Cancer 243
Posted on March 24, 2026 Leave a Comment
If you are eating, then finish what you are doing before reading this.
Not long after my last blog, I had a bowel disaster, the worst one ever, and I have had a few. Imagine for a moment that I have removed the stoma bag, cleaned up and am sitting there giving the area some air before putting the new bag on. I do this regularly, whenever I change the bag at home, sitting in my chair, which I am glad is leather, and brown.
It will often activate when I am sitting there, but I will have a tissue ready to clean up, and I am pretty good at this task. Indeed, I had said as much to the wife only a day or two before. After a few minutes, this happened, a good amount, requiring a three tissue clean up. No problem.
Five minutes later, boom. It appeared that the whole of my insides became my outsides, spreading across my stomach, over my trousers and my shirt. It was more or less liquid, but with unusual lumps inside that didn’t reflect anything I had eaten in the previous 24 hours. I can only think that the chemo has managed to break down something of the tumour inside my stomach and decided to eject it with force. If I say this was awful, then it is not an exaggeration. If I say this was embarrassing and I just wanted to cry, this is not an exaggeration.
As you may know, the wife (who I am not allowed to talk about) is my carer, and this is one of those situations where the term is very true. I am sitting there, covered in pale brown stuff, unable to pick it up and bag it, wondering whether this is the right time to die. She comes along with endless towels, flannels and new clothes, comforts me, tells me all is well, calms me down. I did most of the actual clean up myself, certainly of my body, while she focused on putting everything through the washing machine over the next few hours – three loads – and disinfected the affect area afterwards.
It is intensely embarrassing. It is also the end of an idea that has been floating around for the last week or two, of flying to Riga. Imagine this happening in an aeroplane. You really wouldn’t want to be one of the other passengers.
It is strange, really. I find it incredibly embarrassing yet I am able to write about it here. I suppose I am just trying to do my duty of telling the whole story. Fortunately, I didn’t take a photograph.
Cancer 242
Posted on March 23, 2026 Leave a Comment
It is 0420. I have been sitting in my chair since about 2000, alternately sleeping, dozing and, occasionally, waking. I am usually woken by the sound of my book thudding on the floor as I drift off (Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody, as you are asking). I am immensely tired. It is a tiredness that almost hurts, a tiredness so intense it is difficult to escape.
I am wanting to sleep day and night, yet at the same time find it difficult. During the day if I sit down I am likely to fall asleep. It doesn’t matter what time of day. In the morning I drift off, in the evening I drift off.
I can be ok during the day if I am out doing something. Yesterday, a good friend from far away visited, and we did bookshop and meal. I was fine for that, but when we got home it was a different matter. I was quickly asleep.
The added problem at night is that I have breathing problems when I lie down. My abdomen area is quite painful, and the tumour growth too much. I suspect it is tumours bearing down on my diaphragm which makes it difficult to breathe while I am lying down. This means the most comfortable position for me is sitting in my chair. This is where I ‘sleep’. What I actually do is doze for periods, then sleep for I don;t know how long, and then sit up and read. This last is getting difficult now, an dI mean now. At this moment I am struggling to stay awake, my arms ache, my eyes are glazing over, I had better put this down.
Cancer 241
Posted on March 18, 2026 Leave a Comment
You know how Star Trek has changed the world? Without star Trek we wouldn’t have phasers I know, they are quite big at the moment but we are getting there), we wouldn’t have mobile phones, and we wouldn’t have doors that open automatically as a person approaches. I still don’t really get the latter though I do understand how they work. I think my brain refuses to allow them out of science fiction mode. The only problem is they don’t go fwish as they open, but I am sure we will get there. I have realised that the feeling you get during chemotherapy is the feeling you would get, had we invented beaming up/down, if your particles, on reorgansing as you land on an unknown planet with the unknown character you know will get killed by aliens (it is so predictable), didn’t quite reorganise properly. Instead, the cells are all slightly off centre, mis-matched, unconnected where they should be connected, connected where they should be disconnected (I don’t know the exact details as I don;t believe beaming up/down as yet been invented).
Such an experience would make your whole body unwell, disconnected, nauseous, slightly out of the universe, uncomfortable – see, I still can’t describe it. Perhaps I have a medical breakthrough here as important as the discovery of MRI, penicillin, or gunpowder. If a person gets cancer, perhaps a slightly out of synch beaming from a starship to an unknown planet, will make them better.
Alternatively, I started my chemo yesterday, I am on my bottle, I can’t sleep, and my brain is screwed up more than usual. Or perhaps I just want that starship Enterprise experience before I die. If someone is interested and builds a beaming machine, please contact me, I am happy to take part in a suitable trial.
Alternatively, I could just be the unknown chap who gets beamed down to die.
