12: Doing the Well Known Double Leg Cross

< Previous | Next >

I didn’t just spend the weekend waiting for the axe to fall, no I had organised with a friend to have my new bike MOT’d.  Who am I kidding, I didn’t organise anything, Mark sorted it out for me, all I had to do was turn up. Well, there was one thing I had to do, during my sojourn in the hinterland of Nempnett Thrubwell when I had nearly torn my own foot off, I had also torn off the switch for the back brake light.  This had to be repaired and I had to do it. So we now return to the previous weekend when I attempted to fix said back brake switch.

Now many of you will know that I am quite handy at many practical things, mainly involving wood working, I’ve built several camper vans, a small Airbnb cottage with my brother in law and a variety of strange structures in our garden. However when it comes to mechanics I pretty much fall apart, I, frankly, hate it.

However I summoned up the blood and girded my loins and set my face to do this rather distasteful task.  First thing I noticed was that the switch had been attached to the bike with a zip tie, this is not the normal way to do things.  Secondly the switch was out in the elements where it was available to be torn off by errant branches that are bent on removing the feet of the unwary, or at least giving said unwary a very nasty twist to the ankle.

Studying this switch closely I could see that normally it would not be out in the elements, it needed a nice cosy box to keep it warm and dry.

The new bike has been modified to make it look like a Trials bike, but on checking the log book I found that in its first incarnation it was actually a bog standard Royal Enfield 500 DeLuxe.  I looked up the switch in the parts book and that didn’t help as it showed the switch but not where it should be nestling on the bike.

In the end I resorted to finding the biggest images of the bike I could on the internet to see whether I could find where the cable from the brake lever went. This was somewhat hindered by the peculiar fact that nearly every picture of the bike was of the right hand side. I wonder whether this is some odd discrimination by the vast majority of right handers but, be that as it may, it didn’t help with finding an image of the brake light cable that was of any use.

In the end I found a fairly small image of the left hand side of the bike and the brake light actuator cable disappeared into a side panel on the bike. This side panel has been removed on my bike for the sake of aesthetics, leaving the poor old back brake switch out in the aforesaid elements.

I found a small galvanised box in Screwfix that might do the job of hiding the switch from the elements and promptly ordered one and trotted off to Screwfix to pick it up. Once I was back home I set about the job of setting up the box so that the switch arm could be pulled through the side of the box.  I managed this rather well, even if I say so myself.  The actuator spring was basically buggered so I bought another one from the lovely people at Hitchcocks Motorcycles for the princely sum of about thruppence ha'penny and set about fixing the box to the bike.  I went out into the garage and picked up the box and the switch which promptly fell apart in my hands. Damn, buggery, bollocks, this is what happens whenever I attempt any work on any mechanical contrivance it contrives to make my life a misery.  Now I’d purchased a fucking spring I didn’t need as a new switch came with a spring already neatly attached. Arse fucking biscuits, I need to fix the back brake before taking the blasted pile of junk in for an MOT

I trailed back into the house and sadly ordered a new switch complete with spring and sent an email to Hitchcocks, pleading with them to change the order. I couldn’t ring them as they weren’t open on a weekend.  Hopefully the new switch will arrive before the MOT.

Thankfully the new switch did arrive in short order and on the Friday I finally decided that the only thing to do was attach the fucking thing to the frame as it was obvious I was not going to sort out the box in time. I then proceeded to do the most Heath Robinson repair to a vehicle that I have done in years. It was not very pretty but it did work. Unfortunately the switch was still out in the elements but it would hopefully get it through the MOT.

Mark turned up on the Saturday morning bright and early and we set off for the eponymously named Bike Care in Bristol. This was the first proper ride on the old ruin and as we headed for the first bend on the hill out of the village I tried to change gear with the back brake, again. There was a certain amount of twitching of the sphincter but I didn’t come to grief and we were off to the unexplored wilds of Bristol, well Redfield anyway, which is pretty wild, well, more suburban really but that’s where we were headed.

