Tag Archives: chemotherapy

Friday 27th May 2016 – IF ANYTHING …

… my night last night was even worse than the previous one. I was awake for ages before going to sleep and then I awoke again at about 03:30. every time I tried to go to sleep something or someone brought me back round again and that was annoying.

None of the foregoing though stopped me going on a wander. I started off with my old rock group and we were practising in the concert room of some workingmen’s club somewhere. The club opened at 18:00 but the concert room didn’t open until 19:30 so we were able to hire it for that 90-minute period every so often. Things were a bit shambolic and anarchic and it was clear that we weren’t getting on too well together but we had to persevere.
From here we went on to the house of someone whom I know in France. There was agroup of us there and two of our number, the lady owner of the place and her friend, went out for a walk. They hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when there was the most astonishing thunderstorm and the heavens simply opened. I’d never seen so much rain in all my life. The house leaked like a sieve and the rain roared inside. The two people outside came running back and we asked them whatever possessed them to gooutside when the weather was threatening like this. I wanted to go into the next room but a stream of water cascading down the walls and down the door made me unwilling to open the door but someone else did so and we were thus able to leave the kitchen and go into the living room. But as we went inside, the daughter of the house (who was already in there) shouted “you should see the water going into the bucket”. What was happening was that there was an avalanche of rainwater falling down inside the house, bouncing off the stair rail and going straight into a sink at the back of the living room. But the whole house was inundated, soaking wet, and everything was being ruined.
A short while later, I was at another house and suddenly a couple of people arrived, one of whom was Nerina. They had been to the shops and bought tons – and I do mean tons – of stuff and they were unloading the car and dumping the stuff everywhere. Our task was to take it where it was supposed to go. I remember that there were four huge picture frames but what was in them I do not know because they were wrapped in Christmas gift wrapping. I had two of these and was taking them to another room, but trying to fight my way out with all of the rest of the items and everyone else in the way was proving to be much more difficult than it ought to have been.

The dietician came to see me this morning, and brought one of his drinks to show me. But even though it has no milk as such in it, it’s jam-pack full of milk proteins and so that’s no use to me unfortunately. Apart from that, he doesn’t really have too much of an idea as to where to go from there.

And the doctor came too. She was dismayed when I told her that just half an hour earlier, my “stomach trouble” had reappeared – and in spades too. I did think yesterday that it was too early to go crowing about it. But she tells me that they have decided against the chemotherapy that I’ve been having. They are going to give me some other sort of treatment. However, it does have all of the same side effects such as the shivering and the fever and it’s every three weeks, not every four, so I’m not sure how much further down the road we are going to be with this.

I have a horrible, nagging suspicion that my illness isn’t going to respond to anything really and that I’m going to be stuck like this for ever. seeing them bring another pochette of blood to me this afternoon did nothing to allay my fears.

The spinach that I ordered for lunch came smothered in a creamy kind of sauce which was clearly no good for me so it looks as if I’ll have to abandon my idea of a varied diet and stick with the mixed veg, rice and extra carrots for now.

In case you are wondering, it’s true that I’m feeling pretty disillusioned right now. Not with the hospital, which is doing everything that it reasonably can do to help me out, but with the way things are working. I was hoping that by now I would have shown some kind of improvement and would slowly be starting to get on top of everything, but it’s clearly not working out like I wanted. All of this is generally making me feel quite miserable and when I look back on all of the things that I was doing a year ago, or four years ago, or 10 years ago, it’s beginning to drag me down to think that I might never be doing that again.

So this afternoon I sat quietly (or as quietly as I could – only two visitors per patient are allowed at the bedside at any one time and so a huge family that has just come from Africa to see a relative is all crammed in the day room and as they rotate two-by-two they are creating something of a carnival atmosphere in here and I’m in no mood to enjoy it) and read a pile of stuff on the internet.

Still, tomorrow is another day. It’ll be quieter because there are no ancillary staff members on duty, but I don’t expect it to be any different.