Cancer 240
Posted on March 13, 2026 Leave a Comment
My tiredness and dropping off to sleep is getting serious. I am sitting reading the draft of my thesis (yes, draft complete and printed out – long way to go yet though) and found myself with my head down, fallen asleep. OK, last night I got virtually no sleep, because no matter how tired I get I spend most of the night awake. It might have been help by my having a new computer, and when one has a new toy it has to be played with. I know, I am nearly dead so what do I need a new computer for? What a waste of money. Now, I would agree with that about clothes, I struggled to buy clothes even when well, but not about computers or books. There are some things you just have to spend money on.
We went out last night for the first time since god thought it was a good idea to invent humans and name them Adam and Eve. We went to the pictures, to a showing of a film on the exhibition about Turner and Constable. It was better than I thought. It is a good way to see an exhibition when you are excluded from it because it is in London. The problem was that I was continually falling asleep. I had a stranger sitting on my left and I ket thinking I was going to reach over an grab her. It was quite worrying, because the grabbing linked into a dream I was having that continued each time I nodded off. It was quite frightening to be out and about with people I didn’t know.
Then there were the stairs. This is the Ritz at Belper. There must have been 584 stairs to get to the auditorium. There might be fewer for most of you but for me it was the south face of the Eiger. At home I go up the stairs slowly, stopping every time I want to, but being out among people I felt I had to try and behave normally, which is taking the stairs 2-3 at a time, springing from one to the other like a mountain goat. Stairs are a real problem for decaying crips like me.
I am not really a man. I went to the butcher’s this morning. The wife asked me to get her a steak for this evening. A real man would obviously have bought himself one too, but no, this one says get me a pie out of the freezer; so while she gets steak, I am having a chicken pie (ie not really a pie, not really meat), and I am glad about it! My eating habits are a right mess. I eat little and often. I don’t even want a Sunday dinner. I always want a Sunday dinner. I just couldn’t eat one. I did manage a bacon and sausage sandwich this morning though, so hope is not entirely lost.
Right, I have sort of woken myself up. Back to the thesis for a few minutes, then venture down the garden and make a mug of tea.
Cancer 239
Posted on March 11, 2026 Leave a Comment
It is getting worse. I am getting worse. Sleep is one of the main problems. I am falling asleep in odd places and odd times. I have never got on with sleeping, but now it seems I have no choice. If I sit for any length of time I fall asleep, whether I am sitting on a sofa or at a table. I even sleep at night – not all the time of course but I keep drifting off. Yesterday I fell asleep while putting my shoes on. One minute I am sitting taking off my slippers, the next I am sitting there, head drooping, asleep. Two minutes later I woke up and put my shoes on. I sleep sitting up or lying down. I haven’t yet fallen asleep while driving, nor in the middle of a conversation, though it has been close.
Fortunately, at the moment, I am largely aware of what is happening (I think!). I know I fall asleep. I know I wake up. The worrying thing is that this is what happens as people die. They spend more and more time asleep. I fight it but it is difficult. I am drawn to sleep. I want to sleep.
Another issue is that I am getting increasing pain around the tumours in my abdomen. They are getting bigger and are more in the way. Being thin is no longer an option for me. This interferes with my stoma, which is now constantly in a state of diarrhoea, except when I am undergoing treatment, when it stops altogether for a couple of days and then starts genereating rabbit turds. It is a mess. It fired off outside for the first time the other day. It could easily have been a disaster. As it was it was embarrassing. I know I shouldn;t feel embarrassed. It is not as though I can help what happens. I have no control over it whatsoever, but I do retain a smidge of human dignity and shit doesn’t fit well with dignity.
Let me know if you are intrested in coming along to my living wake on April 11. While details are unclear it will be in the afternoon, and will involve something to eat and drink. I need numbers and then I can plan.
Today we drive home from the Lake District. The last few days have been wet but that is the Lake District. I have bought books, driven around, eaten in nice hotels and standard pubs, and written bits of my thesis. With regard to food, a subject close to my heart – yes, my stomach is close to my heart – I am losing it a little. I no longer want large meals. I want to eat little and often. I do not look forward to the things I used to look forward to, such as a fried breakfast or fish and chips. The wife now has to eat her entire portion of food rather than avoid divorce by handing over a tithe of her food. I have eaten ready meals and thought the portion size is adequate. It is suggested that I go round the supermarket looking for treats but I no longer see food as a treat in the same way. It is beoming a burden, like so many things.
I keep buying books. I know I will never read them all, but I have become more obsessive about the,. I have several books on the go at the same time, both fiction and non-fiction I am currently reading about the Vietnam War in the Philippines, teh origins of the bible, George Orwell, the origins of the impressionist movement in Paris under the siege and the Commune – along with materials relating to my thesis, ie early modern science, domestic science, art and Aletheia Howard, and so on. I wonder if I am just trying to keep my brain active for as long as possible.
I am tired now. It is 0030, and I have been up since aroud 2100 (yes, I go to bed early, 1915 as you are asking).*I will try and read for a little while and then sleep. The problem is sleep only comes along for an hour or so, and then I am awake again, at least for a few minutes. Then I want sleep again. Everything is so disruptive.
Dr Nigel Hunt 