Cancer 92

Posted on December 20, 2023     Leave a Comment

I am testing myself. One of my greatest pleasures has always been driving, but I tire much more easily now (13 cycles so far….), so I am wondering if I can still do the distances. I did 200 miles on Monday, 120km plus 7 hours on a ferry yesterday, and 400km today. Yes, I am knackered. I really needed to stop at 3pm, but I am ready for my next 400km tomorrow. Cancer? Huh, it will have to try harder than that to stop me driving.

I do like France but it has its imperfections.

  1. Tea. Why can’t they do tea? When they have tea bags they are always odd flavours rather than good British tea. I don’t want flowery grass seeds or blueberry muffin flavour.
  2. Tea. Why do they think that tea can be mashed properly significantly below 100 degrees? They bring out a pot, with the tea bag separate, and expect the flavour to emerge when the water is 90 degrees or lower when the tea bag is added. Not going to work.
  3. Tea. They serve it without milk. Milk is essential for tea. It takes away some of the bitterness leaving a perfect flavour.
  4. Milk. Fresh milk is becoming more common but there is still often the expectation that UHT milk can be used. It can’t. Anywhere. It is a terrible product. They even expect people to put it on cereals at breakfast, where there are cereals at breakfast.
  5. Breakfast. Come on, croissants and pastries? When I am in a hotel I expect bacon, sausage, eggs, and so on. Ok, this morning we did get fairly good sausages and well-presented scrambled egg, but no bacon. And rotten tea.
  6. Breakfast. It needs tea. Have I already mentioned this?
  7. Driving. Every French person on the road tailgates. It doesn’t matter what speed you do they tailgate. They can’t stand a foreigner being in front of them.
  8. Driving. This applies to most British people too. Reversing out onto a road. Gross incompetence.
  9. Mealtimes. These are largely fixed. You will eat at 1230 and at 1930 every day. You cannot be hungry at other times.
  10. Food. Too much cream and creaminess

I should create some balance here. Some positive things:

  1. Food. Foie gras. Unbeatable. I don’t care about how it is made. Those ducks and geese would do it to us if they could. It is called being higher up the food chain.
  2. Food. Bread. So much better than nearly all UK bread.
  3. Food. Rough pate. Why don’t we have proper pate in the UK any more?
  4. Driving. The roads are so much better than in the UK. No potholes, smooth tarmac. Perhaps we need to introduce charges for using the motorways.
  5. Driving. There is no one in France, so driving on the ordinary roads is such a pleasure (except for tailgating. OK there are some people in France).
  6. Food. Availability of veal. Why is it so difficult to get in the UK?
  7. Proximity to countries such as Germany and Spain, where the food is better.
  8. Battlefields. Lots of them (past ones of course, I don’t want the other sort).
  9. Vauban forts.
  10. Secularism.

I have no doubt you could add more to both lists. Fee free.

Cancer 91

Posted on December 19, 2023     Leave a Comment

In Alencon.
The ferry today was not very busy, but it was still full of the odd people who catch ferries and go to France, such as schoolteachers and retired schoolteachers. Not that I want to stereotype people, but schoolteachers are basically middle class people who try to look different but in so doing they look even more like schoolteachers. You know the type, we all do.

The sea was rough, if I had not taken the Kwells I would have been seasick. Then again, I get seasick just thinking about the sea. It is a vile substance, smelly, wobbly, full of inedible fish, flat and boring. If I was prime minister I would abolish it, build dams across the North Sea and the English Channel, and drain it so I could drive to continental Europe with all those teachers. The Channel may have been a good thing in 1940 but it has outlived its purpose.

I visited the ferry shop. If, like me, you don’t drink, smoke or wear perfume it is pointless.

I am looking forward to holidaying in France. It has been a year since we were last there. We are escaping Christmas and New Year as usual. Christmas should be as it is in Spain, a half-day holiday. In the UK it drags on forever and so there is nothing special about it, just a commercialised nightmare, and then the pointless wait until the New Year, a wasted week in which little gets done. On top of that we now have to share Christmas with other festivals – it was bad enough having just one.

