No Trousers

 So the C word was used by the very person who never uses the C word. It drifted gently in amongst a cavalcade of explanations of stem cell treatment outcomes. As soon as it landed I knew it was significant and I gently picked it up and gave it the prominence I hope it deserved. “I thought Cure was a dirty word” “ slip of the tongue, it’s important to manage expectations” The consultant was excited. There are numerous matches to my bone marrow in the database and one of them in particular exceeds expectations. Ideally the team will look for up to ten common markers in the bone marrow between donor and host to absolutely minimise the chances of rejection. They’ve found one with twelve common markers; a 22 year old Welshman. If conversations are productive then I’m set for a transfusion around mid. March. Stem cell transfer is not risk free; in fact there’s a 15% chance that the patient could die. On the other hand there’s an 85% chance they won’t. There’s then the period after the t...

Where shall we three meet again? In thunder lighting or in rain? When the hurly burley’s done When the battle’s lost and won That will be ere the set of sun Where the place? Upon the heath There to meet Macbeth It was about three in the afternoon and I found my bed surrounded by a nurse, an auxiliary and a doctor, all looking very worried. “We’re going to have to get you in a side room” said the nurse “When?” “Now!” Everything of mine visible was thrown onto my bed and I was wheeled out of the bay, down the corridor and into a side room like a student trolley dash or a 70s episode of Doctor at Large. I was quickly followed by my storage cupboard and all things excommunicated. I half expected a shout of “now stay out and don’t come back” I was fairly quickly offered an explanation that the infection on my line, which was still to be removed, was contagious and I needed to be isolated from others. In the meantime I would have the line removed and a cocktail of antibiotics to detect which...

 Captain’s log, star date 17012022. We  have  been trappedinadarkvoid for seven days. “SPOCK, what’s the latest?” “Ladbaby nailed the Christmas number one spot by shamelessly piggy backing Elton  John and Ed Sheeran by replacing every fifth word in their Christmas song with the words sausage roll” “It’s worse than I thought Spock. We need to get out of here now. Scotty! The only way we’re going to get out of here is if we fire our way out. Set ship’s photons on full power” “The engines canna take it Cap’n. We could lose the whole crew” “Scotty! I think we had this conversation. It doesn’t matter what I ask you tell me the engines canna take it. Have you ever considered an alternative career? Now do it, full power.” The Enterprise blasted out of the void at warp speed just after I sat down. After seven days I was no longer  constipated. It’s been a strange few days. After suffering very few side effects from the chemo treatment I was now nauseous, constipated, my...

 Christmas Day in a hospital is a hybrid beast. Efforts are made to produce a festive menu and the hospital hands out gift bags to the patients. I spent a fair bit of time on FaceTime sharing in my family’s Christmas but at least two thirds of the day was spent hitched to a drip. I also found time to finish binging a korean drama. It was 10.30 when I fell to sleep but regardless of my own intentions I knew I would be woken fairly regularly to have my blood pressure taken. It was 11.30 when I was woken first but it wasn’t a nurse. A rather well dressed lady was at the foot of my bed with what looked like a gift bag in her hand. “Hi there! I’m Jane from the church chaplaincy, we are distributing gifts to the patients on behalf of the chaplaincy”. “It’s a bit late isn’t it?” “I know, they were running behind and I volunteered to pop in and do an hour or so” I thanked her and then she asked if there was anything else I needed. The role of the chaplaincy went beyond handing out gift bag...

I’ve been back at At the hospital for about four days now. So far we’ve had one death, one attempted escape and a fight. Not sure of the details of the latter but it was dominated by a very aggressive woman stating she wasn’t stupid, wouldn't be patronised and then claimed to have been assaulted. The man who died had lain in the bed next to me, hadn’t been eating and was refusing fluids. He had a jaundiced complexion and his stomach was swollen to an unnatural size. I admit that most distressing to myself was the smell; it was a sweet sickly putrescence and I was massively relieved when he was moved to a side room. When the crash team descended in the middle of the night it came as no surprise who they were looking to save. I know it might seem tasteless, my speaking of this, but a very real consequence of being treated for this disease is being so close to those who fail to survive it.  The aspiring escapee was in the bed opposite. He was on his third course and the chemo had wrea...

I had a week to get fit for the second round of chemo whilst at home. A week to use diet and exercise to get me in the right place. I did think I’d start slowly with the exercise thing but I had no idea how far I had to go. When I arrived home it was a massive relief and as I sat down for a meal, my second of the evening, I’d had a meal at the hospital before they released me, I was determined to follow through on a fitness regime. Then I tried to climb the stairs. Ok! This wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe I needed to rethink my strategy here. If I can’t climb stairs then it’s going to take a lot to get me where I need to be. First night I slept nine hours through  and it was brilliant. I woke at 7.30 to a busy household with my sons: Alex and Laurence and my wife, Christine getting ready for the day ahead. I wasn’t used to this as I was previously first up but now the tables had turned and everyone was looking after me . Breakfast of Korean rice porridge was made and already I felt ...

 “Never tell me the odds” Han Solo, The Empire Strikes Back After a fairly uneventful week, hence no blog, it was planned that I should be able to leave the hospital for a short period at home before beginning the second trench of chemo. There will be four in total and,  possibly at some time early next year, a bone marrow stem transfer, depending on my suitability. I had a letter from the QE hospital asking me to attend a preliminary meeting about the stem cell option and that was for Tuesday. Taking advantage New Cross decided that Tuesday would be the day I was also discharged. I expressed my concern that trying to do so much on the same day was a recipe for disaster but was assured that this would not be an issue. First sign that the day might not go as planned was when I put my jeans on and they immediately sought refuge around my ankles. I needed a belt. I’ve lost about 2.5 stone so I’m pretty diminished. Of course a few pounds of that could be accounted for by my hair w...