Cancer 47
Posted on June 3, 2023 Leave a Comment
We are on holiday in a lovely place, the island of Seil in western Scotland. It is an area where even I, a sea hater (it smells, it is wobbly, it is flat, it makes me seasick, it drowns people, it is full of fish piss, it is noisy), like the sea here, as it is usually enclosed by views of islands rather than the flat featureless and dangerous place it usually is. The weather is wonderful, bright sunshine, long days; there are midges but they are not causing too many problems.
Inevitably, as this is our last holiday before my chemo starts, there are reminders regarding how well I am not. Last night was the most spectacular stoma explosion yet. I will spare you the details but remember those images of the emergence of Surtsey from the Atlantic in the 1970s, with lava flying around? I have eaten too many meals, large meals, in the last few days. It is difficult when staying in hotels, as it is compulsory to have the fried breakfast, and then a three course evening meal. I have learned to avoid eating too much in the day but it is not enough. Now we are at the holiday cottage it should be easier. I am cutting down on my intake. Last night we shared a single chicken breast last night (with haggis of course). No pudding. No first course. Give the stoma a chance to settle.
As I live now it is often the small things that cause a twinge of hurt. One of the essentially meaningless things we do when we are on holiday in a nice place is to imagine living there. We pick the house we want, and just generally chatter about it. Don’t all couples have their own sense of meaningless meaning? We were doing this yesterday and it gave me that twinge of hurt. While our past conversations were not particularly serious, they did have an underlying element that if we suddenly came into money (eg one of my books turned into a best seller), perhaps we could retire and move to one of these places, whether it was France, Spain, Scotland, the Lake District, Ireland, etc. There was a sense of possibility, however remote. Now when we have a similar conversation there is no chance of such a move. Even if my newest book, Applied Narrative Psychology, which is due to be published in January 2024 for those of you desperate to buy a copy, sells a million we won’t be moving, even if I am still alive. As it is an academic book with a price of about a billion pounds even for the paperback I very much doubt it could become a best seller. That sense of no future is what gives the twinge of hurt. I can still talk about such things but there is something missing from inside me.
Back to reality. Today I feel the sun on my face, the birds are singing, earlier my bare feet wandered across the spongy dewy grass, I watched a deer pass through the garden, and I am looking at a very calm stretch of the Atlantic Ocean – really a narrow stretch of water separating the island from the mainland connected by the Bridge over the Atlantic a few hundred metres north of here. We only have three full days here before returning home so I can start my treatment. I must make the best of these days as there is a fair chance of this being my final holiday. Must? Nonsense. If I start thinking like that, like every day is my last good day then I may as well die now. I like sitting around doing nothing, essentially wasting my time, why should I start rushing around fulfilling that non-existent bucket list just because I have cancer?
Even if this is not my last holiday, in the future (such as it is) I will inevitably think each holiday is my last, so why am I wasting my time writing this bloody blog? I am off to read a book.
Cancer 46
Posted on June 1, 2023 Leave a Comment
Someone suggested my last blog was too long, so in a spirit of appeasement I have decided to do a shorter one.
Cancer 45
Posted on May 31, 2023 1 Comment
Instead of talking about cancer all the time I am going to focus this blog on my current holiday; basically, what I did on my holidays. I am 8 years old again, writing for my primary school teacher. It is going to be very current. I am currently sitting at a table looking out over Loch Melfort. It is a sea loch, which is terribly dangerous because if you go on it you will be washed out to sea and drown. Fortunately there are islands in view so I don’t have to look at the open sea, the type of view that I like. The open sea is depressing. It is bright sunny weather. Other people are sitting out in the sun but I can no longer do so comfortably.
As I am in the (hopefully long) process of dying I might start putting down a few of my views while writing about my holidays. I couldn’t care less if any of them are controversial. It doesn’t matter any more. I even got into trouble recently on Facebook for suggesting that tattoos are ugly and that they ruin beautiful skin. I ended up with around 400 likes and around 800 comments, usually negative, often about my name, which is weird because I have heard every criticism of my name so many times it is just boring (take 5 minutes. How many insults can you derive from ‘Nigel’ and ‘Hunt’? It is an easy win).
