By request from untold masses, consisting mainly
of Cassie and Big Emma, we continue where we left off.
Looking at the last message, from February of
this year, there is a lot of crap about coming battles, humour getting you
through and some general sanctimonious wittering about it all not being in ones
power to influence etc., whinge, moan, whine and whimper. I did want to
continue the blog but when I got over the last bout of cancer (regular readers
will know that this was in the limp gland in my groin) and an apparently successful
operation, my thoughts ran along the lines of… well I am relatively back to normal
and the concern has died down and I am become quite ordinary again and of
little interest to the masses. These ghouls want sensation, excitement, and the
images of Silent Witness, Crime Scene investigations and all those medical
series where the camera zooms through the Lateral Glob Vesicles at an amazing
speed scattering glands, sacs, ducts and bladders with the sound of a Ford Mustang...
Just joking. It still serves its original
purpose of divulging information without depressing people. And that includes me. This keeps me from
getting morbid and helps to sort my head out and keep me away from the what-ifs
I have had so much good since the recovery in
March, especially the surprise trip to Rome withy Karolien, Bernadet and Merel.
Before I go, I had said, I want to see Rome. I saw it and I didn’t go. Bit
sneaky really, almost like false-pretences.
Far too much has happened and I should have recorded it I tried
to sort of reserve space for events because everything in blogger is
last-in-first-out. Then it all got lost in a crash and I kicked the computer right in the USB port. I have had so much
happiness these last years, even with cancer popping in and out. It is disappointing
but one can make the most of what one has. I have had much...
It is now the 12th of December.
Tomorrow is the 13th. An inauspicious
day to get the results of all the investigations that have occurred in the last
weeks. Therefore I must bring you up to that point because it will be news to
me as well as to you. To save time, I insert here two quotes from Facebook,
which I had sent to some family members but triggered off lots of ‘you OK?’ comments.
Referred to my doctor
because you can’t go to hospital and waste time. He felt around in my groin and
said he could feel something lumpy. I decided to leave because he seemed to
have a dreamy look on his face and it was all taking longer than one might have
thought it warranted. Memories of a scoutmaster in 1953. I’m a man of the world, but….He did however send me to
the MCA for further groping.
With Bernadet to the MCA
and the Dismal Doctor Mole. He was apparently having a poo when charisma was
being handed out. He also has a rummage and declared that a ‘puncture’ was
needed.
Results of the puncture, quite deflating
Not much news I’m
afraid. Went with Bernadet to see Doctor of all things Dismal. A man so lacking
in personality that it is hard to see him at all against the colourless
background of his office. You may recall that in last week’s episode your
humble scribe was lanced and needled until he felt like the martyred St.
Sebastian. I recall that in Hamlet Polonius was stabbed in the Arras. I know
how he felt. At that time, the man on the echo machine said that I had two
tumours in my groin area, that it was cancer, and gave the diameter, volume,
specific gravity and other statistics of the tumours. A week later, Doctor
Dismal opens a file and says exactly the same thing, only now he has pictures
from the echo machine. More than a week has gone by, and he says I should have
a scan, quite soon in fact. This from the man who three months ago at my
check-up said that a scan was not necessary if I felt OK and one should not go
looking for trouble at my age, because one would always find it. Perhaps it
would have made no difference, except that I would have lost three happy
months. Anyway, a scan will be completed on Monday afternoon, hopefully not the
one where they tie your arms over your head and drag you through the
claustrophobia-inducing pipe for 40 minutes. Which will be nice. Then I will
also get to hear when I can talk to the oncologist. I hope that after Monday
another week will not go by only to be told that I have had a scan. One
absolutely brilliant episode that made a trip to the MCA worthwhile. I went to
the toilet for a pee. A large gentleman came in behind me and proceeded to
remove his expensive looking overcoat. Perhaps afraid that he might dribble on
it, or lose control of his willy and have it thrash about like a garden
hosepipe out of control. Anyway, we are standing there humming and minding our
own business and finding interesting things to see on the blank wall in front
of us, accompanied by the sound of running water. Quite usual in public bogs,
where the urinals are flushed now and again by unseen magic. But suddenly we
could hear water splashing onto the polished granite floor. We both turned
round to see the basin in which the large gentleman had placed his expensive
overcoat was now full and overflowing. With the equivalent of “Bollocks@#%*’
the overcoat was snatched from the bowl but too late, it was a sodden mess.