I can’t say enough nice things about Bike Care, they gave us cups of tea and proceeded to MOT the bike in short order. Then charged me the somewhat ridiculously tiny sum of £29 of your English pounds.

It was a fairly glorious winter’s day and Mark and I first went to a posh coffee shop which is almost directly behind the oldest sex shop in Bristol. We purchased coffee and sausage rolls, I say we, but young Mark refused to let me pay.  We then set off to visit a friend in Portishead.

The bike was behaving beautifully and made short work of the 14 mile journey. When we arrived the house was festooned with scaffolding and we spent an entertaining hour chatting about the dangers of suburban planning permission and the management of enraged jealous neighbours.

The bike refused to start when we left and I looked somewhat foolish as I had to pass it over to Mark to start.  On the way home I called in on my daughter and her partner to see how they were getting on with their house renovations.  This was daft of me since the bike wouldn’t start in Portishead and sure enough when I left my daughters place it refused to start at all. In the end we had to bump start it and I spent the journey home praying to the gods of motorcyclists that it would make it.  It did, just, it started coughing and spluttering as I went down the hill and by the time I had reached the house it died completely…again. I think it hates me.

Well the main thing is it is now MOT’d and fully legal as while I was in Portishead sharing anecdotes about unhappy neighbours I had purchased tax on my phone so the bike is now bona fide road legal just not road going right now.

Now the aforementioned carousel of shit has come full circle and chemotherapy, radiotherapy and unwanted blood tests are basically staring me in the face.  There was one final cancer argument to be had. I would lose this one as I have lost every single other one.

We had a houseful of people on the Sunday for a roast dinner, daughters, step daughters, partners and even a random from the Basque country.  Alright, alright he’s not exactly random but my daughter did come home with him after an indecently short, what the cognoscenti like to call, courtship, and to be fair he’s built a camper van with me and bought a house with said daughter.

So where was I, oh yes, a houseful of people having roast dinner.  Once dinner had been devoured we repaired to the drawing room and they proceeded to talk about me.  Not to me, you understand, about me.  The gist of this conversation was how I would make my way to the hospital the next day.  As I have previously averred, cancer changes the dynamic between you, your family and the hospital. I had said that I would ride my motorcycle to the hospital and from thence home again.  This was not going down well with my nearest and dearest.

I am now going to regale you with an anecdote from some years ago that unfortunately does not put Helen in a very good light, but I found it funny so here goes.

I had just returned from one of my many visits to the orthopaedic surgery department who had performed some unnameable horror on my ankle.  I was told that under no circumstances whatsoever was I allowed to walk on the newly abused foot. It had to remain elevated and I had to remain firmly in bed.  A bed was duly created in my office and here it was that I was lying in state.  This was the first day that I had returned from the hospital so I was off my tits on prescription pain killers. Helen came in with my daughter and asked me if it was OK if they went to the shops. I agreed that it was perfectly OK and I would see them later.  However, about 4 hours later, my bladder was bursting and I was  absolutely gagging for a cup of tea.  In the end the only thing I could do was ring the neighbour and ask whether she could come in an empty my full urine container and make me a cup of tea.  She did so with no problems, bless her. An hour after this Helen and Ocean returned blithely telling me about their very successful shopping trip.  Consequently I wrote about this and Helen got into trouble with her sisters for being such a poor nurse. She’s never been allowed to forget it.

So the discussion was being had about how I was going to get to the hospital for my very first chemo and radiotherapy and the prevailing opinion was going against me, whatever happened I wasn’t going to be allowed to ride my bike. It looked like I would have to submit to being taken in. Then my sister asked Helen why there was a problem, why couldn’t Helen take me.  Helen admitted at this point that she could not take me as she was going dancing. This caused a certain amount of hilarity amongst the assembled family since they were all au fait with Helen’s previous nursing record.  I suspect they will still be extracting the piss about this in 10 years time.