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Thursday 26th May 2016 – IT’S HARD …

… to think of what I’ve done today.

I know that my night last night was nothing like as good as last night. I didn’t drop off to sleep so early and I was awake by 04:00, much to my dismay. In fact, round about 15:00, I dropped off to sleep and was awoken at 17:00 by a nurse gently shaking my leg to tell me that my tea had arrived.

Another thing that I do remember about the night was that a girl who has been described in these pages as “the one that got away” came to visit me at some point.

So what have I done today then?

The answer is, basically, nothing. The doctor came to see me again and she examined me. She says that they will make a decision today about my chemotherapy (although, if they have done, I don’t know what it is) and she offered me an endoscopy to look into my stomach – something that I turned down flat as you might expect.

The dietician came along too. He told me that he’s going to prescribe a certain high-carbohydrate drink for me that has 300 calories per serving, and he would be back shortly after 14:00 with the first instalment. He didn’t put in an appearance either so I don’t know much more about that.

And really, nothing much more.

I have to take my stomach pills twice a day now, so I have been informed, because I still have the nausea, but the problem at the other end seems to have subsided, at least for the moment. Mind you, as we all know with chemotherapy, it won’t be long before it’s back.

Anyway, that’s your lot. I hope that tomorrow will be more exciting.

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Wednesday 25th May 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had a pretty good night’s sleep last night.

I was in bed by 22:00 and I don’t remember very much after that before I went to sleep, but apart from one or two trips to ride the porcelain horse, that was effectively that until about 07:30. It’s a long time since I’ve had a sleep quite like that in a hospital.

Today, I’ve had a couple of visits. Firstly, the doctor came in for a chat with me. She’s concerned about my general health, which I might have said the other day, but she’s even more concerned about my dramatic weight loss. I’ve lost 11.6kgs since all of this started and she’s worried that if it keeps on at this rate, I’ll be starting on the muscles and proteins and that could be serious. She did however mention that my blood count has gone up after my transfusion – it’s now 8.7.

a short while later, the dietician came to call. Not the usual one (she’s away for a couple of days) but another. he told me that the doctor had sent me and that they wanted to know much more about my eating habits.

He spent a great deal of time chatting to me and seemed to be very thorough in what he was trying to do. He didn’t, unfortunately, have any instant solutions (I would have been surprised had he done so) but he’s going to try to put together some kind of plan and he’ll get back to me tomorrow.

Apart from that, that’s all really. I’ve had a quiet, relaxing day of not doing very much at all, and I’ve managed to force some food down – to such an extent that you might say that I’ve had a couple of decent meals for once. They remembered to bring me biscottesinstead of bread for breakfast – but forgot the jam!I’m hoping that I can have a pretty good sleep tonight too and maybe feel a little better for tomorrow.

But what’s worrying me is that I’m feeling like this already and I haven’t even started the next lot of chemotherapy. Remembering how bad I felt last time once the chemotherapy was over (and that was starting from a good healthy position), whatever am I going to be like in a week’s time?

I shudder to think.

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Tuesday 24th May 2016 – AND WE’RE BACK …

… and the same old hospital routine – the same one that we’ve experienced dozens of times before. Although it wasn’t an especially early night, by 03:30 I was awake again and that was how I stayed for much of the morning. I don’t remember going back to sleep at all. But luckily, my room-mate doesn’t seem to snore, which is a good thing.

We’re back on the hospital diet too and the smell of the food is putting me right off once more. I managed a banana for breakfast, some tomato soup and an apple for lunch, and for tea I had cheese butties and a soya yoghurt.

Yes, cheese butties. When my overnight drip-feed stuff ran out, I nipped down to Caliburn for my suitcase and this time I brought a few supplies with me too – biscuits and cheese and the like – so now I’m prepared for anything.

The dietician came to see me too and we managed to talk about my eating arrangements. I mentioned that I was having these kinds of dietary issues and she promised to do her best to see that I had stuff that I could actually eat.

