Cancer 42
Posted on May 23, 2023 Leave a Comment
Having a sort of end date to my life changes the way I think about things. When we don’t have such an end date we can put things off until later. We can say, ‘Yes, I would love to go there, but not yet, I have other important things to do’. I no longer have that luxury because I will be dead before long. Today we went to Leek, not a place we go to regularly, and I wondered en route if it was the last time I would ever go there (not that I would be bothered). We passed the sign for Stoke, a city I have never been to, just passed through, and realised that I probably never will go there (not that I am bothered). It makes me wonder about the things I have done and the things I have not done, and the limited time I have to do things.
People often have a bucket list (not sure why it is called a bucket list, the buckets I have carried have usually had gobbo – mortar to the uninitiated- concrete, soil or water in them). They say they want to do such and such, reeling off a long list of to dos before they die. I am not like that. I have nothing that I really want to do before I die; I believe I think this because if I had such a list and didn’t achieve everything I might die unfulfilled, frustrated and unhappy. Not a way to go.
What I do think is that if we say, ‘let’s do such and such’ then we should get on with it. I have tended to think I would like to go somewhere at some point and then never get round to it. I am trying to change that so that if I decide I want something then I will get it now. I am not very good at this, it is difficult to change the habits of a lifetime, and there is not a lot I really want.
These bucket lists usually contain things such as: visit the Taj Mahal, climb Ben Nevis, visit the Giant’s Causeway (don’t bother, it is a pithering little thing. I was so disappointed), go to Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower, visit Morocco, climb Ayers’ Rock, wear a grass skirt in Tahiti – I don’t know, all sorts of things anyway. I have been wondering what I could put on my bucket list:
- See family
- keep driving and walking around the Peak District
- Holiday in Scotland/Ireland/Northumberland/France/Germany/Spain
- Write my campus novel (35,000 words in)
- See the publication of my book, Applied Narrative Psychology (Cambridge)
- Write my English Civil War novel (OK, 100,000 word draft, but words a little out of order)
- Write my Wingfield Manor social history book
- Write my Vauban book
- Read all the books on my list (not possible, too long, keeps getting longer, will everyone stop writing books?)
- etc
If I had this (and the rest I can’t be bothered to think about at the moment) as a bucket list and I didn’t get it finished then I would, not die disappointed because I would be dead so couldn’t be disappointed, but know I am near death disappointed. That is not for me. Forget the above. What happens, happens. To be honest I can’t see the Vauban book coming out. Anyone else want to write it?
The other kind of bucket item people have is that they have not been to certain places, and they must, simply must, get there before they die (the places I mentioned above I have been to before). I have been to some places, and I have not been to others. So what? I might have liked to go to certain countries that I will never get to now (such as New Zealand or Kazakhstan), and I have never wanted to go to other places (such as Japan or Congo). I have liked most of the countries I have been (Ukraine, Russia, Iran, USA, Spain, Bosnia, India, Chile, etc – actually this would be a long list), and I have not liked others (China, Italy – sorry, both massive over-generalisations, I have liked elements of both, though I think the food in Italy is the worst in Europe). In the end it doesn’t matter. If I had never left Derbyshire it wouldn’t matter. If I had been to every country on Earth it wouldn’t matter.
I see little point in regret or disappointment regarding what I have seen and done or not seen or done. I can list things I have never done and it does not make me feel regret. I have never:
- Been to any Disneyland/world
- Visited Egypt
- Climbed Ben Nevis
- Owned a mansion
- Been to a horse race
- Been to a Premiership football match
- Read any Jane Austen (I’m proud of that one)
- Been to a West End show
- Been in a betting shop except to once pick up a friend
- Stabbed anyone
- Run a 4 minute mile
- Been to Newcastle
- Owned a Playstaion, Wii or X-Box (or whatever they are. My limit is Doom 1)
- Known how to use a washing machine properly
- Been on a ride at Alton Towers
And I am not bothered if I never do them.
Je ne regret rien.
