Cancer 87
Posted on November 18, 2023 Leave a Comment
Until yesterday I thought I was heading to my 12th amd final chemotherapy before my Christmas break, but apparently there is time to fit in a 13th before we go away. Fortunately I am not superstitious.
My treatment still appears to be going well. I am a model patient. My latest blood tests are boring and normal. My side effects are relatively insignificant. In a couple of weeks I have a CT scan to see whether my growths are growing or not. All being well I take my 6 week break, leave the country for the first time since last Christmas, and probably return to more of the same treatment in January.
At least I will have my PICC line removed for a few weeks. It does get to be a bit of a drag, having a line 50cm into a vein with several cm sticking out connected to a plug and covered with a stretch bandage for 6 months.
I am hoping the break will have a positive effect, draining out all the poisons, the drugs, and whatever other gunk is in there, without allowing the cancer to grow.
Unfortunately, when we go away, I still have to take my pharmacy and my stoma kit. It is a good job we have a large car.
How do I feel about getting away? Very good, thank you. I’ll send you a postcard.
Cancer 86
Posted on November 10, 2023 Leave a Comment
I learned fairly early on in my adult life that it is best to not have any regrets about what I had done, the choices I made, and so on. It has worked well for me over the years, and I believe has contributed to my generally positive outlook on life. Regrets mess up people’s lives.
There have been many occasions where I could have experienced regret, from large life-changing events to the minor everyday things that affect us all. Some have been under my control, others haven’t. A good example of the former is being born a little late and being sent to a comprehensive school. I did well at primary school. I was in the top class, sitting on the top table with the others who liked to race through the maths exercise books. I enjoyed it, but then I was sent to a school which had been a grammar school. It was set around an old hall, with massive grounds, with endless sports fields. Unfortunately, it had been turned into a comprehensive school a few years earlier and was full of frustrated grammar school teachers, dusty untouched Latin books on high shelves, and pupils with a very wide range of abilities and behaviours. It didn’t take long for me to slip down the academic rankings, and leave school with two O levels (Meths and English language, both C grades).
I detest the comprehensive system. Putting people of all abilities and interests into the same classroom is a disaster. The tripartite system in place (supposedly in place, where were the technical schools?) before then was ideal, but it was better than what followed. It makes sense to put the academically bright kids together in grammar schools. It makes sense to put the technologically minded kids in a technical school. These are very separate groups, and – not wanting to be controversial of course – there will be more girls in the former and more boys in the latter. The real problem with the tripartite system was the secondary moderns. These often ended up being sink schools which did little good for education or preparing people for adulthood. If we did reintroduce a selective system then we need to recognise that many people should be leaving school much earlier, starting apprenticeships and training, going to college on day release where necessary, and getting on with their lives. Many people are not interested in reading for pleasure or have a need for complex mathematics. Let them get on with working and earning money. One of the problems with the system was transferring from one type of school to another. People mature at different ages (not to be controversial but girls are usually years ahead of boys), so it should not be fixed that the selection at 11 years is final.
Sorry, getting distracted. What I meant to say is that I have no regrets about going to a comprehensive school, though I can be angry about it. The anger is not about me, it is about the crap system. I ended up leaving at 16 and getting a job as an apprentice bricklayer. It was just a job so I could earn money to go to gigs and pubs – underage drinking was normal then. Nobody asked for ID, and if the landlord knew you someone else would buy the drinks. My Dad was a joiner so I understood something of the building trade. When I was sent to college I ended up helping other apprentices with their academic work, as many of them struggled with basic maths, etc. The teachers realised I was brighter than most and suggested further study to improve. my prospects.
I eventually realised bricklaying was not for me, walked off-site, and decided to do a PhD in psychology. The choice was only because I had just read some psychology books. If I had just been reading physics books I would probably have studied physics. There is another potential regret. I think I would have enjoyed being a physicist, but I don’t regret my choice. It took a while to get the PhD, with all sorts of things happening before I completed the PhD, including having a child, writing my first book, and becoming a Class One HGV driver, something I had always wanted to do. While I might write more about pleasure in another blog, there is no greater pleasure than driving a big artic around a town, dominating the road, and doing complex and difficult manoeuvres.
I have enjoyed my time as a psychologist. I enjoyed the learning, and I have enjoyed the teaching and research. I have learned a lot from my lecturers, and even more from my students, who have come from all over the world and taught me about people. I have been privileged to travel to interesting places around the world. How could I regret this kind of life?
Perhaps the biggest non-regret, at least to date, is getting heart disease and – particularly – cancer. I will never know the causes of these problems. I suspect lifestyle has something to do with it, though a couple of family members died young from cancer. I learned to drink beer as a bricklayer, it washes the dust away you know. I forgot to unlearn it when I left the building trade. If the cause of my impending demise is lifestyle I don’t regret it because I have enjoyed myself.
I do feel regret is a negative human trait. People who regret things in their lives sometimes focus on what might have been, and end up unhappy. Well, it didn’t happen, so leave it behind. Your life is as it is, not as it might have been. If you want to achieve something, stop moping and get on with it if it is something that is possible. If not, find something else. Memories are there to be enjoyed and learned from. They are the past. Live for the present and the future. I still do, even though my future is curtailed. I try to carry on and do the things I want to do At some point they will stop, but they stop for everyone. I am not going to waste my time regretting the past when I still have time to live for now and the future. If you are living with regrets then get a grip, folks.
Cancer 85
Posted on November 7, 2023 3 Comments
I am undergoing my chemo treatment today. This is my 11th cycle of 12, and I am very much looking forward to a break. After the 12th cycle I will have my PICC line removed and will be free of treatment for 6 weeks, during which we will be heading to France for Xmas and the New Year.
