Tag Archives: ganglion

Wednesday 23rd December 2015 – I KNEW THAT IT WAS A MISTAKE …

… to drink that half-litre of sparkling water with blackcurrant syrup last night. I was up and down like a yo-yo all through the night and I didn’t really have a very decent sleep because of it. Serve me right.

And the film that I saw – the James T Wong film – was the first time that I’d seen it. It was the first one of the series apparently and Boris Karloff had only a supporting role rather than the lead role that he had later in the series. And the film lost quite a lot because of it. The plot was rather thin and the denouément was rather weak.

Anyway, I was up at the usual time, had my injection and then had my breakfast. It was about 11:00 when everyone was ready to leave and so while they shot off to Montlucon and shopping, I went round to my house to check it over and relax for a while. Surprisingly (or maybe it isn’t), even though the day was grey and depressing, the batteries were fully-charged and the water was heating up nicely.

I headed off to Montlucon at about 14:00 and went to Carrefour, but I couldn’t remember what it was that I wanted to buy so it was rather pointless. And then I went off to the hospital.

16:30 was my appointment, and so I was seen bang on 17:45, and least I now know what they think might be up with me. Apparently I have a lymphoma of the ganglions, and the cure for that is quite drastic. They intend to take out my spleen. The spleen is also the organ that controls a great deal of the immune system and so while removing the spleen MIGHT (and only “might”) solve the lymphoma problem, it might provoke problems all of its own.

But it did lead to an interesting dialogue –
Doctor – “I’m afraid we are going to have to take your spleen out”
Our Hero – “Blimey – isn’t that a really difficult operation?”
Doctor – “Rubbish! Generations of surgeons have been taking the backbone out of politicians for almost 100 years! It’s child’s play by comparison!”

Anyway, after the holidays, they will arrange an appointment for me with the surgeon and the anaesthetist and we’ll see what happens then.

So rather chastened by the news I headed back here to tell Liz.

Liz – “Are they going to do that here?”
Our Hero – “No Liz – not in the kitchen”

To cheer me up, there was home-made ice-cream. The strawberry was excellent but as for my inspiration of the choco-mint-chip (made by the simple expedient of grinding up a mint-chocolate bar into a litre of coconut milk), it was astonishingly good. I was amazed.

At least that cheered me up. And I needed cheering up too because that wasn’t the only bad news that I had had. I mentioned to the doctor the story about the twice-daily injections and she confirmed that unfortunately they do have to continue.

So I shan’t be having my lie-in after all. Drat and double-drat!

Wednesday 9th December 2015 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… on my travels today – the first time since I came back from hospital last Friday.

In fact, I was out on my travels during the night too. I was working in an aeroplane hangar and one of the jobs that I had to do was to fit a new wheel and tyre on the undercarriage of ar aeroplane. In fact, the wheel bore a very great resemblance to the wheel and tyre that I fitted the other week on my wheelbarrow. And each time I fitted it, the air pressure went down and the tyre went flat. Eventually I had a good listen and I could hear the air escaping from a puncture in the inner tube. But like a good Civil Servant that I was, I’d been told to put this particular wheel and tyre on the aeroplane, and so I did. Fixing the puncture was obviously too much like hard work.
But from there we moved on a little and I was part of an undercover police force that was investigating the theft of a very dangerous chemical from this hangar. It was one that dissolved almost everything with which it came in contact (so how did they find a container in which to keep it?) and was on the Top Secret list. And as we were searching this hangar for clues, there was a man, badly eaten away by the acid and with bits of his body like his left thigh missing and with yellow skin, trying desperately to hide from our view underneath a 50-gallon oil drum that was lying on its side. But having failed in our search, we did however know that something had been posted to someone, put in a letter box somewhere. We were all crushed inside an old Ford Y van, a red Post Office van, and we were looking at all of the letters that had been collected from various letter boxes. All of a sudden, one particular letter caught my eye so I opened it. It was addressed to a cycle maker, and seemed to be some kind of coding in a five-letter group on an old blue order form. We sent a woman with the order form to give to the cycle maker to see what happened, which she did. And a couple of days later, she was called back and gived a brand new specially-made kids’ cycle painted green and white and she looked totally ridiculous on itn being a rather large woman. But we were no further forward and so we retired to plot our next move.

And this is when the alarm went off and I had to struggle to find the phone which, in the meantime, was waking everyone in the house. And I was thinking what another good sleep I’d just had.

After breakfast and the visit of the nurse to give me my injection, I had a shower and packed my bag and then Terry and I set off for Montlucon, stopping on the way at Pionsat for fuel and my order from the pharmacy.

At Montlucon we went to the hospital for my 11:00 appointment, which turned out to be about midday before I was seen.

The good news is that I don’t have leukaemia. The bad news is that I have a form of lymphoma. There are several types of this illness, some of which are quite aggressive and others not so. It seems that I have one of the lesser kinds. There is a whole range of reasons why this might have occurred, and one of these reasons is due to something to do with an aggressive protein, and my blood count shows that there is a protein that has gone off the scale in the blood count. It’s not the “usual suspect” in this respect, but nevertheless it merits further enquiries and so I’m due for further tests.

But as an aside, two points raise their ugly head. If it is a protein issue, there are not the facilities to treat it at Montlucon and so I will have to go elsewhere. It looks as if I’ll be on my travels again in the New Year. And in the second case, I seem to be full of ganglions. Not that they are dangerous apparently, but their presence has certainly been noted and in all kinds of places too.

On the way back we stopped for a late lunch and then went to Neris-les-Bains in search of chocolates for Liz because it’s her birthday today. After that, I went back home, for the first time for almost three weeks.

We’ve had plenty of sun, plenty of wind and plenty of excess solar energy, 694 amp-hours in just 19 days and that’s impressive for a period approaching the winter solstice. I also had a good rummage around and found a spare door lock, and I fitted that onto the front door so that it can be opened from the outside. This might come in handy if people other than me need access to the house.

I hung around here for a while too because, although it was cold, it was nice to be on my own for a while and relax in the relative comfort and security of my own surroundings. As Barry Hay once famously said on the beach at Scheveningen about 25 years ago “I tell you what man, it’s good to be back home”.

I started up Caliburn, threw some spare clothes, soya milk and vitamin B12 drink into the back and set off for Liz and Terry’s. First time Caliburn has had a run out for a while of course. And I mustn’t forget Strawberry Moose who has been invited to spend Christmas away from home.

As I drove back here, I remembered thinking “wouldn’t it be nice if the next round of tests were to reveal that I don’t need these twice-daily injections and the district nurse didn’t have to come round so often” and then I thought “blimmin’ ‘eck – it’s 19:00 and if I don’t put my foot down I’ll miss the nurse!” I had completely forgotten.

But I was back first and here I am at Liz and Terry’s. All ready for Round 2, and trying to work out a cunning plan about going home. I managed to take a huge load of wood upstairs to my attic without stopping, and that was certainly better than before I went to hospital, so things are looking up. I’ll see what my next couple of blood tests tell me and then I’ll make a decision.