Cancer 244
Posted on March 31, 2026 Leave a Comment
Chemo brain (chemo-brain, chemobrain?) is a thing. It is a thing I have in increasing quantity/amount. There are two main components at the moment, at the lower level I forget words, usually nouns, at the higher level I forget whether I have said something, or had something said to me. I forget people’s names, I forget the easiest of words.
At one level I probablyt seem OK. I have just submitted the first draft of my Master’s thesis, 25,000 words once I managed to cut it down. The feedback is as I expected, so I seem to have awareness and clearly I remembered enough words. I do like to think that the more I practice with words the slower the decline will be. I am writing a lot, reading a lot, and I am talking as much as usual – I think….
I have never claimed to have a good memory, except for maps, but the decline is significant, and increasing, despite my continuing to write.
It is an odd feeling, saying a sentence and then getting stuck at a simple word. A blank comes over me. Usually I know I am not going to remember it, but occasionally I can find a clue (beyond the sentence I am saying) that can help. I am not yet at the stage where everything in the house needs to be labelled, but you never know.
The potentially more disruptive element is the meta-cognitive level of remembering what I have said, not remembering what I havent said, and so on. This is difficult in a social situation, not only might I not remember someone’s name (even if i have known them for decades), I don’t remember what they have said to me or I have said to them. If I repeat myself in some situations then it can be embarrassing – though not usually to me as I have no idea what the problem is!
We drove to Devon to see the kids last weekend. I have noted before that my driving distances are reducing. I am not thinking the drive to Devon is a little long. I don’t have the driving stamina any more. The principle that once I can’t drive then that might be the time to stop treatment might still be right. Life without driving would be like bacon without eggs or a meal without gravy – unthinkable.
When we got back I was fine but within a short time I was asleep. Apart from a few awakenings I was asleep most of the night, but I am still dead tired. Fortunately I didn’t fall asleep driving to the hospital, but I have to get home yet after the current treatment is complete. Stay clear of the roads north of Derby this afternoon. But – this is another problem. If I continue to accept treatment when I can’t drive, how do I get to the hospital? Don’t even think about public transport, that would take a day each way.
Cancer 243
Posted on March 24, 2026 Leave a Comment
If you are eating, then finish what you are doing before reading this.
Not long after my last blog, I had a bowel disaster, the worst one ever, and I have had a few. Imagine for a moment that I have removed the stoma bag, cleaned up and am sitting there giving the area some air before putting the new bag on. I do this regularly, whenever I change the bag at home, sitting in my chair, which I am glad is leather, and brown.
It will often activate when I am sitting there, but I will have a tissue ready to clean up, and I am pretty good at this task. Indeed, I had said as much to the wife only a day or two before. After a few minutes, this happened, a good amount, requiring a three tissue clean up. No problem.
Five minutes later, boom. It appeared that the whole of my insides became my outsides, spreading across my stomach, over my trousers and my shirt. It was more or less liquid, but with unusual lumps inside that didn’t reflect anything I had eaten in the previous 24 hours. I can only think that the chemo has managed to break down something of the tumour inside my stomach and decided to eject it with force. If I say this was awful, then it is not an exaggeration. If I say this was embarrassing and I just wanted to cry, this is not an exaggeration.
As you may know, the wife (who I am not allowed to talk about) is my carer, and this is one of those situations where the term is very true. I am sitting there, covered in pale brown stuff, unable to pick it up and bag it, wondering whether this is the right time to die. She comes along with endless towels, flannels and new clothes, comforts me, tells me all is well, calms me down. I did most of the actual clean up myself, certainly of my body, while she focused on putting everything through the washing machine over the next few hours – three loads – and disinfected the affect area afterwards.
It is intensely embarrassing. It is also the end of an idea that has been floating around for the last week or two, of flying to Riga. Imagine this happening in an aeroplane. You really wouldn’t want to be one of the other passengers.
It is strange, really. I find it incredibly embarrassing yet I am able to write about it here. I suppose I am just trying to do my duty of telling the whole story. Fortunately, I didn’t take a photograph.
Cancer 242
Posted on March 23, 2026 Leave a Comment
It is 0420. I have been sitting in my chair since about 2000, alternately sleeping, dozing and, occasionally, waking. I am usually woken by the sound of my book thudding on the floor as I drift off (Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody, as you are asking). I am immensely tired. It is a tiredness that almost hurts, a tiredness so intense it is difficult to escape.