Another visitor was the girl from the Social Services. She came to see how I was and to chat about my future accommodation, but that was rather pointless at the moment because I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here, so it’s clearly not possible for me right now to arrange appointments to see anyone.

We had the medical staff too, and the doctor gave me a good going-over. And it seems that some kind of decision about my treatment. The general consensus is that the chemotherapy that I’ve been having is too violent for my body, delicate little flower that I am, and they might have to think about giving me another form.

That will be the subject of discussion amongst the medical staff during the week, so it looks as if I’ll be staying here now until the next lot of treatment – due to start on Friday but may be postponed – is complete.

And my mobile phone has been located. Liz very kindly rang up the Premiere Classe Hotel in Soissons and asked them about it. Apparently they found it underneath the pillow in the bedroom. They’ll hang on to it until I’m released from hospital when I’ll go down and pick it up again. That’s not what I had planned to do, but it can’t be helped. Without an address, there’s no other way of receiving it any quicker.

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Sunday 22nd May 2016 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… back in Belgium this afternoon – but without my mobile phone which I somehow seem to have managed to leave behind at my hotel last night. I shall have to do something about that, and do it pretty quickly too.

It was grey, overcast and raining lightly when I went down to breakfast but strangely, even though I’d had no tea last night, I didn’t feel like eating. But apart from that, I felt much more “like it” than I have for a couple of days. Clearly a good night’s sleep has done me the world of good.

It rained, and quite heavily too at times, throughout the day but that was the only excitement about the journey. The trip was pretty straightforward and I was here at 13:45.

I had a bit of luck too about a hotel. I needed to find a hotel with parking within easy access of the hospital and by chance there was a special offer on at the IBIS hotel at the Heverlee motorway services – just €69:00 for a night which, although it might sound expensive at first sight, it’ll do me some good to have a little luxury before I start my chemotherapy sessions tomorrow.

I settled in quite quickly and crashed out for an hour or so this afternoon and I do have to say that I’m feeling a little better, strange as it may seem.

But last night was fairly exciting though.

When I checked in to my hotel last night I took a menu from the local fast food delivery place to order something to eat for tea. But I don’t remember a thing after about 20:15. I remember once or twice going down the corridor but apart from that, I was stark out until 08:03 exactly. It was the best night’s sleep that I have had in absolutely ages and if I’d been on a voyage during the night, I remember nothing whatever about it. I’d had an accident during the night however, but I’ll tell you more about that at a later date.

Now we’ll see how we get on through the night, and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

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Friday 6th May 2016 – NOW, I WONDER …

… about the allergy tests that I did at Montlucon just before I came away.

They gave me the tests, apparently, to see whether I was allergic to a new medication that they were proposing for me, but the tests came up with reactions so they didn’t proceed. After chemotherapy they started me off on a course of antibiotics – 2 huge pills that look like torpedoes – and that more-or-less coincided with my violent attacks of nausea and … err … other stuff. However they took the decision yesterday to suspend the antibiotics and strangely enough, I haven’t been to the bathroom once after an early-morning session.

Furthermore, during the course of the day, I managed to nibble down about 10 dry biscuits, one apple and two bottles of lemonade and, to date, they have not yet upped sticks and left. I would have had a couple of slices of spicy cake stuff too but for some unaccountable reason I seem to have left that behind in Caliburn.

Of course there’s a long way to go but it’s a rather optimistic sign, and I’m wondering if I had maybe an allergy to this antibiotic treatment that has caused all of this. It could also be that, given the shape of the things, I’ve been taking them the wrong way, of course.

And that does remind me of the story about the doctor visiting his patient and asked him “did those suppositories I gave you ease your piles any?”
To which the patient replied “to be honest, doctor, for all the good that they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my a**e”.
Mind you, with my face of course, it’s a mistake easily made.

I was really looking forward to last night having a room to myself but as you might have been expecting, it didn’t work out quite like that at all for I was still unable to go to sleep. And when I did, it was full of fits and starts and tossing and turning.