Cancer 41
Posted on May 22, 2023 Leave a Comment
I have had my first oncology appointment. The consultant was very pleasant, appears knowledgeable, and answered such questions as I had. I need some further tests, particularly in relation to my dodgy heart, but I hope to start chemo treatment very soon. I had hoped they might say I can take a pilll every week and there will be no side effects, but unfortunately that is not the case. I will be on a fortnightly cycle. I will have a line in position throughout my treatment (which may last for life) which goes from my upper arm to just above my heart. On Day 1 I will be in hospital on a drip through this line. Days 2 and 3 I will be at home still being fed through the line. There are variousside effects that I may or may not experience, the worst probably being diarrhoea, which can be problematic with a stoma. Imagine having diarrhoea into a small bag that needs to be carefully detached every hour without spillage and another bag put in place quickly so that there aren’t further uncontrollable leakages (no sphincter for a stoma!). Fortunately diarrhoea treatment is available.
One of my worries was that more tumours may have grown since I was last scanned just after my operation. Fortunately the treatment for such growths is the same chemo I will be receiving anyway, so yah boo to current lumps.
If the first treatment doesn’t work there are other options.
My next appointment is Wednesday, when I will have my heart checked, my bloods taken, and I will meet the nurse who will administer the treatment. Hopefully I will also get a scan.
If the treatment does work the median survival time is 24-30 months, which means 50% of people die within a couple of years. As an optimist it means that 50% of people are still alive after a couple of years. I intend to be and to stay positive as much as possible. It does mean I am unlikely to be around for more than one more general election and I am extremely unlikely to see the UK rejoin the EU, but I can hope for the future of other people.
Cancer 40
Posted on May 21, 2023 Leave a Comment
It is the big day tomorrow. My first oncology appointment. It is hard to know what to think, and my feelings are contradictory. For all my attempts at rationalising the experience of dying of cancer I feel at times that my resilience is being battered and is in danger of breaking.
While I have no idea what will be said or discussed at the meeting tomorrow, I do run possibilities through my mind because my brain gives me no choice. I look at the worst case scenario; “The cancer is so advanced you have days/weeks to live,” and I look at the best case scenario, “We have very efffective treatments for this form of cancer which means you can live a nearly complete life for years to come.” I suspect the reality will be somewhere in between the two, though there is another worst case scenario, “You have a significant growth but another operation can deal with this.” I don’t want another operation. The last one nearly killed me. The problem is, if it is suggested that either I have the operation with a significant chance of a prolonged life versus no operation and death within weeks I think I am daft enough to choose the operation, even though the effects of the last operation are still to the forefront of memory.
I can feel all sorts in my abdomen, but I have no idea whether I am feeling cancerous tumours, the after-effects of the operation (abdominal muscle still recovering), the impact of a bad diet (I have eaten most of a bacon joint over the weekend and cake), the novelty of the stoma (you don’t need details), or just an over-active neurotic imagination creating pain and unease where there does not need to be pain and unease.
I still have no fear of death, only of dying. The difference between when I was still seriously ill from the operation and now is that I can more clearly see the things I would like to do while I am alive. I realise that once I am dead this will be irrelevant but I am not dead yet.
Orwell was right when he discussed doublethink. I would like to extend this to doublefeel. It is quite amazing how two or more entirely contradictory thoughts or feelings can be happening in my head simultaneously. I have experienced this before under normal circumstances, but the intensity when it is life or death is quite brilliant. It is the supernova of the brain world. At the same time I am optimistic and pessimistic. I am sad and happy. I am looking forward and I am looking back. I am planning my next book and I am planning my funeral.
In the end, there is little point in me fretting about tomorrow, but that is what we do isn’t it? Something important is happening so it tends to focus the mind, sometimes constructively, often not. The best thing I can do today is to get outside and enjoy the sunny weather. Perhaps go for a short walk (there are no longer ones), eat some nice food (or any food – that has always been part of the problem), go for a drive, read a book while sitting in the garden, or whatever I want.
Margaret Mitchell, said that ‘Gone with the Wind’ was about survival, about how some people can live through catastrophe. She asked what it was that enabled some people to survive terrible circumstances and others didn’t. She said that survivors would call the ability to survive ‘gumption’ and that her book was about those who had gumption and those who didn’t. I believe I have gumption, even though my thoughts and feelings are all over the place at the moment.
Here’s to gumption! I hope it survives in me after tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.
Cancer 39
Posted on May 13, 2023 Leave a Comment
We are away for a week, partly to see how I get on, partly because as soon as we get back I have my first oncology appointment which is inevitably going to be life changing, whatever they say, and partly because we really need to get away.