From today I am on my official break from chemotherapy, six weeks without being pumped full of poisons. I am hoping that I will feel better by the end of it, and that my body will recover from these annoying side effects. I realise I have been luckier than those who have to spend a week in bed after their treatment, or have more agonising side effects, but it has been bad enough and is/was building up with each cycle. The tiredness is the worst. I spent some time on the ferry sleeping. I never sleep on ferries. I am awake at night and rarely catch up in the day. I am a little worried about driving down to the Pyrenees, but it should be fine. My fingertips are so sore I cannot play my guitar – I know, I can’t play anyway – but I literally cannot press the strings down without agony. My face and head are still covered with festering itchy spots. My arm, where the PICC line was fitted, is also very itchy. My bowels, what is left of them, are in turn very loose and very hard. My feet are tender. My abdomen is painful. I get a sore throat too easily. The only thing not affected is my diet. If anything I eat too much, perhaps more than I did before. I had a kebab tonight. That is a first in France for me.

I know, it could be worse, and it will be, but not while I stay positive and don’t give in to sleeping and whinging too much about side effects. Oops….

Cancer 90

Posted on December 8, 2023     Leave a Comment

It has been a while since my last blog, not because my life is not incredibly exciting, living from one breath to the next, but because I am trying to concentrate on writing my novel. I am back to rattling off the words. Plenty of stuff here about religion and politics in the mid-17th Century, and you should read the sex scenes. They are incredible (literally). I am happy to write about the reasons for killing a king, but writing about sex is impossible. “She offered her honor, he honored her offer, and all night long he was on her and off her.” Not original, but better than anything I could write, so I don’t write anything, just suggest it. Let the reader use their imagination.

I am in hospital again, and there is good and bad. The good is that my PICC line should be removed and, after 13 cycles, I am taking a rest from treatment until late January. Hurrah! That line has been in since June and it becoming a bit of a pain. The whole area is red and sore. It doesn’t help that I scratch it but don’t tell anybody I do that. It is rather obvious that I shouldn’t. The bad is that my fluorouracil failed to be pumped into my body so it is still sitting as a bubble inside the bottle. It relies on pressure to work, which seems a little primitive. Hopefully, it will be fine as this is an optional extra treatment. The other bad is the waiting time today. I came in for a 1530 appointment. They said everything was running late, an hour late; but it was when the tea and biscuits arrived in the waiting room that I began to worry. It is 1600 now and I have no idea when I will be dealt with.

Fortunately, dealing with the NHS on a regular basis is a bit like the army, you learn to wait. I have my computer (get back to the book, 2500 words today so far), and I am reading some of the tracts from the Levellers, the Putney Debates of 1647, a time we don’t learn about in school but we should, as that time is when the ideas of modern democracy were laid down for the first time (not in 5th Century Athens, remember the slaves). There are detailed accounts of the debates, which were chaired by Cromwell, and anyone was allowed the space to speak. Many ideas were discussed, universal suffrage (for men of course), free trade, removal of monarchy, human rights, habeas corpus, fair trials, fair taxation, and so on. If this early democracy had lasted the UK could have been at the forefront of civilisation.

Middle of the night.

My PICC line is removed, so I have a bare arm, albeit very red, with no tube sticking out, no dressing (well, a little temporary one) and no bandage – all for the first time since the middle of June. Having these bits sticking out of your arm may seem minor or trivial, and you do get used to it, but it does become a little wearing after time. I am looking forward to the next few weeks without it. All being well with my health a new one will be slipped in towards the end of January. Now I could do with getting rid of the stoma bag, but that is not going to happen.

By the way, I was dealt with in the hospital as I was writing this blog. I haven’t been there all night. I was home by 1730, in case you were worried. Another success story for the NHS in dealing with so many people so quickly and with a smile.

Cancer 89

Posted on November 27, 2023     Leave a Comment

It has been a somewhat rough few days and still is. After my chemo on Tuesday I felt awful, but better the following day. There is a build-up of the niggling things. My stoma is sore and has leaked a couple of times, which is a little embarrassing. I have felt nauseous, which is unusual for me, though it hasn’t yet stopped me from eating! I think appetite will be the last thing to go. My rash is nothing like as bad as it was but it is still there, on my head and across my chest. The area around my PICC line is very sore, and I can’t stop scratching it. I know, just stop it, but it isn’t easy. I have also started to have problems with my fingertips. This is a standard side effect, but the tips feel very sore, and the skin is breaking. It makes it difficult to peel an orange, and some of my fingerprint-controlled apps on my phone don’t work, presumably because my fingerprints have changed. The strange effects of cancer treatment! Who would have guessed that cancer can lead to an inability to open a bank account app?