But it did mean that I was up early. And when I went for a little walk I noticed the sun streaming in through the window of the common room so I grabbed the laptop and settled down in the window to enjoy it. It didn’t last long though but nevertheless, with the heat pouring in down the back of my neck it left me feeling a new man, which is just as well because I’m fed up of this one.

The doctor came to see me and we had a very lengthy chat. And she’s clearly concerned because she went off and came back with the Professor. They were honest and admitted that they had never seen a chemotherapy reaction quite like mine but they seemed honestly to believe that I would triumph over it in the long term. They’ve prescribed a course of steroids for me to help me control my body mass, with my weight drifting away even as I speak.

They said that they are intending to keep me in until Monday at least which I suppose isn’t such bad news, for it means that I can go straight from here back to Sint Pieters which is more convenient for me and in any case it all saves me €20 per night while I’m here. We must focus on the positives.

Another thing that was mentioned was the subject of my dreams. Being curious about things of this nature, I asked whether or not there was any combination of medicines that would provoke such wild wanderings. She confirmed that it is not unknown, but no-one has ever done a study into it. So maybe there’s an opening for me here – I’m certainly being a pace setter, if not a trend-setter … "or an Irish Setter" – ed .

It came to prominence where apart from appearing personally in two episodes of the Clitheroe Kid, I went off on two of the most astonishing and vivid voyages that I have ever had. And true to form, when I awoke – bolt-upright – at 07:00, every last vestige of them vanished for ever. You’ve no idea just how disappointed I was about that.

So now, I’ll settle down for the night and hope that my little improvement will finally give me a really good night. I deserve one, and need one too, especially as I’m once more on my own tonight.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and see what happens, hey?

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Sunday 1st May 2016 – THEY FINISHED …

… the second round of chemo much earlier yesterday and so at about 22:30 I was able to settle down to go to sleep. In fact, I fell asleep halfway through one of the James Lee Wong films starring Boris Karloff in the title role.

But I wasn’t asleep for long. Not just tossing and turning either but my right had swelled up quite dramatically and there was a procession of nurses and doctors who came to see it. But I can do without all of this, I can tell you.

I’ve also developed a kind of air-bubble in my left ear too. I’ve no idea where that has come from but they will get a specialist to look at it tomorrow.

By breakfast time, the swelling had gone down enough that I could at least make a fist, but I’m off my food yet again. Jam and soya drinks are now on my proscribed list so you can see that things are definitely looking down. Lunch however was quorn fillets with potatoes in a tomato and mushroom sauce, and I enjoyed that very much.

I also enjoyed the shower that I had although we are going through another session of where I don’t want to look in the mirror to see what they have done to me.

This afternoon, it goes without saying that I crashed out. That’s the usual procedure following chemotherapy as I know from last time. But they did wake me up to give me two pochettes of blood. I suppose they think that that might revitalise me but the way that I’m feeling, it’s going to take more than two pochettes of blood.

They have given me a tablet to prevent bits of me swelling up, but what it is in fact is a diuretic. Every time I drink something, then 5 minutes later I have to dash to the bathroom. What a silly thing to give me so close to bed-time.

So if things go according to plan, I’ll be leaving here tomorrow so I’d better have an early night if I can. But we’ve all heard about plans before, haven’t we, so I’m saying nothing at all.

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Saturday 30th April 2016 – BY THE TIME …

… that they had finished with my chemotherapy last night it was 01:30. And then slowly but intermittently I could drift off to sleep.

In between a couple of trips down the corridor I remember going on a nocturnal ramble or two with some of my 3D characters. Clearly they are all feeling lonely and left out these days.

But this morning I had the nausea, a fever and the dizzy spells, to such an extent that I didn’t feel like my breakfast. And you know that there must be something seriously wrong with me if I’m off my food. In fact it took me until about 11:30 until I started to feel better and just half an hour later I managed to demolish my lunch. Clearly much better.