Yesterday we drove up the A1M. It was cloudy and looked like rain. We stopped at Barnard Castle for tea an cake and a wander around the castle with no visual jokes. We crossed the Pennines on the A66 and immediately it was sunny and warm. I am saying nothing about the advantages of the west over the east. To the west we stopped at Penrith, where I ate pie, peas and gravy, something at its best west of the Pennines, in Lancashire and Cumbria. I also found a good book on Marx. In our increasingly individualistic society where everyone gets upset by the views of everyone else and anyone can be anything we need a good dose of neo-Marxism to reignite the socialist cause. I worry about the Me2s (is that an early Messerschmidt?), the woke, BLM, the outspoken representatives of various minority groups acting in an ever more fascistic manner, refusing to allow people to have diverging views, calling simple opinions hate speech and arguing that everyone (except straight white males) should be represented everywhere. My current favourite is the absurd idea that a man can become a woman. That is nonsensical. It is not possible to reverse biology that has been in place since conception. If a man wants to dress as a woman and act as a woman then good for him. We live in a free society, but please do not argue that he is actually a woman. It makes little difference if there has been surgery. Removing a penis and testicles and somehow creating a hole where the vagina is in a woman is not turning a man into a woman. And don’t get me on to the way some children are treated. It is quite normal for an adolescents to question their sexuality. It should be a crime to use drugs to alter puberty. No to men in women’s toilets and no to men competing in women’s sports. The term transwoman is OK, except I have to think twice re whether this is a man claiming to be a woman or a woman claiming to be a man. How about transvestite? Why can’t we just stop talking about it and let people live as they wish as long as they are not hurting others – and by that I mean really hurting, not saying things that some people are offended by. We have forgotten that sticks and stones may break my bones but calling doesn’t hurt me. Hitler was offensive; J.K. Rowling is not.
We need to treat people equally in the sense that there should be equlity of opportunity, not that we are all the same nor that we can all do anything if we put our mind to it. Some people are brighter, people have different talents, we look different, we have different states of health, etc. People should not be at a disadvantage because they are a particular sex, race or disability, etc, but there are limits. I understand that, as a disabled person, I will in law get privileges if I apply for certain jobs. This too is absurd. I am weak and dying. What use am I going to be over the long or even the medium term for any employer? A ramp up some steps will help people confined to a wheelchair and enable them to do their job more effectively. There is nothing anyone can do to make my disability disappear or to make me ‘equal’ to other employees. We need to get a better sense of reality regarding who can be helped and who can’t.
Last night, the first night of the holidays, we stayed in a Scottish hotel. Many Scottish hotels look like they are from the 1970s. This is also true of Northern Ireland and Wales. This is not a criticism. I like it. Everything is neat and tidy. Is it something to do with being Celtic (I have questions about the legitimacy of the concept of ‘Celt’ but I will leave that for now)? Or perhaps it is the Presbetarian mentality. But while the hotels can look dated the food can be amazing. Last night I had haggis spring roll with a peppercorn sauce dip as a starter. It was superb. The wife had chicken with haggis. Superb.
The village we stayed in was the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle, essayist, novelist, etc. I tried to read his work on the French Revolution but failed to complete it, but that was years ago. Perhaps I should try it again re my focus on long books. Carlyle suggested that the main rule of all life is that life is ruled by inequality. Find the best man and let him rule the country. This should not be an hereditary title, but someone chosen by a group of learned people. Forget democracy, most people are not fit to vote, as we found with Brexit. Carlyle talked a lot of heroes and introduced the term captains of industry, suggesting that positive developments in history occur because of the actions of great men. Carlyle is rather unpopular at the moment, but given the state of democratic society perhaps he has a point, but who decides who selects the leader of the country? It can’t be worse than the current method, where the ‘democratic’ focus appears to be on the incompetent, the insane, the crippled (yes I can use that term because I am crippled), and so on.
Carlyle is buried in the village churchyard, as is Napoleon’s last doctor on St Helena.
I am trying to improve my diet as my chemotherapy starts soon and I ought to give myself at least a chance. The problem is, the barn door is open and some might suggest it is a little late. Anyway, I have resolved to eat more fish and chicken, and less red meat and processed meat. So for breakfast this morning I included the tomatoes that I usually reject in my fry-up. Apparently tomatoes are good for you in a fried breakfast. I particularly enjoyed the haggis, bacon and sausage. For lunch we went to the Loch Fyne restaurant – the real one, on Loch Fyne, where I had haddock chowder. It had bits of bacon in it and I couldn’t find any haddock but I meant well. Tonight we are on the shores of Loch Melfort, I have looked at the menu and will do my damnedest to have fish for at least one course, but there is venison.
When we set out yesterday we had a little disagreement where it was suggested that I was a little strong in my views on the incompetence of people who regularly reverse out of driveways. I said that this was in the Highway Code but I couldn’t remember exactly where. Later I looked it up. Rule 201 states ‘Do not reverse into a main road from a side road. When using a driveway reverse in and pull out if you can.’ The last phrase is not there to give people an excuse. It is there because there are always exceptions to rules. My view may have been strong, but it was right. If you are guilty of this then please stop it right now. I might become the next Carlyle-style ruler. I think I am the right sort of person.
Cancer 44
Posted on May 25, 2023 Leave a Comment
I got angry today and swore at someone on the telephone. I don’t regret it. He really got to me. I do not normally experience high levels of stress. Having cancer is sometimes stressful of course but usually I manage perfectly well. It is the smaller troubles that sometimes get to me, like people who pull in to parking spaces instead of reversing, or the smell of coffee at breakfast or those ridiculous extending leads that people who shouldn’t have dogs because they haven’t trained them use with their untrained dogs.