It was decided that my daughter would come to the house in the morning with her trusty laptop and work from home until midday when she would pass the baton to my sister by dropping me to her house in time for me to be picked up when she finished teaching the latest spotty youth how to drive. My sister is a driving instructor in case you were wondering, she doesn’t just randomly pick up spotty youths.

And so, all this came to pass, the next morning I was ferried to my sisters by my daughter and ferried by my sister to the hospital. I was however allowed to go in on my own.

I had been into the Oncology Centre the week before so I knew the basic layout, however when I consulted my treatment schedule it said I was in the somewhat cryptic CDC Blue Chair 4. This provided me with no clue as to where I needed to go.  The receptionist was nowhere to be seen so I asked one of the lovely volunteers where CDC Blue Chair 4 was. Not surprisingly they looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head that was singing God Save the King in Spanish. Luckily at that moment the errant receptionist returned and I asked her whether she knew where the mythical Blue Chair was to be found.  Level 5 apparently, down the corridor and take the lift, check in at Chemotherapy Reception.

Just inside the chemotherapy department is a self check in kiosk.  Being an IT bod I immediately gravitated to this and tried the check in. The first thing it asked was for my letter for the appointment.  I probably could have found it on my phone eventually but I couldn’t be sure.  I clicked the “I’m an idiot button” and it asked me for my date of birth and surname and the machine then proceeded to tell me I didn’t exist, so I gave up and went to reception.

Waiting for me at reception was the largest man that I have ever encountered in a hospital, well maybe anywhere, ever.  He had a lovely smile and one of the largest beards I have ever seen in captivity. In fact he bore a startling resemblance to ‘Grizzly Adams’ for those of you of a certain age.  He checked me in and when I gave my name one of the other receptionists came over and we had a fairly involved conversation about second names as her name was very similar to mine. The Grizzly Adam’s lookalike told me that I would be in the pink chairs today, gave me a wristband to put on and directed me to sit in the waiting room.  There were both pink and blue chairs in the waiting room so I carefully chose a pink one.  No fucking clue whether it makes any difference but I like to do as I’m told.

I wasn’t waiting for very long and a young nurse appeared and called my name and I followed her through the doors of doom. Not very far as it turns out, she stopped at a weighing scale and asked me to hop on. Fuck me gently, it’s telling her I am very nearly 80 kilos. I asked whether the weight was important and apparently it’s used to calculate the dosage for the chemo.

”80 kilos may be a bit high”, I said, “I weighed myself last night with nothing on and I was 76 kilos”

”Right, OK, that’s what we will use then."

She guided me to a pink chair at the end of the room and asked me to sit down, I did so somewhat nervously. I’m gazing round at an entire room full of cannulas and beeping equipment industriously pouring, what is, frankly, poison, into a dozen flaccid arms.

There followed a usual barrage of questions about name, height, weight, address, postcode, do I enjoy frottage and how often. Someone recently said to me that when you have cancer treatment the first thing that is required is to take your dignity and privacy and leave it in a bucket outside the door.

She then checked my blood pressure, now to give you a comparison I just took my blood pressure, and it was 114\89 bearing in mind I’ve just had a bath and maybe it might be a bit high.  My average blood pressure is around 117\81 which is pretty good.  The reading she got was 144\97 which for me is insane. 

“That’s on the high side”, I murmured.

She only replied “Completely within range given where you are.”

Then things took a slightly weird turn, there was a nurse in training who was assisting the senior nurse who was doing the questions and setting up the equipment.  She arrived with what looked like an extraordinarily large sample pot.

“We need to you to put your arm in here for ten minutes, it’s quite hot but it won’t burn”

The sample pot was full of steaming hot water and it did nothing for my nerves when they insisted they would cannulate my dodgy right arm. Nobody has stuck a needle in my right arm in living memory. I immersed my arm up to the elbow and was left in this slightly awkward position to ponder the meaning of life whilst my nurses strolled off to see to other patients.

