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.
Cance 122
Posted on May 17, 2024 Leave a Comment
It hasn’t been a good day, either practically or psychologically. In practical terms, we were off to see the kids and only got as far as Birmingham before we had to turn back due to car trouble. My first new car. I thought they were supposed to be reliable. It seems overcomplicated to me. Perhaps I should go back to having a Morris Minor or an old Land Rover, vehicles that can be cared for with a lump hammer and an adjustable spanner, rather than these new-fangled electronic devices.
It upset me because I was looking forward to seeing the kids, and also because it was going to be our last break before I get my Hickman Line fitted, the line that if it works is likely to remain sticking out of my chest until the end of treatment, until the treatment no longer works and all I have left is deterioration and death. Don’t ask why this upset me, why it should matter that I have a last break without looking like a defective android. Still, it isn’t to be.
After a pointless 120 mile trip I started fretting about the Hickman line, whether it will work or go the way of the last three PICC lines. I then started fretting about whether I really want to go on with treatment. It is such a hassle. I have enjoyed the last few weeks without being pulled, prodded and poisoned. I have almost felt normal. I have not taken any voluntary drugs (eg for pain, diarrhoea, constipation, skin, gout), not even any antibiotics (that is rare); and I have more or less stopped applying the various creams to my arms, as they seem to have more or less recovered from the PICC infections. It has been great. The only problems have been the usual stoma and hernia problems.
Do I really want to go back to the never-ending regime of chemotherapy and its adjuncts?
Later this afternoon it became more real. I was woken by the phone ringing (I was up five hours last night because I couldn’t sleep). It was the hospital, setting the appointment for the fitting of the Hickman Line, Friday 31 May. The day before I will be providing blood for testing – and so it starts again.
Do I really want to bother. I am in one of those Orwellian situations where I can hold two views at the same time. I want the treatment because it is likely to give me more time before the inevitably snuffing of the light. I don’t want the treatment because I am sick of going to the hospital, being filled with poisons, being tired, being in pain, and being cheerful so everyone thinks I am all right (which I am a lot of the time – but am I just saying that?).
I have said that I want to achieve more, that I want to finish my novel (novels actually) and my book about Wingfield Manor. On the other hand I am finding it difficult to work, difficult to write. I did restart the novel yesterday but I have done nothing today. I sit and read or do online jigsaws. If my remaining life is going to be worth anything I wonder whether online jigsaws are enough, or whether I can get back to proper writing.
There, that feels better. Do as I say, not as I do, and writing about one’s woes is very useful. I feel better now than I did ten minutes ago! Perhaps the remaining part of the day will be better.
Dr Nigel Hunt 