15: A Slice of Bacon and a Fried Egg
As I have previously averred, cancer does not play by the rules that we have assigned to it. Most people, me included, are wilfully blind to how a cancer diagnoses plays out. Frankly, we avoid it like the plague, cancer is scary and can be avoided, especially by the male of the species, by taking ones head and burying it firmly in the sand. We are like a small child hiding under the bedsheets, if I can't see the monster then the monster can't see me.
It is six months, almost to the day since that first Spanish radiologist, or possibly sonographer, did the ultrasound on my neck and frightened the life out of me by saying,
"Ah, yes, you have a lump on your lymph node".
Well to be fair, he actually scared me much more by saying,
"I'll need to stick a needle in this".
Things have gone rapidly downhill ever since, although, re-reading my first blog I was moaning somewhat persistently about being overweight, this, it turns out, is no longer a worry, so you know, silver linings and all that.
So I hear you ask, what is all this drivel about cancer not playing by the rules. Well as I have said before, our view of cancer tends to be thus.
Scenario 1.
Cancer is diagnosed, a team of doctors swings into action, our hero is told there is an experimental operation that they can undergo which luckily is being trialled by this very hospital. The experimental operation is performed by a dangerously good looking maverick surgeon against a background of bureacratic nay sayers. There is inevitably a complication which is fixed by the youngest member of the team and the cancer is removed and everyone goes home to live happily ever after.
Scenario 2.
Cancer is diagnosed, there is nothing that can be done, scenes of weeping relatives and a decently quick funeral, move to the next scene.
These are the things that we have been taught by numerous books, films and TV series. Cancer is basically kill or cure.
Interestingly in real life the situation is somewhat similar when viewed by most people and by most people I am referring to most of the population with only one X chromosome. Come on, keep up, the male of the species.
The reason for it being similar is the, mainly male, ability to insert ones head into the sand and refuse to remove it once you hear someone you know has cancer. I put myself forward as a rather enthusiastic proponent of this strategy. Once the head is comfortably ensconced in the sand or under the bedsheets then you can happily get on with your own life whilst occasionally saying to yourself "I really ought to go and visit...insert cancer patient name here" whilst firmly avoiding any chance of doing said visit. This means that from your perspective that the cancer is diagnosed and it has two outcomes, kill or cure. Time passes so quickly that before you know it you will hear that they have been cured, whoo hoo, died, boo hoo and that is basically that. We are, mostly, completely unaware of anything happening between diagnosis and either death or cure.
I have tried to address this situation somewhat by giving you a blow by blow account of cancer treatment. To be fair this has been mostly for my own amusement but I will pretend it is because of my noble philanthropic ideals, don't you know.
It would appear that I am at the point in the cancer journey when acquaintances will cautiously remove their heads from the sand and acknowledge that I am still in the land of the living and apparently look "Very well!" and my "fight" against cancer has obviously been successful. I would plead with you not to say this to me as telling people to "Fuck off" tends to upset them.
The end of week eight since my treatment began and eight days after the last radiotherapy session. How have things gone I hear you ask, well I can confirm that they weren't wrong about things getting worse after the radiotherapy ended.
My daily schedule has been getting simpler and simpler. I get up at around six thirty in the morning and immediately take some morphine. This is absolutely vital as without the morphine I can't talk, let alone eat. Most mornings Helen gets up about half an hour after me and by then I can just about croak good morning but any lengthy conversation is out. In fact all my business meetings are conducted via video call and I need the morphine on board before any call otherwise it tends to be a tad one sided. During the last week of treatment I would work until around 3 o'clock and then we would set off for the hospital, I'm no longer able to drive easily due to the pain from the trapped nerve and being absolutely knackered when the treatment is over, so Helen has been doing all the driving. I'd have the treatment, head back home and immediately fall asleep on the sofa for a couple of hours before maybe and hour of TV with Helen and then bed.
Things seemed to have gone from bad to worse. On the tenth day after the end of the radiotherapy I had a review appointment with the cancer care team. This was a Monday and I had spent the weekend throwing up rather expansively. The pain in my throat had enjoyed a bit of a renaissance and as a result I was unable to eat, well, anything to be honest. By this point I hadn't eaten any solid food for two to three weeks and now the Fortisips were incredibly painful to drink and had the marvellous plus side effect of making me throw up pretty much everything.