I am wanting to sleep day and night, yet at the same time find it difficult. During the day if I sit down I am likely to fall asleep. It doesn’t matter what time of day. In the morning I drift off, in the evening I drift off.
I can be ok during the day if I am out doing something. Yesterday, a good friend from far away visited, and we did bookshop and meal. I was fine for that, but when we got home it was a different matter. I was quickly asleep.
The added problem at night is that I have breathing problems when I lie down. My abdomen area is quite painful, and the tumour growth too much. I suspect it is tumours bearing down on my diaphragm which makes it difficult to breathe while I am lying down. This means the most comfortable position for me is sitting in my chair. This is where I ‘sleep’. What I actually do is doze for periods, then sleep for I don;t know how long, and then sit up and read. This last is getting difficult now, an dI mean now. At this moment I am struggling to stay awake, my arms ache, my eyes are glazing over, I had better put this down.
Cancer 241
Posted on March 18, 2026 Leave a Comment
You know how Star Trek has changed the world? Without star Trek we wouldn’t have phasers I know, they are quite big at the moment but we are getting there), we wouldn’t have mobile phones, and we wouldn’t have doors that open automatically as a person approaches. I still don’t really get the latter though I do understand how they work. I think my brain refuses to allow them out of science fiction mode. The only problem is they don’t go fwish as they open, but I am sure we will get there. I have realised that the feeling you get during chemotherapy is the feeling you would get, had we invented beaming up/down, if your particles, on reorgansing as you land on an unknown planet with the unknown character you know will get killed by aliens (it is so predictable), didn’t quite reorganise properly. Instead, the cells are all slightly off centre, mis-matched, unconnected where they should be connected, connected where they should be disconnected (I don’t know the exact details as I don;t believe beaming up/down as yet been invented).
Such an experience would make your whole body unwell, disconnected, nauseous, slightly out of the universe, uncomfortable – see, I still can’t describe it. Perhaps I have a medical breakthrough here as important as the discovery of MRI, penicillin, or gunpowder. If a person gets cancer, perhaps a slightly out of synch beaming from a starship to an unknown planet, will make them better.
Alternatively, I started my chemo yesterday, I am on my bottle, I can’t sleep, and my brain is screwed up more than usual. Or perhaps I just want that starship Enterprise experience before I die. If someone is interested and builds a beaming machine, please contact me, I am happy to take part in a suitable trial.
Alternatively, I could just be the unknown chap who gets beamed down to die.
Cancer 240
Posted on March 13, 2026 Leave a Comment
My tiredness and dropping off to sleep is getting serious. I am sitting reading the draft of my thesis (yes, draft complete and printed out – long way to go yet though) and found myself with my head down, fallen asleep. OK, last night I got virtually no sleep, because no matter how tired I get I spend most of the night awake. It might have been help by my having a new computer, and when one has a new toy it has to be played with. I know, I am nearly dead so what do I need a new computer for? What a waste of money. Now, I would agree with that about clothes, I struggled to buy clothes even when well, but not about computers or books. There are some things you just have to spend money on.
We went out last night for the first time since god thought it was a good idea to invent humans and name them Adam and Eve. We went to the pictures, to a showing of a film on the exhibition about Turner and Constable. It was better than I thought. It is a good way to see an exhibition when you are excluded from it because it is in London. The problem was that I was continually falling asleep. I had a stranger sitting on my left and I ket thinking I was going to reach over an grab her. It was quite worrying, because the grabbing linked into a dream I was having that continued each time I nodded off. It was quite frightening to be out and about with people I didn’t know.
Then there were the stairs. This is the Ritz at Belper. There must have been 584 stairs to get to the auditorium. There might be fewer for most of you but for me it was the south face of the Eiger. At home I go up the stairs slowly, stopping every time I want to, but being out among people I felt I had to try and behave normally, which is taking the stairs 2-3 at a time, springing from one to the other like a mountain goat. Stairs are a real problem for decaying crips like me.
I am not really a man. I went to the butcher’s this morning. The wife asked me to get her a steak for this evening. A real man would obviously have bought himself one too, but no, this one says get me a pie out of the freezer; so while she gets steak, I am having a chicken pie (ie not really a pie, not really meat), and I am glad about it! My eating habits are a right mess. I eat little and often. I don’t even want a Sunday dinner. I always want a Sunday dinner. I just couldn’t eat one. I did manage a bacon and sausage sandwich this morning though, so hope is not entirely lost.
Right, I have sort of woken myself up. Back to the thesis for a few minutes, then venture down the garden and make a mug of tea.
Dr Nigel Hunt 