This afternoon I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, presumably to make up for the couple of bad nights that I’ve been having. I’ve not done very much at all. But now, even as we speak, I’m on the second round of chemotherapy so I hope that this all goes according to plan.

So what will tomorrow bring? Not a lot, I reckon. It’s Sunday and a day of rest.

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Friday 29th April 2016 – JUST AS I EXPECTED …

… I didn’t have a wink of sleep last night.

My room-mate does snore, but nothing like as loudly as my previous ones. It was quite an acceptable level in fact. But he fell asleep with his television on and that meant that I didn’t drop off, and then I lay awake all night thinking about my operation.

I remember 07:00 coming along but then, as you might expect, with zero hour of 08:00 coming along, I dropped off to sleep. So I was rudely awakened. They offered me a wheelchair which I accepted, and then I was pushed for miles and miles around the hospital to the operating theatre.

I managed to avoid a panic attack although it was quite interesting watching the heartbeat monitor go up from 89 to, at one stage, 116. But I was draped in covers so I couldn’t see what was going on and apart from two small occasions, I didn’t feel a thing. In fact, if I were honest, it was much less painful than fitting a drain.

But here’s a thing. I asked them what would happen about taking it out when it’s all over and the answer is that they don’t. It’s here for life “just in case”, and it will need cleaning every three months. So my GP is going to have her work cut out with me.

Another thing that I found out is that if I have sex, I need to wear a condom otherwise I’ll be giving my partner a chemotherapy injection. Mind you, the chances of that ever happening, as I explained to the social worker who came to see me, are somewhat less than zero so it’s not going to be an issue.

She also mentioned that when I leave here, I won’t be going back to Sint Pieters but to the Pellenberg campus which is well out of town in the countryside. Nice and clean and green, but miles away from all facilities. I hope that there’s at least a supermarket and a fritkot nearby.

The chemotherapy was a nightmare (or, should I say, is a nightmare because I’m still plugged in right now). They start off slowly and gradually increase the pace, and I told them not to go beyond 50ml per hour because of the horrible side-effects that I had last time. But of course, no-one listens to an idiot and they soon had it wound up to 90ml/hour. And sure enough, I had the freezing cold, the violent shakes and the nausea and they had to come a-running to deal with the issues because I wasn’t prepared for it to drag on like last time.

They had to disconnect me for a couple of hours so that I could calm down and let my body resettle, and then start up with a limit of 50ml/hour. So it’s going to take ages for the stuff to filter into me but it’s their own fault; had they stuck to the 50ml/hour they wouldn’t have had the couple of hours interruptions.

Once things were back under way, I crashed out for a couple of hours and missed my tea. But they did bring it round later once I’d woken up so that was OK.

But I didn’t mention lunch. I had the dietician around this morning too and we had a good long chat. So for lunch I had boiled potatoes with a huge plate of vegetables, a bowl of vegetable soup and some soya desserts. It was delicious too – I really have an appetite for boiled potatoes these days.

So I’m not sure when the chemotherapy will finish, but I’m going to bed now to watch a film. I saw Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday last night but I’ve no idea what I’ll be seeing tonight. But here’s a thing. I had a close look at the three Inspector Hornleigh films and in each one, some young girl of about 11 or 12 has a walk-on part. And it’s the same girl in each film. She’s not credited in the cast, but I was wondering whether she’s the daughter of the producer or somebody similar. That kind of thing is not uncommon in the acting world – after all, Christopher Columbus’ daughters, Eleanor and Violet, had walk-on roles in several of the Harry Potter films.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day and we’ll see what that brings me. It surely can’t be as bad as today, can it.

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Tuesday 26th April 2016 – I DIDN’T HAVE …

… such a good night last night as I did the previous night. Mind you, having said that, compared to some that I’ve had in the recent past, it was a dramatic improvement and two or three weeks ago, I would have been quite happy with a night like last night.

I didn’t go to bed too early, and didn’t watch a film. I was asleep quite quickly but spent some of the night tossing and turning around trying to find a comfortable position. I had a stroll down the corridor at some time during the night but it didn’t inconvenience me too much and I was wide awake by 07:30.