Once my arm had cooked for the required ten minutes they both came back and the medieval part of proceedings began.  The senior nurse inspected my forearm minutely whilst I looked firmly in the other direction and mumbled a few desperate prayers to the gods of cancer.  This was not looking good, personally I’d never seen a decent vein on my forearm, ever.  

However, she knew exactly what she was doing as the needle slid in, very nearly painlessly, and it was all over bar the shouting.  A rather large amount of sticking plaster was applied and I was good to go.  

The trainee nurse then went off and returned with a little cup with a tablet in it. 

“This is anti-sickness medicine, once you have taken this we can begin your treatment”

Ooh er, I suspect vomiting copiously may feature rather prominently sometime in my not too distant future.

The rest of the treatment was a bit of an anti climax, they flushed the cannula and then ran in some saline for 5 or ten minutes, then changed this for the chemotherapy which ran in for about 1 and a bit hours and then some more saline.  One small wrinkle in this otherwise fairly seamless procedure involved the amount of liquid that I was mainlining, about 5 litres of the fucking stuff as far as I could tell. Somewhere in the middle of the time I realised that I was feeling the need for a pee. Now I had watched many other people leap from their pink chairs and charge out of the room whilst wheeling the drip and machine in front of them. I did not feel quite ready to do this as I was morbidly afraid of tripping, which I will have you know I am more than likely to do, and ripping the whole kit and caboodle out of my arm whilst spurting extravagant gouts of blood. At least this was the scenario that my, frankly, cowardly brain was conjuring up.  Therefore I clenched, by the end of the time the clenching was becoming fairly concerning. 

I was doing the well known double leg cross and was mightily relieved when the nurses arrived and disconnected the drip.  The most painful part of the procedure was having the sticking plaster removed from the arm as I am moderately hairy and they obviously couldn’t do a brazilian and rip it all off in one go as that definitely would rip the needle out.  Slow, careful and moderately painful was the way to go.

Once I was all detached they waved me goodbye and I headed toward the next horror of the day, radiotherapy.

The radiotherapy department is on level 2 and was packed to the rafters with a mixture of people, mostly middle aged. None of whom looked particularly ill.  I booked in with the receptionist.

”You are on the D, there is a 45 minute delay”

I’m on the D, which is delayed, still no fucking clue.  I peered around the room to try and spy a door or sign with D on it. Nothing. There was however a fairly entertaining door, which I may have mentioned previously that farted when the right hand side was opened. Being basically a child this amused me vastly. Every so often a nurse would appear through the door and shout

”John Spunklehumper,” in an enquiring manner “John Spunklehumper?”

Mr Spunklehumper would turn out to be somewhat surprised at having his name called and would raise his hand like a primary school child.

The nurse would indicate for Mr Spunklehumper to follow her and he would disappear never to be seen again.  Oh alright sometimes he would reappear wearing a hospital gown and  pulling a trolley containing his clothes or he would reappear through the door about ten minutes later and swiftly leave with Mrs Spunklehumper who would be waiting for him.

Whilst waiting to be called I checked my messages, there was one from Helen saying she would pick me up at 6 o’clock.  I sent a message back saying that there was a delay but that I should be out sooner. 

I sat and waited for approximately two days before my name was called by an attractive blond nurse.  I was not taken through the farting doors but to the left where she indicated for me to sit on a chair next to her.

”I want to have a chat with you about your treatment and answer any questions you have”

 

She went through pretty much all the things that the oncologist had told us about what I was to expect, sore throat, ulcers, difficulty swallowing and the possibility of needing a feeding tube. There was nothing that I hadn’t heard before so I didn’t have any further questions for her.

The last thing she said to me was slightly disturbing.

”This treatment is going to be really tough, you need to be prepared”

Well I’m not prepared, I’m fucking terrified but I am also somewhat fatalistic, too late to back out now. Well, to be fair I could back out but I’m not overly keen on dying just yet so I think I’ll stick with it.