Those automatic taps do not know the difference between a warm overcoat and a
warm hand. I would have pissed myself laughing if I had had any left. See you
after Monday.
The scan. There are
certain aspects of hospital visits that suck you back into the world of the
hospital and the acceptance of yourself as a patient. The smell and the big red
panic buttons in the bogs. And above all the hideous yellow and grey
bedspreads. I had been working in the morning at the Depot and was very tired.
Either it is the worrying, the getting up at 5.30 am for work or the cancer
that causes me to feel so tired that I fall asleep at every opportunity.
Shuffled into the hospital and was directed to The Bunker. This is underground
because the people who work down here glow in the dark. Told to sit in the
waiting room and fell asleep. Awakened by a large woman in a white coat and the
pale, leprous look of something that lives underground and too close to
machines that glow and hum. I was led into a little room and told to lie down
for about half an hour. I fell asleep I was then ordered to remove all metal
from my person. A questionnaire because of the nature of the scan. Did I have
any kidney problems? Yes, I have only one. You people took the other one last
year. She muttered ‘just the one, then’ and was I pregnant? I thought it
unlikely. More impertinent questions and
would I now please put the nappy on. The nappy? Yes sir, in case you pee. And
if you pee on our lovely scanning machine, you will cause a great deal of
damage. How come? Because we are going to give you a transfusion of radioactive
gunge and if it gets on our machine it will also be radioactive and will not
scan properly, Very hard to remove and it will be have to be cleaned and we don’t
want to get anywhere near this stuff, it’s
radioactive for God’s sake! I saw the movie ‘The Day After’. Everyone’s teeth
fell out and they went bald. If this stuff is so corrosive that it will ruin a
massive block of metal, what on earth will it do to my urino-genital system? Another nurse came in and fixed me up with a
plastic thingy for the nuclear gunge, which was brought in in a heavy metal
tube. It was promptly injected and everyone backed off as if I had the plague.
A woman in the next set of thin curtains was screaming that she was neither a
baby nor a geriatric and was not going to wear a nappy. No nappy, no scan said
the nurse. By then I was stood up and I shuffled along the green line with my
arms full of clothes. In my nappy. The last scan I had was dreadful. Your arms
are tied behind your head with Velcro and you are slowly pushed through the
pipe on the massive metal table that must not be radioactively peed on. This time I
just fell asleep. I never did find out if the woman did put the nappy on. Drove
home, trying not to fall asleep. I get really dizzy and disorientated lately
and sometimes wonder where I am. Saw a house that I vaguely remembered and went in. The people were very kind. They
made me feel quite at home. I fell asleep
Not sure if I will sleep
tonight. There is a lot riding on the outcome of this scan. Even as Sara says,
with humour to help you through.
Doctor to patient – wait
till you hear this one. It will kill you.
Fast Show - Cancer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SyM3uTzZgY
The dream.
Skyped with Emma
tonight. And she told me her dream. She said she dreamt that I, who (in her
dream) had always protected her and Merel, was myself in great danger from a
monstrous snake. The two of them fought the snake. Just as it was about to bite
me, Emma killed it with a bow and arrow which she just happened to have about
her person. She says the dream child is Cupid, the Snake is Cancer, and it is killed
by Love. I do admit that there was a hint of a tear in the old eye and a lump
in the throat (...er, perhaps another metaphor, please...!). My heart is overflowing. Reminds me of a song.
Emma is great with
words. I am moved by words. I told Emma the words of a song about going back
into the past, about lost childhood.
My Blue Pony will take me for a ride, back to where we used to
go.
I’ll see your face and touch your hand, and my heart will
overflow.
Musing about words, I
just love the words of Mike ‘Passenger’ Rozenberg’.
Well if you can't get what you love,
You learn to love the things you've got,
If you can't be what you want,
You learn to be the things you're not,
If you can't get what you need, learn to need the things that stop you dreaming.
And my favourite:-
God knows I failed. But
he knows that I tried
Got tickets for Passenger. 150 pounds paid and it turns out that it is sold out and the site is dodgy and probably won't get my money back. Bollocks.
It is late and I am
falling asleep. Will post tomorrow.
G'night all
Be well.
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