After breakfast (and two cups of really nice coffee again) I came back here but was unceremoniously thrown out of my room for 15 minutes by the cleaner who wanted to give my room a good going-over. I went to the office and gave my notice in for Friday morning when I’m heading back to the hospital for the next session of chemo.

And I’m not looking forward to that in the slightest. That’s because I’m feeling quite well at the moment and the chemo sessions will knock me back again. But as I said the other day, I’ll just have to get used to it.

I bought a token for the washing machine too and did all of the washing that’s been building up. Hopefully it’ll all be dry by Friday morning so I’ll have clean clothes to go into hospital with.

Down to the shops for lunchtime and I did remember the spicy sliced cake. They didn’t have any of the soya vanilla custard substitute but instead I bought a pack of four of these vanilla-flavoured soya desserts. For pudding tonight, I had four slices of the cake and tipped one of these pots of vanilla over the top – and it was delicious. I’ll eat that again. It went down nicely after my stir-fry vegetables and rice. A meal fit for a King, and you can tell that I’m feeling much better with my appetite being back, and in spades too!

As for the house-hunting, nothing happened today. That’s because I’ve been summoned to see the Social Services people tomorrow. After everything that I said yesterday, it seems that they have a couple of possibilities for me and we have to discuss them.

So things might be starting to happen in that direction. Watch this space.

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Sunday 24th April 2016 – SO MUCH FOR THAT THEN!

There I was last night wishing for a good night’s sleep.

So shall I tell you what actually happened?

I was in bed at 23:15 and started to watch the rest of the film that I missed the other night. That finished at about 24:00 and I settled down for the night after that. By 02:00 I still hadn’t dropped off and I wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the night, but I must have dozed off at some point because at 03:30 I was wide awake again.

And that’s how I stayed until 07:00 or thereabouts, listening to the birds starting up at about 05:30 and watching the day slowly dawn a short while later. But at some point after 07:00 I must have gone off again because I suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake again at 08:50.

I’d been on my travels sometime during the night too. I was in a children’s home somewhere and all of the kids were very badly dressed, due to yet another funds crisis in Social Services. Anyone who had an appointment or interview had to ask in advance and some clean tidy clothes would be found, but these had to be handed back afterwards. It was a very oppressive regime. But what in fact was happening was that people who needed clean, tidy clothes had to go to the back of the queue and people who didn’t need them for an interview or appointment was given them instead. And those who received the clean clothes became members of the oppressive regime, kicking down the others in the home. It was just like life in the European Union.

Once I was up and about, I went for breakfast and then went out for my Sunday baguette and raisin rolls, and I even treated myself to a second coffee to go with the raisin rolls. And how nice that all was too.

During the day, I did next-to-nothing, taking it easy. In fact, the only excitement that I had was making my lunchtime butty. As for catching up with my sleep, I just had a couple of five-minute sessions here and there.

This evening I went for a long walk. I’d seen a pizza place away in the distance and seeing as how Sunday is pizza night, I went off to investigate. But it was more of a restaurant than a take-away place and this was reflected in the prices. I’m running out of money until I can get to a bank (cash isn’t necessary in Belgium – cards are accepted everywhere and there is no minimum spend that I have seen) so I abandoned that idea and headed off back into town to my usual pizza takeaway.

When I arrived back here, I noticed that I was a little short of breath but I didn’t have any discomfort. I was impressed with how I’d managed my walk tonight – this was much more like things ought to be, although it’s taken ages to get up to this state after my chemotherapy.

The downside is that I’m going back next weekend for more chemo and so I’ll be back to square one again, just after I’ve been feeling so good (well, comparatively). But this is going to be a regular occurrence so I might just as well get used to it.

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Monday 18th April 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… was another one where I was wide awake quite early. 04:00 to be precise. And although I did manage to go back to sleep at some time during the night, I was awake again at 06:00. It seems that we have some new arrivals here, namely a family with young children.