I had a week’s delay on treatment this time due to having a bad cold. The problem with colds and chemo is that having a compromised immune system means that it is very difficult to shake off the cold, and there is a serious danger that it could turn into something more serious – and often more serious with chemo can mean death. Given that I have a weak chest anyway this can be a little risky for me. On the other hand, as I have only a limited time to live I have to die somehow and why not pneumonia rather than anything else?
I was looking again at the survival rates for people with my condition. While I have been told 50% chance of survival until early 2024 there are so many numbers floating around such as 50% chance of surviving for 9 months. I think I have already got that one sorted. The other interesting figure is 14% chance of surviving five years. Somebody has to be that one in seven. Why not me? My apologies for repeating things I have mentioned in other blogs but these things are important to me for some reason.
I also realise that I have been a little negative at times over the last month or so. This is presumably related to how I have been feeling, ie pretty shitty. I have decided that, given we know survival is related to positivity I need to be a little more positive about the situation.
Last week we got away twice. The first occasion was a day trip to Whitby, so I could get fish and chips and buy some of Fortune’s kippers, which are without doubt the best in the country. I had to drive 7.5 hours as the traffic was so bad. Given my condition, I did pretty well. We spent the weekend in the Lake District, trying a new place for afternoon tea, the Inn on the Lake (Ullswater), and another meal at Yan, Grasmere. All good. Unfortunately, we had to leave early as I had to start my chemo.
Given my recent media experience relating to the Welsh language, I have stopped putting my petty rages on Facebook. This is a little frustrating, as I have so many of them. I wondered about putting them here instead but that might get a little fraught, so we could talk about Israel/Palestine – or then again, perhaps not.
It is turning out to be a long day. My first drug was delayed for a couple of hours. Now I am waiting for the rest of the drugs, that haven’t turned up yet. This is turning out to be the day of the longest delays. No idea when I will get out of here.
OK, this is a bit boring – but it reflects how I feel so put up with it.
Cancer 84
Posted on October 28, 2023 Leave a Comment
My first real setback, other than side effects. My treatment has been delayed a week because I have a cough and a cold. I have bad it for weeks but last time I got away with it. This time shows the balance between receiving treatment that might help woth the cancer and not receiving treatment when unwell because the treatment might make me susceptible to becoming very unwell – or dead.
The choice is not pleasant; either keep the cancer at bay with treatment or let it grow and kill me instead of dying of some other problem such as pneumonia or the common cold. I am in one of those situations where there is either a bad option or a bad option. There are swearwords that describe the situation perfectly.
But I am an optimist, aren’t I? Aren’t I? It is times like these where my optimism comfort blanket starts to get frayed at the edges. It doesn’t help that I feel terrible, I have unpleasant abdominal pains that my mind interprets badly, my stoma is discharging diarrhoea for too long, extreme tiredness, this rash that now seems to be under control, and to top it all I have gout – which means two more drugs on top of the usual suspects. Along with painkillers for the abdomen, which hurts when I cough, and because I have a cough (which has, I remind you, delayed my treatment) I experience more pain than normal, if there is a normal any more. Fortunately I have a high pain threshold.
In a way I am glad to have an extra week off chemo. I hope it will enable my body to settle a little, recover a little – as long as it doesn’t interfere with getting away at Christmas.
I hope you are not feeling sorry for me. Fornthe last few month I have been going through a profound experience that that has been cognitively, emotionally, behaviourally and philosphically interesting. It is far more interesting than when I just had heart failure, which has nothing on the mental and physical challenge of cancer, especially as the cancer will kill me sooner or later.
It is an exciting road down which I am travelling. It is a privilege to have survived so far, and I am lucky to have had my fundamental principles and beliefs challenged yet remain intact.
Cancer 83
Posted on October 23, 2023 Leave a Comment
I know people like to say that I am ‘living with cancer’, but I do prefer the practical ‘dying of cancer’. I don’t know how long I have, but the cancer isn’t going away and I certainly will die of it, unless I get hit by a bus, but that is unlikely as I try to avoid public transport.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a challenge. After 7 rounds of chemotherapy I was happy that I had been dealing with it well, and my only side effects were tiredness and a little diarrhoea. No problem. Then I was hit with the all over head rash, and the first threat that I wouldn’t receive my next treatment. I got over that, the rash is now minimal and I am on antibiotics to help it. I have been on antibiotics for nearly three weeks. I am not used to having antibiotics for so long, but I suppose it doesn’t matter what I am given now as long as it might help a little. Last week at treatment I had a bit of a sore throat and they noticed a cough, so they made me have a Covid test – my second ever, and I really do not like sticks being shoved up my nose. It was negative but I have had a bit of an infection ever since, and felt quite down.
I was rough with the infection two days ago and started to feel about death (feel, not think). It felt surprisingly all right. I had positive feelings about slipping slowly down to death. It wasn’t sad, it wasn’t despair, it wasn’t depressing. It just felt like it was meant to be. Today though, I feel a little better. I still have the infection, I am still moving only slowly and not managing to do much (though I smoked a side of salmon yesterday), but I don’t quite have the urgency of the dying feeling.
I suspect my lack of despair regarding slipping towards death is related to my lack of fear of death. Death is nothing. I was not alive for billions of years (a terminology that means nothing) and I will not be alive for billions of years. So what? Will I miss anything? Of course not. I can only miss something if I am aware that I am not there, that something is happening that I am missing. How can I experience that when I am dead?
It always, though, comes back to the real fear, the fear of dying, the fear of pain, the fear that I will be missing something in the future. I worry that this fear of missing something may make me unhappy as while I am alive I still have a sense of the future. That brings me back to this feeling of slipping away that was happening. If feeling this overrides the fear of dying, the fear of missing something, then surely it is a good thing, a way to have a good death?
But perhaps not yet.
Dr Nigel Hunt 