Doesn’t it just.

Yesterday Maria and I had three hours at the hospital going through all the procedures and risks associated with my new chemo regime. I don’t remember any of this from before so I guess they have tightened up on making sure every eventuality is covered including those disasters triggered  should I forget to close the toilet lid (I jest not). I guess the drugs are so toxic they can leap out of the toilet bowl and take out any passers by or spectators. Not a likely scenario but better safe than sorry I suppose. It was actually quite a fun experience and I could not help laughing at the registrars attempts at euphemistic language – I really don’t know what he meant by my private parts as there are at least two options neither of which seemed to fit the bill in terms of the potential maladies he was attempting to describe. Happily he had a sense of humour. Honestly ‘private parts’ should have long gone the way of ‘down there’ and ‘water works.’

This came after another long night accompanied by more  German cinematic angst. The choice on Mubi of Austrian films is quite limited but I am particularly interested in Vienna and Viennese culture at the moment so foolishly I indulged in an Ulrich Seidel film (advisory oh boy very very advisory) about elderly Austrian women who go to Africa to find ‘love.’ It turned out to be more than a bit pornographic with many enthusiastic  ‘wangers,’ let’s call them (private parts) amidst a good amount of wrinkly white fleshy bits littering the screen. I admit I got bored but as always with so many German/ Austrian art films it left a very distinctive vibe of hopeless and pathetic futility over a background of despair, [not jolly would be another way of putting it] which was exacerbated when after falling asleep (as I said it was quite a boring film) for an hour or so I awoke and attempted to turn on the bedside light.—  Zilch. I assumed we had had yet another power cut (we had had a couple cos of the storm) and slightly delirious I crawled around the house looking for a torch. After shuffling my way to the bathroom I absent mindedly flipped the light switch and -amazement -there was light. So there was no power cut just a bulb out on the bedside lamp. I felt a distinct German movie futility moment. Old man shuffles around das Haus, in the dark mistakenly believing there is a powercut. Perhaps I should make it.

Other news. While at the hospital I begged for stronger pain killers hinting that diazepam was my class A drug of choice but the registrar wouldn’t let me have them. I was persuaded that if I took more of the same old same old more regularly all would be well. I gave a very good natured response but I was sneering inside dreading another night of enthusiastic wangers but behold the medical professionals were right if you take loads and often the pain slips away and sleep slips in – blissful. A night of uninterrupted sleep was mine – I am happy.

Or I was.

After all the build up, Maria and I arrived at the hospital ready for the big event. I even brought my new satchel, yes I bought a 1970’s leather school satchel to hold all my German grammar books,  only to be told that a form authorising the budget for the treatment had not been signed so it had to be delayed a week. Honestly I couldn’t give a monkeys. Bet that surprises you. Now if I was till having back pain I might have kicked off (but actually that would have been pointless). Helen the nurse I have known for 10 years was very apologetic, but as I said to her , stuff happens and when it does you just don’t know what other events it might give rise to or what you might have avoided.  Perhaps I have dodged choking on a donut, perhaps someone unknown to me but in some convoluted way connected has avoided serendipitously something important, perhaps some deep space asteroid has minutely adjusted its course and in millions of years will avoid colliding with earth eliminating all references to the human race because my treatment was delayed by a week. What I am sure of  is that at any level beyond that occupied by Maria and I, it may or may not make a difference and we will never know. So after calling at Sainsbury’s and the post office we drove home (I admit a bit pathetically, tail between legs like) to be greeted cheerfully by Vinnie who is loving my sojourn in the ex Nonna downstairs electric tilting bed because he finally gets to sleep on a real bed in a warm room (see serendipity again) – he is excluded from upstairs, for which I believe he bears a grudge against Bobby who sleeps upstairs every day, and so if he can while he can (while my back still aches) he spends the entire day on Nonnas bed. I will join him

So Helen will check if the form has been signed on Friday and call me. Any further delays and she said they will ply me with steroids I asked if it could have them now, she thought I was joking, I wasn’t. Backs hurting a bit again maybe I spoke too soon. Damn it.

Tara C x

I am knocking around at 4:36. Could have been1:36 or just about any old hour:36 as the oramorph is not all it’s cracked up to be. I have been reassured by some gracious readers, that yes, this is the drug of 19^th century gentlemenly addiction (I didn’t know, morphine, cocaine and opium are variations on the same poppy – is that right?) I could google it but it’s actually fun to get scholarly notes from Maria’s old friends who very kindly respond to my blogs meandering queries with percentages – but anyway not an incubus, fleshless grotesque or tiresomely long trippy poem has come my way – my back still hurts, not horribly but still just enough to prevent sleep so I am reassuring myself by writing this blog and fantasising about well stocked pharmacies full of delicious and let’s hope, effective drugs. – note to self 8:30 am call haematology department and beg.

Introspection is the default state at these hours and my latest navel gazing insights are as follows:

Perhaps because of my experience of this illness (you know the one that will never go away and I keep moaning about) my assumption now is that any illness, from an ingrowing toenail to the flu, a headache or an insect sting will never ever go away and will very likely be a death sentence. When it goes and I am not dead I am surprised. So I want to shout to the world that the wound I received while cleaning under the sink from some vicious flea or spider or ant that went colourfully ‘pussi’ cleared up without a trip to the doctor or A&E. As Aliash says repeatedly in ‘strictly’ –  ‘get in!’

