Cancer 127
Posted on June 14, 2024 Leave a Comment
I had a particularly bad stoma spillage the other day. I won’t go into too many details in case you are eating, but I was changing bags when my remaining bowel decided to do a Surtsey over my stomach and trousers. It was a heavy and messy affair, but it is what you have to learn to live with when having a stoma, particularly when there is the additional burden of diarrhoea relating to chemotherapy. Some problems just don’t mix well.
MY current experiences have made me wonder whether we have got it all wrong. The zeitgeist is that we should be encouraging men to cry. I think we should be encouraging a return to the times of the stiff upper lip. Could we have survived World War Two if we broke down and cried every time something horrid happened? Perhaps crying really is a sign of weakness. Is there a place for a new book, “Real men (and women) don’t cry”?
There are places for crying, hidden away at night worrying about life, or watching a soppy film. Winston Churchill cried all the time and no one would say he was weak. We have spent several decades being told by psychologists that we should cry, we should express our emotions, that it is helpful. Is it? Or are we creating weak people? Look at the current problems with mental health. Instead of encouraging people to be weak, to need psychologists – which may itself lead to mental health problems – shouldn’t we be encouraging resilience, to get up and get on with it, to stiffen that lip and pull oneself together?
If I spent all my time moping then I wouldn’t be living this part of my life in what is a generally happy way. I would sit in my chair, cry about it, and give up.
(I know, I express my emotions through writing. What a hypocrite. That is the joy of unedited blogs.)
Let’s instead focus on resilience, strength and the good old British stiff upper lip. Crying is weakness. We all have our weaknesses but we should put it in context, ie keep quiet about it, instead of proclaiming to the world that we are weak.
Wipe up that shit and move on.
Cancer 126
Posted on June 3, 2024 2 Comments
Three days after the butterfly catcher slashed my jugular, I am still feeling it. Last night I felt a distorted pulse (this is a vein, not an artery), and at one point I thought I felt the line move. These feelings, along with a myriad of others, are no doubt largely psychosomatic, made up by my pesky subconscious, based on the idea that it is not normal to have plastic tubes inside your body, and the common wisdom that having your jugular slashed by a knife is not healthy. I know, it wasn’t slashed, it was just a small hole made very carefully by someone who has done this many times before, but the subconscious imagination demands its say.
Several people have said I look well at the moment. It is even suggested that I have lost weight. I do feel well, but my treatment starts tomorrow so I probably won’t feel well for long. I am determined to try and stay healthy, but it is a little beyond my control, with all these drugs pumping around, and further drugs to offset the impact of the first drugs. It is difficult to create a reasonable homeostasis with the drug combinations, but the medical staff have – so far – done a pretty good job of it.
I need to keep going for a long time yet as I have a lot to write about – though I am not very good at getting on with it at the moment. Apart from my unfinished novels about the civil war and about working in universities, I am starting on my account of Wingfield Manor, and I am just pondering an idea about how feminists have got the notion of power all wrong – but that is another story. I will just sit here and contemplate my pierced jugular and feel a little uncomfortable.
Cancer 125
Posted on May 31, 2024 Leave a Comment
OK, well that went fine. I could feel it as the surgeon cut into my jugular, and as he shoved the plastic piping through my vein to my heart, but it wasn’t painful. The most painful part was the injections of the local anaesthetic at the start of the procedure, but I was ready for those.
I was laid flat on a bed and sterile sheets were placed over my head and chest. My head faced left, and I could see a little of the room and breathe just a little air through the gap. The procedure didn’t take long. There were a few jokes about blood and a complaint that the nurse had provided the wrong bit of wire, but it was all good-humoured. I talked to the surgeon about his hobbies, butterflies and beekeeping. They don’t pin butterflies to boards any more. Boring. We also talked about the Holocaust, the Bosnian War, and the state of politics in the USA and the UK. Perhaps if I had said anything he didn’t agree with the hole in my jugular would have been much bigger.
I was then forced to hang around for an hour to make sure there were no ill effects. There weren’t. Then, as a certain person who came with me to the hospital in case she had to drive me home (she didn’t) ate pie and chips while I was suffering under the scalpel, I had pie, chips peas and gravy on the way home. Delicious.
Cancer 124
Posted on May 31, 2024 Leave a Comment
I am writing this while in hospital, waiting for my Hickman line to be inserted. I have signed my consent form and been given information about the procedure. I love the bits that can go wrong. The best two are that they could puncture a lung or an artery. Even without mistakes they slice open my jugular. I am so looking forward to it, but if this is my last blog, you know why.
I had my consultant meeting earlier. My latest blood tests are fine, mostly normal, a couple nearly normal. Chemotherapy is authorised for next week. I will get a scan sometime soon to see what is happening down there.
Despite medical staff going for my jugular later, I am feeling very positivw. A few weeks free of chemo drugs does help my optimism. I might not be able to beat this cancer. It will get me in the end. But I can hold the bastard down for a good while.
Cancer 123
Posted on May 27, 2024 Leave a Comment
I am in the last week before my treatment restarts, and I feel physically better than I have felt since it started last year, nearly a year ago. Today I walked further than I have walked since my operation. It was under two miles, but it was hilly. I am absolutely knackered now, with even my finger joints aching, though I didn’t walk on my hands. For the third time in a week I have achieved 10,000 steps – a meaningless statistic I know, but something I ahve not achieved in a long while.
Inevitably my situation puts me in two minds. Do I restart the treatment or do I not bother and enjoy the good health while I have it? Inevitably there is a part of me that says, sod it, enjoy the moment, but the dominant part is still on having the treatment, so look forward to me being a miserable bugger next week.
It is Monday. I have my bloods taken on Thursday. I have my Hickman line inserted on Friday. My treatment starts the following Tuesday. I am already looking forward to three months time when I can hopefully take another break. Roll on September.
Dr Nigel Hunt 