It was Helen and Jess's birthday on the Monday of the review and the evening before the entire family had come round to our place for a meal. Helen's sister had turned up with a rather unusual present for me. It was a carton of Norwegian "Bone Broth". Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought, so I tried a mug of it and amazingly it didn't cause me to feel nauseous and only hurt moderately when swallowed. This might have been a turning point right there, unfortunately later that evening I threw up the whole lot but hey ho.
Helen was a bit concerned about how I was to get to the hospital the next day as she had organised a morning out with our daughter Ocean and sister in law Jo. They were off to the garden centre and then were having lunch. I insisted that I could drive to the hospital and meet them there after lunch and this was duly organised.
I spent the morning as usual working from six am until around one o'clock when I set off for the hospital. I'd had my usual cocktail of morphine, paracetamol and multifarious diabetes drugs. Taking these has become a bit of a lottery as quite often just the act of taking one of the larger diabetes tablets would cause me to throw up which was getting rather tiresome. I managed all the drugs and drank a mug of bone broth as well.
I had got all my stuff together in a bag and was just reversing the car out of the drive when it occurred to me that I should take a sick bowl with me. I went back in and got the trusty plastic mixing bowl, yes you heard right, mixing bowl. I will point out that I am assiduously avoiding this for any mixing however Helen keeps putting it back with the other bowls and it's only a matter of time😱
Armed with my sick bowl I set off for the hospital, I hadn't gone more than 500 yards when, you guessed it, I had an overwhelming need to puke. I rapidly pulled the car into one of the passing places on the hill and was copiously sick. Well, this could be an issue, I sat in the car considering my options, of which I had very few, I was already slightly late and getting someone to take me was not going to work. Right, give the sick bowl a swill out with some water, put it on my lap and pray that I got to the hospital without another incident.
I can't say that this was one of my favourite car journeys, by the time I arrived at oncology, I was covered in a light sheen of sweat and was feeling decidedly unwell. Just getting out of the car involved holding on to the door frame to wait for an attack of dizziness to pass.
Ocean and Helen had bought a small jungle between them and about a hundred weight of compost. We spent some time transferring all their purchases from Jo's car and then headed in for the review.
I signed myself in at reception and we sat down to wait, not for long as a young nurse called my name and I toddled off behind her to be weighed. The last time they had weighed me here was when Paul had bought me in for a review and chemo and I had weighed 74.9kg. This time it had dipped somewhat and I now weighed 67kg or just over 10 stone in old money. I returned to the waiting room and, well, waited until I was called in for the review.
We all trooped into room number two where no less than 4 health professionals were waiting to inspect me, and inspect me they did. As the inspection proceeded the cancer specialist nurse looked more and more concerned.
"When were you last sick?"
"About an hour ago"
"How much have you eaten today?"
I confessed that I had only had the broth and had brought that back up.
"Are you having the Fortisips, how many do you have a day?"
Again I had to confess that I had not had any as they were too painful to eat and made me sick into the bargain.
The outcome of this interrogation was my morphine dose being doubled, it would appear I had a case of raging oral thrush so a med for that was added, another anti-sickness med and, of course, they wanted to take some blood as she was worried about me being dehydrated, yet again.
We were sent back out to the waiting room with strict instructions not to leave until I had given blood and they had sorted out a new prescription. After some shuffling back and forth I was told that we could pick up a prescription from the BRI pharmacy and Ocean was despatched forthwith to pick up said prescription.
Not long after she left I was ushered in to another room and yet more needles were inserted into my sorely abused left elbow and quantities of blood decanted to be rushed post haste to...well somewhere I guess, possibly pathology?
I returned to the waiting room to wait some more, unfortunately I didn't have long to wait before I started to throw up, yet again. Luckily the waiting room had pretty much emptied by then as I tried to discreetly puke into my trusty bowl. A nurse quietly appeared with a glass of water and some tissues and left them with me for which I was eternally grateful. This went on for far too long, given I had nothing to bring up so it was mainly retching and some interestingly coloured bile, bright green, who knew.
Whilst we waited, the cancer specialist nurse came in and out about three or four times with different instructions on how I was to proceed, most of which now escape me. I eventually stopped throwing up and Helen had the lovely job of cleaning out the sick bowl while I sat hoping that it wouldn't all start up again before she got back, it didn't.
After about an hour Ocean came back with an armful of medicines and we headed home with me cuddling my sick bowl like a security blanket.
Helen was convinced that hospital would ring that night and I would be admitted but the evening passed quietly and I toddled off to bed without being sick again which was a miracle.