Speaking of ‘strictly’ should Chris the blind comedian win even though he is not the best dancer? I kind of hope not. I think it would be a retrograde step for inclusiveness and what he has achieved so far is remarkable enough. He will win though because the public love him and are a sentimental lot. Fair enough I suppose. Strictly does try so hard to do inclusiveness properly and my old fashioned view is that it does a good job.

Next insight – along with the pleasure of venting stuff when I am feeling poorly (like a whale vents mucus through its blowhole, not water as we all suppose, hence well-intentioned rescuers can drown a whale by pouring water in its blowhole supposing it needs it) writing this blog is about asserting control. While my body is only partially in control because of illness, the little local world in which it resides seems reassuring in my control if I write about it. In the chemo sessions that begin next week I will relinquish control to the NHS but assert control by boring you all to death with a blow-to-blow account. I don’t write it for you to read it, I write for me to write it. (That’s not a typo btw.)

Next. Last time I was undergoing this sort of treatment I obsessively bought, fixed and installed old telephones and a whole load of lighters and other clobber. This time I am learning German for no good reason. I escape to another linguistic domain with joy, preoccupying myself with the minutiae of German grammar and reading easy readers with real relish. Most of them are truly dreadful, particularly watch out for those written by AI that are unreadable cobblers. The human authored ones are generally self published and concern such fascinating events as Ursula buying shoes in a department store in Munich and losing her keys. Even those by the big German educational publishers are overpriced, very short and awful. But Behold Angelika Bohn. If there was a Nobel Prize for German easy readers she would get it. They are imaginative without involving stuff I hate like wizards and castles, the characters are fun and a bit unpredictable, they are quite long but only cost two or tree quid, she repeats vocabulary throughout each title, so for example people get pushed on the shoulder repeatedly rather than once on the chest, once on the back etc. and the books are graded from A1 to C1 – I am at A2 which means you get to call yourself an advanced beginner. At the moment the story is about Sasha who is troubled by his surname which translates as woman’s shoe. (At least I hope that’s what it translates as, because if not I have missed the point) This is holding him back so he finds himself transported into the body of all the other people inn Germany with the same surname. Hmm strange idea, slightly desperate perhaps but plenty of chances to invent new characters, to experiment with identity and gender and explore some German cities.  It’s a bit like a Christmas Carol in so far as we are meant to learn to be better people from their dilemmas which is a bit annoying. These other people have also been troubled by the silly name but in most cases have overcome it or are so bad (robbers, liars and whatnot) they just don’t give a shit. It’s also targeted at young adults so the hip dialogue is not particularly applicable to my needs being more along the likes of ‘Where is the toilet? I need it urgently due to a dodgy prostate.” Rather than ‘let’s skinny dip in the lake, snort some coke and then checkout a gay bar.’Yes they do sound truly dreadful don’t they but in my particular state of mind and in these inhospitable hours Angelika Bohn gives a biblical degree of comfort.

Wow I slept!

It is now morning and I have spoken to haematology. Damm it! no class A drugs for me yet. Got to try a regime of regular doses rather than ‘as required.’ Last time I went onto regular doses I ended up in hospital with chronic constipation so this time Chris take the laxatives seriously they are not an optional extra when you fancy an over sweet orange flavoured fibrous cocktail.

Tara C  x

(Paul ‘Tara’ is Kentish cockney for ‘bye’) –  it’s not a nom de plume although at your suggestion I am thinking of adopting it. Tara C x

Good very early morning readers.

It seems an age since I addressed you at 3:32 in the morning but here I am and no, it’s not the steroids, they don’t start until next week this is just yet another unfortunate event in the history of my ‘autumn of ill.’

As you know I have always hated autumn – well now I will associate it not only with going back to school but with enduring a string of health glitches that, were it not for my much admired good humour would PISS ME OFF me off almost as much as those years of hated and pointless hard labour. Yes, I am getting WELL FED UP and I suspect so are the health professionals tasked with keeping my motor running.

So I have strained a muscle in my upper back. Not a big deal you say, and so say I, but it has coincided with the break in my chemo regime as one drug kicks out and another kicks in. Accordingly, the cancer takes delight in reminding of its persistence by bothering me with lower back pain, much to be expected with myeloma, that’s what you get when it wakes up to smell the coffee but the combination of the two back pains slugging it out for ‘who can hurt most’, is sufficient to prevent me sleeping, not entirely but REALLY IRRITATINGLY.

Anyway after enduring a few nights of waking up, getting up, trying to read, going downstairs, making blistering hot water bottles to lie on (they give relief), persuading the cat to join me on the scalding settee and stop moaning about his need for a pre dawn snack, watching bleak German TV (with subtitles – the last one was about a young fisherman who falls in love with his teacher, they canoodle in a hut on a deserted Baltic island, she tries to call the whole thing of but (worried about losing her job) falls off another boat when out for a jolly , gets cremated, planned burial at sea, he follows the burialing boat in his fishing boat, overcome by grief segueyed by a sudden enthusiasm to join her in the afterlife so  jumps in the sea to canoodle with her anew).  In the morning I give the hospital a ring and tell them of my strife and hopefully persuade them to prescribe some stronger painkillers.

The same registrar that last time gave me mega antibios for my persistent cold has given me morphine (oramorph) for my back ache. I was expecting us to progress sedately up the list of possible analgiesigs ( sorry I really can’t be bothered to figure out how to spell at 2 in the morning) but it seems she is unafraid of the sledgehammer approach so here I am waiting for that nirvana effect that only a decent opioid can deliver – it is an opioid isn’t it – was it the one Sherlock Holmes got addicted to? Feeling quite 19th century and decadent – Tara c