I vaguely remember some kind of nocturnal ramble involving trying to load the rear of a hatchback car. And with all of the experience that I have had of loading up cars, vans and lorries, I was having an enormous amount of difficulty doing this. It was shoving the pieces of buttered toast into the back that was proving to be the most problematic, but then again, anything is possible when I’m on my travels at night.

After breakfast, I took it easy again for the rest of the morning until the cleaner threw me out. And then I went for a walk into town for my lunchtime shopping. The Delhaize was having something of a clear-out of time-expired products and what caught my eye was two huge 2-litre bottles of “Oasis” sugar-free blackberry and raspberry juice on sale at half-price. These found their way into my gander-bag along with some soya-yoghurts seeing as I’m running out of Alpro desserts which I eat at breakfast.

I enjoyed my lunch, and then watched Carry on Columbus which I found streamed on the internet. Not a classic “Carry On” film but it certainly has its moments.

Another day in which I didn’t crash out in the afternoon, and I felt ever so much better today, even down to having a healthy appetite for tea. On my travels yesterday I had found a kebab place that did falafel durums and chips for €5:00 and I really did fancy some chips today (just for a change). And my tea was gorgeous too. I could go back and eat it again, and it’s been a while since I felt like that, hasn’t it?

So tomorrow I’m seeing the Social Services officer about some accommodation for the future. I hope that they can do something for me, although I have visions about being lodged in a monastery or some such.

So I suppose that I had better go and have something like an early night. I might even watch a film tonight because there’s no doubt that I am feeling better today. This is a good sign of course, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer, as well we know.

I want to see how I feel by the weekend to be sure that I’m improving. And then I’m back on the chemotherapy on 29th April, and we’ll start all over again.

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Thursday 14th April 2016 – TODAY’S THE DAY …

… when I find out if the first lot of chemotherapy worked or not. I hope that it did, because I don’t want to go through too much more of it. Horrible, nasty stuff!

And so I celebrated by finding the toaster (in the cupboard under the sink), and had toast for breakfast. and a second mug of coffee too, seeing as how it was so nice. I dunno who makes the coffee at this place but they can come and make it for me any time they like.

I needed it too because I’d been well away on my travels during the night. It was something of a disturbed night, tossing and turning and waking up, and so much of what happened and where I went to has long since disappeared into the mists, but what I remember of it was all pretty exciting enough.

I started out with Nerina yet again and we were on our travels in Europe. There was a magnificent site that, to me, could only be an Iron-Age hill-fort but no-one else seemed to agree with me, and some of it had been demolished. I took Nerina to see it and gave her something of a lecture about it, explaining that it was maybe dating from the Visigoth or more likely, perhaps the Merovingian era (although neither lived in hill-forts, but we mustn’t go letting facts get in the way of a good nocturnal ramble now, must we), and that regardless of any rumour or speculation (because the Merovingians have always throughout history been treated as something quite different, even by the Church, and some have even speculated that they might have been spacemen) were just another unknown wandering Eastern tribe that finally collided with Western “civilisation” during the great Western migrations. And I pointed out loads of things that related to the hill-fort that had caught my eye. I didn’t realise it at the time that my “lecture” had drawn quite a crowd and a family came over to me afterwards and asked me to give them a guided tour. I explained that I knew nothing and was merely interpreting, as an amateur, what I was seeing, but they were most insistent.
A little later, I was in Crewe, right down the end of West Street by where Barlow Brothers scrapyard used to be, and I had a pick-up that was towing a trailer. I was out of the vehicle doing something on the verge when a huge lorry went past and the draught sucked my pick-up off down the road. I was sure that I’d applied the handbrake and left the pick-up in gear, but there it was – going off down the road. I ran after it but it was long-gone, and suddenly it burst into flames, going faster and faster down the street. A horse of mine (now, what would I be doing with a horse?) leapt off the trailer and ran back towards me. It was on fire, and quite badly too by the looks of things, but a passer-by threw some water on it and doused the flames. I had a look at the horse and although the hair was charred, the skin looked okay and so I debated as to whether I should call a vet as I put it back in my back garden. But my pick-up was long-gone by now.
And even later, I was driving along a dual-carriageway, “my” side of which was under heavy repair and the road was limited to one lane and was in dreadful condition, so most vehicles were driving the wrong way along the outer lane of the other carriageway. I attempted to do the same but was cut up by a big van so had to continue trudging along, and at the next break in the central reservation, the same big van cut me up yet again. I ended up at my doctor’s, on the second floor of a tall terraced house, right by the side of this dual-carriageway and by now the road had deteriorated into one massive construction site and vehicles were picking their way through it as best as they could. Some young boy in a souped-up American sports saloon of the 1970s was driving like a maniac and as we watched, he clipped a small car coming the other way and turned it over, and spun into a pick-up and totally flattened it. He, of course, escaped unhurt. The small car that was on its side, the construction workers used one of their machines to try to turn it right-side up but they dropped it into a water tank and had to fish it out with a fork-lift truck. After all of this, a small woman with a shaven head emerged from the car. All of her worldly belongings were in the car, ruined by now, and she was destitute. She looked quite shaken and so I beckoned her up to the doctor’s. When she arrived, I explained that the doctor was busy but we would let her go in next for a check-up. She was clearly upset, and was going on about her car and her goods and however was she going to find a mortgage to replace everything?