I have mentioned before this phoney war stage, between the declaration of war – the diagnosis of cancer and the operation – and the main invasion (blitzkrieg? We will see. If so I hope for a Guderian) that is the oncologist’s role. This week may be my best for some time (forever?) because it is the furthest week from the operation and the closest point to meeting the oncologist. It didn’t start too well. I am not supposed to lift and carry things due to the weakness of my abdominal muscles which have been chopped through in various places and are also the holders of the cancer nodules. I thought I would be OK washing up. Nope. Afterwards I had an aching left abdomen and felt that I could be on the way to a hernia (as I have been warned about). I had to stand by while the car was loaded by the wife – guilt, pride, loss of masculinity? I did drive up here to the Yorkshire Dales but I was worn out by the time we arrived, and then guess who had to unload while I just sat there like the useless disabled person I am? And please don’t say anything about equality. Men are physically stronger and should do the loading and unloading.
I do flick around different moods. I am less optimistic than I was several weeks ago. I am a fraction of my previous self, I cannot walk as far as I could a couple of weeks ago, I can’t move as easily, I tire quickly, so I worry that my final decline is setting in.
On the positive side, I am returning at least in part to my previous verbal diarrhoea when with other people, but that is when I am sitting around and not trying to do anything physical.
I am confused.
I am becoming more particular in my reading habits. I only want to read good books, because there is a sense of limited time. If I start reading something and don’t appreciate it in some way I drop it and start something else. I am reading more longer books, which is perhaps an implicit thought that I can’t die without completing a book that I want to complete. I have just started Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia. I have enjoyed other Aldiss books, and I am around 100 pages (out of around 1200) into this one and enjoying it. I don’t know why, it has an element of fantasy which I generally abhor, but I quite like the idea of a civilization limited in length to the orbit of the planets, twin suns and a Great Year of three millenia. We will see.
I might need to go back to the Russian novelists who can be depended on for books of ridiculous length, partly because the characters have such long names. I have read War and Peace three times, the Brothers Karamazov twice, so that is enough of those. I might go back to Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate, a good reliable account of Russia in the Second World War (I have also read Stalingrad, the prequel, but it is a little pro-Stalin). I started re-reading Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward a few weeks ago while in hospital in a cancer ward, because I thought it was appropriate, but somehow it didn’t work. Perhaps the Gulag Archipelago? That should sort me out for another 10 years.
Aside from long Russian novels there are other possibilities such as Stephen King, who is vastly underrated by reading snobs. I have read most of his better known and some of his lesser known novels. He has a wonderful way of putting a little unnatural twist into real stories about realistic people. A great storyteller. The filmed versions of his books vary from incredibly awful (It) to utterly brilliant (The Shawshank redemption), but the books are better.
I might start on some of the classic novel sequences. I have read most of Zola’s Rougon Macquart series – thoroughly recommended for insights into scientific novel writing, and for life under Napoleon III. I discussed La Debacle in Landscapes of Trauma. The book described the Battle of Sedan, the Siege of Paris and the Commune. Great book. I cannot face Proust. I know that if I read the full sequence I will be guaranteed a long life, but I think it might be better to be dead. I got as far as the Madelaines. At least I think I did but I was utterly glazed over in despair. I refuse to try again. What about Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine? This is where I realise I am so ill read. I have never read a Balzac. Shame. There are so many good books to read in this world. Dumas? I have only read the Count of Monte Cristo. Another excellent (and long) book.
The title of this blog is Cancer 39, a reminder of John Buchan’s fast-paced pre-WWI novel. It is very short though.
What I am avoiding is the need to try and finish my own novel. It is a campus novel, focusing on the nonsense of academic life in the 21st Century (this is where I feel like Blackadder about to describe his own novel in comparison with Johnson’s dictionary). Perhaps I should spend more time on trying to get that finished rather than reading long books. I could then rewrite my Civil War novel….
Writing is a distraction. Even when I write about my feelings it distracts me from those feelings. Writing makes me think about how I feel and, as Jim Pennebaker and many others would argue, it makes me feel a little better.
