Cancer 69
Posted on August 2, 2023 Leave a Comment
It is 4am. Like most nights, I have been up for hours. Usually I just sit and read. I sometimes write, but it is often too much effort. Tonight I decided to watch a film. I watched Dunkirk, the 2017 version rather than the John Mills version from the 1960s. I have watched it once before. I thought it was dire then, I now think it is one of the worst war films I have ever seen.
For some reason Dunkirk gets good reviews. Some see it as one of the best war films ever. I really do not understand why. Fromm the very start it is apalling. There is enemy gunfire so a group of soldiers run up the middle of the road, throwing their rifles away. I know some soldiers threw their rifles away, but professional soldiers running up the midde of the road with no cover?
From there it just gets worse. None of it makes any sense. The limited dialogue is cliched. The mole is either empty or full of soldiers depending on whether Kenneth Brannagh is on it. A spitfire pilot carries on fighting and runs out of fuel rather than returns home. A small boat just sets off on its own rather than waiting for RN crew. The same boat returns to Dorset with a load of soldiers. Dorset? Is that across from Dunkirk? It didn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen. Apparently hundreds of other soldiers were also brought back to the same place, then entrained to Woking where Churchill has somehow already made his ‘beaches’ speech and it is printed in the newspaper. OK, that one might be possibl as it was made on 4th June, but we then hear Kenneth Brnnagh is staying behind to help the French, so the timing doesn’t work.
How does a fishing boat suddenly fill up with water from a few bullet holes? And why don’t the soldiers aboard, instead of panicking, just climb up the bleedingly obvious ladder and escape? Why are the beaches virtually empty of troops? Where is all the abandoned equipment? Why are the lights on in Dunkirk (no they are not all fires)? Why do the planes never get to Dunkirk? Why are the seas empty of ships? Why is one ship anchored seemingly miles out to sea? How can a Spitfire that is out of fuel glide apparently overnight, never leaving the beaches, and apparenty shooting down an enemy plane? There is a lot of disjointedness regarding time. It is daylight in France, night in the UK, etc. Also, token woman nurse in destroyer. Really?
I could go on but my point is made. Yes, there is artistic licence, but how can one writer/director, who should have continued with his silly Batman films, get so much so wrong and yet have audiences who somehow think it is acceptable to produce such utter nonsense?
I have read about Dunkirk, I have met and interviewed Dunkirk veterans. I wasn’t there. None of us know what it was really like, but we can be fairly sure that this awful film does not represent anything of the reality.
As for my cancer, I am four rounds in, still eating too much, having a couple of days in Shrewsbury (nice town), and still getting very tired.
Cancer 67
Posted on July 25, 2023 Leave a Comment
Some people have suggested that some of my blogs are a little explicit about what is going on with my cancer but I have always splurged when it comes to discussing thoughts and feelings. I may be a little open at times but I hope that helps people understand my experiences as a cancer patient. The stoma is a good example. The other day I had an ‘accident’. I was in Norfolk and had just sat down after ordering fish and chips (I am very careful with my diet, ensuring that my weight increases every time I attend for chemo) ewhen I sensed a smell. I checked and found that I had a leaking stoma. My first thought was that if my food was delivered while sorting this out then it would go cold. My second thought was that I need to sort this out urgently. Being a little more laid back than I was when I first got the stoma I had left my bits in the car. I had to go to the car, then to the toilet.
The problem arose because I was wearing my truss, which compresses my abdomen, but also compresses my stoma bag, and unless I constantly check how full it is I have no idea. Normally I surreptiously feel the bag to see how it is getting on. Yes, basically I fondle my own shit in a bag.
The truss had shit on it, and so did the inside of my shirt. I washed them out as well as I could, cleaned up and changed the stoma bag. I headed back to the cafe, got my meal from the counter where it had been kept warm, and ate it. It wasn’t the same though. I did not enjoy it as much as I should.
It is very unusual for the adhesion to fail. It has only happened three times since March. Given the pressure of the truss (shall we call it Liz?) and the strength of the adhesion, it just shows the power of the gut. I always thought the key action of moving food through the gut was peristalsis, but that is the action through the small intestine. Once it reaches the large intestine the contractions are called mass action contractions, and clearly there is no stopping them! They are supposed to happen between once and three times a day, often triggered by meals. I must remember to cut the number of times I eat, perhaps three times a day is sufficient. That might help with the ever-increasing number of kilograms indicated on the weighing machine here at the hospital every fortnight.
I still feel reasonably healthy. My side effects consist of a little diarrhoea, along with the wife suggesting I am a little more stylish and a little tidier than I was. People keep saying that I look healthier than I did when I was well, which I am not sure whether it is a compliment or an indication that I have spent most of my life looking pretty rough.
I know this thing is going to kill me, and I know I could drop any time from healthy to dead, but at the moment I am quite optimistic that I am going to last a good long time. I have ambitions. My NHS car is due in November, my book is out in January, and I don’t get my state pension for nearly seven years. I want them all.
My symptoms at the moment? The biggest one is tiredness. This seems to build up to a peak a few days after chemo is completed, but never really goes away. No doubt it is related to me getting up for several hours in the middle of the night. Never mind. It is manageable. My PICC line is a bit irritating. I keep wanting to scratch around it, and I am always fearful I am going to knock it and cause damage. It does mean I don’t want to go anywhere busy where people might knock into me such as a city – but then I never wanted to go to cities. Ghastly places. Also, I must take more care over eating (see above), but I have developed a sweet tooth. I also get aches and pains across my abdomen, which I suppose is where the psychological element comes in. I assume it is tumours growing and bashing around inside me, but of course it is probably the changes relating to the chemo. One significant change is the failure of memory. I forget words. I forget what I have read and seen. I forget people. But then, I always have done these things. It is just worse than it was, and it probably explains me being repetitive in my blogs.