I woke up late the next day and was contemplating getting up and starting work when my phone blared into life, "Private Call" was displayed on the screen. Since Ocean was in the habit of ringing me in the morning and she always has her phone set to private I answered with a cheery "Hiya".
"Hi Charles, it's Donna from Oncology"
Ooh fuck, this doesn't sound good.
"We've had a look at your blood results and the consultant would like you to come in to the hospital"
"OK, what time shall I come in?"
"Immediately if possible, or as soon as you can make it, no need to worry but you are quite dehydrated and you have a magnesium deficiency that we need to address as soon as we can. If we get you on a drip today then I'm fairly sure you won't have to be admitted"
By nine o'clock Helen and I were back at the hospital where we were directed to the seventh floor and the "Same Day Emergency Care" centre. There were a few people already there but not that many and we were put in a side room to await my fate.
We didn't have long to wait before a nurse arrived to cannulate me, as per usual she appeared to be about 12 years old and I was a little apprehensive and went into my usual spiel about sometimes fainting. I needn't have worried, she very efficiently got me onto the bed and before I knew it I had a cannular in my arm and was being hooked up to a drip.
"How long do you think I'll be?"
"It's going to be at least three or four hours"
This was pretty much what we were expecting and Helen decided to head off home and get some things done while I lay about all day being re-hydrated.
Whilst I lay about many many people stuck their heads around the door and either checked up on me or did a little bit of light interrogation. The most interesting interrogation came from one of the cancer specialist nurses. He went over all the questions I had been asked the day before and asked a dozen more besides.
"How often do you open your bowels?"
"Well not as often as before but reasonably regularly, most of the time I'm the reverse of constipated."
He confirmed that this was a thing even if you are constipated the runny stuff can squeeze round the sides, as it were, hopefully you aren't reading this while eating your tea.
"Since I've hardly been eating anything I've been a bit surprised that I was still going to be honest"
"Well your body is now literally using itself up and that is what is coming out. It might also be the reason that you are being sick. If there is a blockage and the food can't go anywhere then it can come back up"
Charming, it would appear that over the last few weeks what I have been shitting out is literally my own body...nice.
"Do you have any other questions for me, before I go?"
"Uh, yeah, what is the, if you like, normal time scale for recovery? I suppose I mean, how long is it likely to be before I am back to something approaching normal?"
"At least three months, and be aware that over that time you will be up and down a lot. Some days you will wake up feeling fine. One piece of advice, if you do wake up feeling fine and think that you can get some things done, only do one of them and then rest. I've seen no end of people do too much and be wiped out for a week"
This seemed like sensible advice to me, however I've worked every single day throughout this whole process so hopefully getting back to normal might take less time, so I told him this...alright, alright I was feeling inordinately proud of myself for not taking any time off and wanted him to know.
"Well, I can tell you that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who have done that, it's extremely unusual, however bear in mind that this might be why you are feeling so crap right now"
He nodded to me and took his leave and I decided to have a snooze which was rather nice and passed the time until a nurse came in and unhooked me from the drip and I was free to go.
We are now 23 days post the end of the radiotherapy and this week has been a little up and down, early on in the week I had the first solid food that I have eaten for nearly a month,
So I have been able to eat, somewhat, it still hurts and still doesn't taste of anything whatsoever but I am eating.
On the minus side, I am still throwing up quite regularly and I haven't had a poo for at least five days. This is rapidly becoming an issue. I ate the most that I have had for, well it seems like forever, yesterday and everything stayed down and I made my way to bed.
I woke up suddenly at 2am and true to form it would appear that everything I had eaten came straight back up again. I spent an entertaining hour shuffling back and forth to the bathroom emptying the sick bowl and swearing gently to myself.
As I sit here writing this I have had a lovely glass of laxative, a real coffee, a mug of broth, two lemon and raisin pancakes and a pancake filled with bacon and mushroom and a cup of tea.
I've had 3ml of morphine, one anti-sickness and all the diabetes drugs. I don't feel sick and I am just contemplating another glass of laxative and I would love to know what the fuck I do if I inevitably bring all this back up again?
I have a nasty feeling that if this happens then another trip to "Same Day Emergency Care" is on the cards
Wow this visualisation stuff really works, as I was writing the last sentence I became aware of a need to visit the loo. You will be happy to know that I have finally had a poo. Things may be looking up.
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