I have a CT scan later today to check how my innards are after another half dozen treatments. This means I cannot eat for four hours beforehand, but I am meant to drink a pint of squash a little before so that I have a full bladder. I always have a full bladder. I assume it is due to ridding my body of all these breakdown products. Anyway, it means yet another trip to the hospital.

Chemotherapy treatment costs vary, but a round can be around £30,000. I am coming to the end of my second round (13 cycles or treatments) so I have cost perhaps £60,000 plus my operation, several weeks in hospital and so on. Am I worth it? Is this the best way of spending money on the NHS or should more focus be placed on those who might actually be cured? After all, I am not going back to work. What is my value as a member of society? OK, don’t all shout at once about what an upright and respected person I have been throughout my life and how I now should be rewarded in my twilight months/years for the good I have done for the world.

I do wonder though about NHS resources. There obviously isn’t enough money to pay for everything that could be done for people, but we don’t have any national debates about what we should be focusing on. I am not convinced that we should be keeping dying people alive, but on the other hand, it should not all be about economics, focusing on those who can get well enough to return to their jobs and pay their taxes. There may be procedures the state should not be involved in, but equally, there are also elements that should be NHS funded but are not, such as much of dentistry and eye care.

There is overall quality of life to consider. Given the circumstances, I have a good quality of life, despite what I said earlier.

I love the NHS, it does wonders, but we should have a national debate about what it should be doing, at least partly because drugs and equipment are now so expensive, and the drivers are often the pharmaceutical companies trying to sell their latest offerings rather than scientists, medics, philosophers and others trying to determine the most effective use of the resources we have. Of course, if the rich and big businesses paid the taxes they are supposed to pay then it would ease the pressure considerably. I know, not going to happen.

Cancer 88

Posted on November 21, 2023     Leave a Comment

It is approaching the end of the day in the Chemo ward. It was very busy earlier but people are disappearing and it is starting to feel like closing time in a deserted pub – not that I really remember what that is like. It is getting on for four years since I have experienced a late night in a pub. How times change. I am on the last half hour of the third intravenous drug. They were delivered late again today. I am not convinced by the effectiveness of the pharmacy in this hospital. The same thing happened last time.

I have written a little of my novel today, the first time for a few weeks. I feel I know where it is going so I hope to write a little every day. I got through the battle of Hopton Heath, where the royalist Earl of Northampton was killed. Surprisingly, the hero of the book, Jake, was involved in that. I am not convinced that his relationship with Alice is going too well. We will see about that.

I rewatched All Quiet on the Western Front the other night when I couldn’t sleep. It is one of the many disappointing films of recent years. On second watching it remained disappointing. First, it is not All Quiet on the Western Front. The plot bears little relation to the book. I know variation is normal, but this has no similarities apart from the names of a few characters. Second, there is a scene where the Germans have attacked the French trenches and are themselves attacked by French tanks coming from the German trenches! Does the director think people are stupid? It is obvious they come from the German lines because the Germans use the firesteps in the French trench to fire on them. Third, why would Kat walk several hundred metres to go for a waz? He is a soldier and a bloke, he would just piss in the field. I won’t go on. It goes into the same category as 1917 and Dunkirk, dire films from start to finish.

Anyway, being sleepless at night does provide opportunities to watch films, but I should make better choices. Anyway, books provide better visuals. I hope my novel does once it is finished – except for the sex scenes of course.

Ten minutes later. Wow! A man came and sat next to me. I heard his name, looked at him, and asked if he worked at H Hunt & Sons. He did. He was my foreman in the distant days of being a bricklayer. I last saw him in 1981 but he still looked the same, if a little older. What a strange world. He told me the boss only died last year. I thought he was old when I worked there. We had a bit of a chat, reflecting on the decades and current life.

It is an interesting world. I think I will stay around a little longer.

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