She then sent me back to the waiting room to wait some more. Unfortunately the D was delayed for approximately an hour and a half before I was called by a nurse that appeared through the farting doors.

My arse did the old 1p, 10p dance of joy and I trailed after her through the doors feeling somewhat Eeyoreish.  I was taken down a long corridor with a couple of doglegs and into the torture chamber.  There was a table with my radiation mask reposing ominously upon it.

“Could you tell me your full name and date of birth”

”..and the first line of your address”

”…and finally where on your body are you expecting us to treat”

I pointed to my neck and it was time to get down to business.

I knew what the routine was now and stripped off my jacket and shirt and climbed onto the table and settled my knees over the blue plastic rest and my head on the strangely small clear plastic head rest.  My heart was going like the clappers and if they had taken my blood pressure at that moment I suspect it have been completely through the roof.

The nurse lifted the radiation mask and said “Are you ready for this?”

No, definitely not, I’ll never be fucking ready, keep the evil thing away from me.

”No I’m not”, I smiled, “but I suspect it’s too late for second thoughts, so go ahead”

The mask descended over my face and pinned my head rather severely to the bed.

“How’s that, it might be a little tighter than before?”

No shit, Sherlock, it was so tight that my nose was being uncomfortably compressed, not sure I could put up with this for very long.

”It’s very tight”

The mask was unpinned and they removed something from under me and the mask went back on

”How about now?”

”It’s still rather tight”, came my muffled response

They unpinned and removed something else and repeated.

”How about now”

”That’s better,” I replied, not much better to be honest but I had surmised that there was not much more wriggle room.

”That’s good as I’ve removed all the shims and we can’t adjust it any more”

The table was lifted and a frame was placed over my hands, there was a radiographer either side of me and they were busy with their own arcane business.

”Post red two mill”

”Ant blue one mill”

”Post one mill”

This went on for sometime as the incipient claustrophobic panic slowly ramped up. 

“Are you going to be able to cope” asked the nurse

”I guess so” I replied with some difficulty as the mask was compressing my chest and I couldn’t move my mouth easily to talk.

”OK, we are leaving now, we’ll be back shortly”

With that I was left to my own devices.  For a short while all I could hear was my own breathing, slightly obstructed by the mask, I tried breathing through my mouth but that wasn’t that easy.  The mask was pushing on my face hard enough that I could feel my own pulse.  Now I defy anyone not to wonder when they leave you on your own, what happens if they don’t come back.  I can tell you this is not a sensible thing to think when you are already holding down a rising panic.

The machine ground into life and began doing…stuff.  I can’t tell you what it was doing as I had my eyes firmly shut. There was a lot of beeping and chirping and the light through my eyelids changed slightly every so often.  This went on for approximately three days before the machine shut down and I heard footsteps in the corridor. The nurse returned and swiftly unpinned the mask and I was set free.

”OK, you’re free to go, see you tomorrow”

I  dressed myself and feeling slightly in shock I headed back out to the lifts.  Whilst waiting for the lift I noticed that my message to Helen had not been sent as there was no signal, this was good as it was now just before 6 o’clock and she had said that she’d pick me up at six, I presumed she was outside somewhere.

When I got up to the entrance I gave Helen a call and she answered straight away.

”Are you alright, where have you been”

”In radiotherapy I just got out, where are you”

”I’m in the lane” 

This was somewhat of a surprise, what she meant was she was just outside our house, our house which was nearly an hour away at that time of day. 

There followed some protracted negotiations where I tried to explain how to get to the oncology department.  The problem was the normal way to oncology had massive roadworks so Helen wasn’t sure which way to go.  In the end we gave up and I told her to go to my daughters and I’d get her to pick me up.

This turned out to be a good plan as my daughters partner was working just round the corner and picked me up almost immediately.

Day one over, just got to brace myself for the next 56 appointments.