about him, a fascinating figure who played a key role for two kings, got immensely rich, and about whom we know nothing psychologically, all we can do is imply what he might have been like from the records that exist. The problem is, records from the 15th Century don’t really talk about character and personality.

I should pause my reading as I have been commissioned to write an article about the siege of Leiden. Focus, focus.

All this activity is keeping my brain working to some extent. It is a shame about my body.

Cancer 178

Posted on March 12, 2025     Leave a Comment

It was agony last night. I couldn’t lie down properly. I couldn’t turn onto my right side. This morning, the wife made me take my temperature because she thought it might be pneumonia again. The first reading was 38.5, and I am supposed to ring the hospital if it is over 37.5. Fortunately, two further readings indicated 37.0, so I haven’t phoned the hospital. I am in tomorrow anyway, so I will mention my problem to them. The first thing I thought when I was ordered to take my temperature was what would I take with me if I had to go into hospital? I would take my computer, my Kindle, the draft printout of my cancer book, my Wingfield Manor book, pens and a notebook, and charging materials. I didn’t think I would have to take clothes or a toothbrush.

I really do not want to become an inpatient again. It was awful last time. I know I nearly died and all that, but I didn’t enjoy myself. I don’t like being with other ill people. I won’t say what I thought of some of them or you might not be too impressed, but let’s say I would prefer a room of my own, like I had many years ago when I was in hospital with pneumonia and pleurisy. I got my own room because I threatened to a) smash a television if they didn’t turn it off, and b) kill someone. I think they thought I meant it. I did mean it. Hospital brings out some extreme emotions and thoughts.

Anyway, I am not in hospital; I am in Ikea, which some might argue is worse. I am sitting in the cafe, drinking tea while the wife roams around buying things for her partially new kitchen. I am happily reading and writing. It is odd that while I generally like peace and quiet and avoiding crowds (I will not normally catch a train or spend time in a busy city), I can work quite effectively in a busy cafe, even an Ikea cafe. I ate a small breakfast for £2.75, and get free tea with an Ikea Family Card. I am even in Nottinghamshire.

My pain is now managed temporarily with drugs, so I am fine. I suspect that I might be sleeping in my chair tonight if it doesn’t get any better. We will see. At least I am not in hospital.

Cancer 177

Posted on March 11, 2025     Leave a Comment

This is painful. A couple of days ago I started to get severe pain in and around my shoulder. Tramadol alone barely touches it, Tramadol plus paracetamol works for a time. I am sitting writing this in the bathroom of a very nice hotel because I can’t sleep. It is painful to lie on my back, painful to lie on my right side, and just about manageable to lie on my left side if I am careful. It is gone 0415. I have managed a couple of one hour sleeps. Perhaps I should just get in the bath to see if that eases it (it doesn’t, I tried it last night).

Then of course there is the one track mind that is having cancer. Is the pain there because the cancer has spread? Unlike real life, everything with cancer is interpreted as though it is cancer. Obviously a pain is a pain. It can have many causes, but once you have cancer then every pain is cancer. If it has got to my shoulder then it is in my bones, it has spread uncontrollably. That is it. I am dead. Of course, as my cancer is terminal I will be dead, but at the same time as the pessimism there is optimism. This can’t be it surely? I can’t really be dying.

The result of all this is sitting in a hotel bathroom at 0420 unable to sleep not only because of the pain but because of the wild and contradictory thoughts and feelings rushing around my head.

Perhaps I will run that bath.

Find me on Twitter