As I have said before, my treatment starts soon, but there is a period we can go on holiday before it starts so we are trying to sort out where to go. One of the limiting factors regarding travel is my stoma. I need sufficient supplies to keep me going while I am away. As a relative beginner with a stoma I am frightened of running out of bags. It would not be a pretty sight, an unprotected stoma just below my left ribs oozing shit at unpredictable intervals like an untrained geyser. It would make a mess of my clothing, might look unsightly in a nice restaurant and as for going swimming…?
I use around 3 bags a day. We are hoping to go away for about 10 days from Tuesday, and I do not have enough bags for the full period. I put in an order on 22 May for new supplies (or my stoma nurse did). I saw the GP had authorised the prescription on 23 May, so I assumed I would receive everything. I received everything except the bags (waste bags, anti-stick spray, dry wipes, and so on). Having not received the bags I contacted the company supplying them and it turnes out the GP authorised 10 bags instead of 10 boxes of (10) bags. A simple error, but the company neither informed me nor the GP that there was a problem. Today on the telephone to the company I tried to sort things out, but it was not to be. After going backwards and forward, with the result that the phone person left me permanently on hold (I put the phone down after 15 minutes of that) I tried the text thingy and the text person suggested that a) I contact my GP about the problem and b) that I get stoma bags from my local hospital, I was fuming. This should not be my problem. At the same time the wife phoned the GP who promised they would send the right prescription to the company today so the bags would arrive before we go away.
As the wife suggested, at one point I unsuccessfully used the argument that people are not rationed in their use of toilet paper so why was I rationed in the use of stoma bags? I could cobble the other components together to manage the stoma but not the bags themselves, which adhere to the skin surrounding the stoma forming an excellent seal so that there is no smell and no leakage. If I could predict when the stoma was going to erupt I could manage with tissues in some way, but it is not predictable. It usually goes off in the early hours, but also intermittently during the day. I have no control as there is no sphincter. It is the same for wind. It just goes off. Others can hear it because it can sound like a real fart, though there is no smell because there is a charcoal filter. The best bit is when I leave the stoma bag off for time to let the skin breathe. I always have a tissue to hand for when it activates. And it does. Especially in the early hours. I know you love to hear about this fascinating subject. Sitting there with a tissue does have similarities to the good old days when I used a toilet, sitting there in private reading a book or looking at my phone. Now I sit on a settee holding a tissue and looking at my phone.
I digress. My very high stress levels from the telephone call and the very poor responses I was receiving (the person often left long gaps because they didn’t know how to answer. Very rude – which is why I don’t regret using a swear word) were dissipated immediately on telephoning my stoma nurse who immediately sorted things out by saying she will bring me some bags tomorrow. Problem solved again by the wonderful staff at Derby hospital!
Cancer 43
Posted on May 24, 2023 Leave a Comment
0830
Another day at the hospital. If anyone needa directions to any part of this place I can probably give them in detail. Today I meet the nurse who will be administering my chemo. But that is for later. Right now I am sitting in Clinical Measurements waiting an indeterminate time for my 12 line ECG. Fortunately I have my Kindle with me as I suspect there will be a lit of waiting today. I am rereading the wartime trilogy with Guy Crouchback as the hero. Your quiz question for the day is what is the title of the trilogy?
To the book.
0850
Well that was quick. In, tabs and wires fastened, ECGed and out. I now have over two hours until my appointment. What to do when stuck in a hospital? I could write a very long blog but I don’t want to bore people too much. There is nowhere round here suitable for walking. I have my detachable keyboard which connects to my phone so I might try and work on something. Catch up later.
0945
I just went for a walk. I left the hspital, crossed the busy road and walked among the houses of the new estate. Pretty good for new houses. I then went to Aldi, bought some chicken slices and raspberries to eat while waiting (I only report the reasonably healthy stuff). Now I am sitting in the 5th floor restaurant with a placcy cup of tea looking at the ghastly view over the city. There is a hint of a hill in the distance. I wish I was there.
1400
A good long chat with the nurse responsible for my treatment. I hqve a better idea now of the future pattern of my life. The first treatment starts on 12 June. I go to the hospital to be hooked up to a picc line the day before (a line through my vein from upper arm to near the heart), and then the various drugs are administered both on 12 June in the hospital (about 4 hours sitting in a chair with a drip attached), and then going home with another drip attached for 48 hours, ie 3 days out of action. Hopefully the next six days are ok, unless I have side effects, then I need blood tests to see if I am functioning properly, and then the next treatment starts 14 days after the first. The are 6 treatments in a cycle after which I will be scanned to see if it is workibg. If so I immediately move into the next cycle. One that is complete and is still working I might take a break from treatment and we can spend a couple of months in Spain. I can’t go abroad to Europe while undergoing treatment partly because we now don’t have the reciprocal health agreements because of fucking bastard cunting Brexit and all who sail in her. These Brexit benefits never stop, do they?
After the talk with the nurse I waited nearly an hour for my blood test and finally got away from the hospital around 1330.
Dr Nigel Hunt 