Cancer 38
Posted on May 3, 2023 Leave a Comment
Well, there’s another achievement. Since I was sitting in the hospital ward I have wanted to get out and start running my life again. I am managing to write a bit and, as I said last time, work on my submitted manuscript, and we have been getting out for a drive and a bit of a walk. A couple of days ago I walked down by Cromford Canal – alone – just down by High Peak Junction, the aqueduct and Lea Woods. Yesterday we headed off for our first night away since all this began. We went to the Devonshire Fell Hotel in Burnsall. It was just for one night, to see how I got on. We need not have worried. I remembered the stoma kit, my heart drugs, the dressings for my wound (yes, it has not entirely cleared up), my spare drugs in case something hurts. All this alongside my books – I only took two, but came back with four, oh yes, and a change of clothes.
For those who haven’t been, the Devonshire Fell Hotel is one of the Duke of Devonshire’s hotels. While I object in principle to providing him with yet more money – it is akin to supporting Charles Windsor and his various moneymaking activities – principles sometimes need to go by the wayside when a nice hotel with good food is involved. Sorry. It is good for my recovery.
I had eaten a full bought meal before this trip, but not had a full breakfast. The meal was excellent. A starter of shepherd’s pies with home made brown sauce, followed by a main course of a duo of lamb (including lamb breast, the cheaper the cut the tastier the meat), with potatoes and vegetables. The only criticism was the gravy was too salty. I didn’t have a pudding. I am on a one man campaign against modern puddings. Can I say I find them too girly? Probably not, but I find them too girly. I want a proper sponge and custard, apple pie and custard, spotted dick and custard. You know the kind of thing, not lemon tart with curly bits of cream or Eton mess and such like. Puddings should have custard, and lots of it. I blame sticky toffee pudding for the decline in standards. It has stopped restaurants from producing any other sponge, and though I may be the only person in the country to feel this way I do not like sticky toffee pudding. It is too sticky, too toffee-ey and it doesn’t have enough (any) custard.
Anyway, all went well. I then managed to sleep pretty well, not properly waking up until 0300. I read for an hour, then found my stoma bag was full. I emptied it sitting on the toilet (ah, I remember those days), and then had a bath for another hour, reading my book, The Singapore Grip by J.G. Farrell, an excellent account – so far – of Singapore in the 1930s and 40s from the perspective of a rich merchant. I haven’t got to the point where Singapore falls to the Japanese but I expect it will be interesting. I have known people who were captured at Singapore in 1942 and they had a terrible time. The Japanese (can I say they were a cruel race? Probably not, but they certainly were then, and that was the view of many people for years after the war) treated the people terribly, murdering people irrespective of their nationality, treating everyone, whether they were Asians or Europeans, very badly indeed. The Chinese had been suffering under occupation for years by this time. They still haven’t forgiven them.
We went down for breakfast at 0800. I had cornflakes and milk, yoghurt, toast and marmalade and a full breakfast of egg, bacon, sausage, black pudding, beans, and hash brown, with additional sausage and black pudding from the other plate. It was almost like old times stealing from the other plate. I managed it perfectly well.
We then went to Bolton Abbey – I do like to see a ruined church, it signifies what I think of religion generally, though the reasons for the ruined monasteries are not the best – ‘I want a divorce.’ Really? We wandered around and I ate chocolate cake and ice cream at a cafe overlooking the Wharfe valley. Still no stoma problem. It wasn’t until we left that I learned Freddie Truman is buried at the abbey. I would have liked to see his grave.
On the way back we stopped at Salt Mill, Saltaire, Bradford. This very large 1853 mill, which closed decades ago has been done up and now hosts art galleries, shops, and cafes. The injection of cash into the area has helped regenerate the model village of Saltaire. The reopening of the railway station meaning that people can quickly commute to Leeds also helped. It does indicate that the injection of a bit of cash into a run down area can help with jobs, etc. Come on Government, why didn’t you think of that? For the arty people among you, the Mill is well worth a visit. It has a book shop with well chosen books. I had difficulty in the history section because it was so good, trying to choose between two 2022 books, one on The New Model Army and one on Stalin’s War. I chose the former, which will again sadden me when I think of the great opportunity we had in the 1650s to create the first modern republic. While at the mill I ate sausage and mash.
On the way home I had chocolate cake. When we reached home it was ham and cheese on toast. I await the stoma outcome. I assume it will be as normal and I will be awake and up sometime around 3-4am, but I will be prepared just in case.
This trip really felt like a bit of normality between having the operation and dealing with chemo, perhaps a short window of opportunity before I enter the next stage of this cancer experience.
The other book I bought was Workers in the Dawn by George Gissing.
Dr Nigel Hunt 