What I don’t have, apart from memory changes, are any significant psychological problems. Look on, for instance, the MacMillan website and cancer appears to be all about psychological problems. My problems are body-related. I have cancer. I don’t need psychological problems as well. I will come back to this in a later blog.
Let’s face it. Apart from being stuck with chemo for three days every fortnight, three days that I wipe out in terms of achieving anything, I am doing pretty well. I am stronger and fitter. I can do a bit of gardening, go for short walks, drive for miles, and I am back to winding up the people around me. I intend to continue in this vein for some time.
Cancer 66
Posted on July 18, 2023 Leave a Comment
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates
Socrates had a huge impact on Western life and thought – and through colonialisation and globalisation the rest of the world. Not bad considering we have none of his writings, relying mostly on descriptions from Plato and Xenophon. I have never read Xenophon but I quite enjoyed reading Plato when I was trying to provide myself with an education after the failures of my experience of the comprehensive system (don’t get me going on that subject).
Socratic dialogues heped develop my critical thinking, and (I hope) I have used something similar throughout my academic life. I know I have irritated some people because I tend to disagree for the sake of disagreeing (I know, hardly sophisticated Socratic dialogue but it is fun), but it is genuinely an help develop clearer thinking if all participants act in the spirit of such dialogue.
The problem is that we now have a serious problem relating to critical thinking. It is just not allowed in some circumstances. Even in the universities there is less room for freedom of thought and speech, with the left often being the ones most guilty of trying to restrict the way we think. If I want to argue that climate change is not brought about by human activity I will be strung up. If I want to argue that eugenics has many positive uses I will be strung up again. And for a third time if I suggest colonialism did a lot of good. It doesn’t matter what I really think, just saying these things is enough to be sent to Coventry or worse.
This is dishonest and fundamentally dangerous for the progress of thought and knowledge, and an embarrassment for the Western intellectual tradition, whether the subject is race, sex, transism (is that a word?) or anything else. I prefer to rely on Western science rather than ‘indigenous knowledge’ – whatever that is – when it comes to the treatment of my cancer. I would rather take the drugs offered, developed over years of rigorous scientific endeavour, rather than rely on witchdoctors or shamans; or even some misguided ideas that we shouldn’t be upsetting minority groups or others by suggesting that Western science is superior to other modes of thinking.
It might not be politically correct to think that Western knowledge and thought are superior to other forms of knowledge and thought (I didn’t say all) but I hope to stay alive a little longer because of it. Part of the development of scientific thinking which led to my cancer drugs relies on the strength of thinking exemplified by Socrates, or at least Socrates as described by Plato.
Cancer 65
Posted on July 16, 2023 2 Comments
I am so very tired. I am in my third cycle of chemotherapy and fortunately people are generally commenting on how well I look, that I look weller than a well person. I must admit the side effects so far are not too serious. A little diarrhoea, feeling a little queasy now and again, and tiredness. Tiredness is the main side effect. I get up in the middle of the night every night, but that is nothing new. I seem to be at my worst a few days after the chemo – basically right now. I finished the chemo three days ago. Last night I had as good a sleep as I ever have (5-6 hours sleep?). I was only out of bed for 2-3 hours. But right now I keep nodding off. I want to sleep but it is daytime, waketime, and my body protests that it is not meant to sleep during the day.
On another matter, I have more or less come to terms with having a stoma, but I am missing out. As I have undoubtedly mentioned before I miss out on the (generally male) pleasure of sitting on the toilet, reading a book, and taking my time evacuating my bowels. What is left of my bowel, emerging from just below my front left ribs, evacuates itself at will. I have no control over it whatsoever. As someone pointed out to me, there is possibly an evolutionary reason for the pleasure received in evacuating one’s bowels. It is as important to keep oneself clear of waste as it is to put nutritious food inside in the first place. By having pleasure from evacuation it is ensuring that people freely and willingly empty their bowels. There is no doubt something Freudian about this, somehow relating to the anal stage of sexual development or something, but I don’t know what it is.
So I am missing out. I try to recompense myself by changing the stoma bag in the night. I take off the old one, clean up, and then sit with it open waiting and reading, and ready with wet wipes and dry wipes. If I am lucky then a good-sized turd will emerge from the hole in my abdomen which I catch and remove. It is hard to say why this provides some kind of pleasure. If you don’t have a stoma it is probably absurd. How can it be pleasurable to catch a turd coming out of your abdomen? I suppose it is that when the normal process has gone you take the pleasure where you can get it. It provides a little of the satisfaction of going for a crap. Seeing it emerge, controlling the after-effect of the function. Even feeling emptied. You know that feeling when you have been to the toilet. You feel better. You feel cleansed. That is what I feel after my experience. It is all very well clearing up a full bag but perhaps it is the nearness of the open experience that provides that limited satisfaction.
Don’t worry, it is a surprisingly clean process. With wipes, wet and dry, and my little black bags everything is hygienic. Where it becomes less so is in public toilets. It is usually manageable in a disabled toilet, though there is rarely a shelf on which I can put my changing kit. There is usually a bin though. The problem is in ordinary toilets, in pubs and such like. I can change the stoma in the toilet but there is rarely a bin to put the resultant full bag in, and I am not going to walk out of the pub toilets with the bag asking for somewhere to put it. I do have limits, you know. There are 170,000 people with stomas in the UK. We perhaps need to ask for slightly improved toilet facilities for when we are obtaining our little pleasures.
Dr Nigel Hunt 