Having resolved the issue of breakfast, off I toddled to the hospital. My appointment was at 10:50, and do you know what time I was seen? Anyone from the UK would never ever guess correctly – they would be at least a day or two out – but I was seen at 10:50 precisely – bang on time.

They took a blood test from me and fitted a drain in me, and then I was told to wait in the waiting room. And wait I did – for all of about half an hour when I was summoned to see the doctor – a nice young female trainee who can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes. I told her everything – about my arm, about the compression in my chest, about the loss of appetite, the fatigue, the nausea – absolutely everything, and she poked and prodded me just about everywhere – right at the end she asked me “may I feel your groin?”. Well, who am I to argue with that?.

She then went off to consult her professor, and came back 10 minutes later. “We need an ecography of your stomach”.
“When is this likely to take place?”
“14:15” she replied. You can see that we are clearly not in the UK. That was only 90 minutes, not 90 days away.

So I had my ecography and then went back to hear the news.

And I suppose that you are all dying to hear what is going on, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, but it doesn’t make pleasant reading – not for me and probably not for many others either. But here we go.

Basically, the embolism is back in the right arm. It seems that the veins in there are not good enough to support a drain. This means that everything will have to happen in the left arm, and the veins aren’t all that much better in that arm either and they are worried. In view of everything else that is likely to happen to me, more of which anon, they propose to fit a catheter port in my chest. This news (the catheter in the chest, not the embolism) has filled me with complete dismay.

Secondly, they have detected some gallstones. These are by no means a problem but they are blocking a good view of my intestines. They are talking about sending a camera down, but this, I assure you, they will do over my dead body. I’ll suffer like this before I suffer like that.

Thirdly, the chemo hasn’t worked as well as has been expected and so I have to have another transfusion. I had one pochette on the spot then and there, as well as an injection to stimulate the red blood cells.

Fourthly, I have to go back for more chemotherapy, and that’s fixed for 29th April. This is after the end of the 15-day period during which I’m allowed to stay here, so something needs to be done. Those of you with long memories may recall that I was given “advice” by that guy in the European Union’s Social Services department, but the net result of that as been zero. He hasn’t even bothered to reply to my e-mail, never mind do anything about the issues involved. What a waste of time that was!

However, the girl from the Social Services at the hospital seems much more helpful – she sought me out today at the hospital and we had a little chat, and she thinks that once she knows what the programme is, she might be able to help me find somewhere to stay in the neighbourhood. That’s the ideal solution – she seemed to know what she was doing while all of this was going on.

So beaten, battered and bewildered, I left the hospital and went to move Caliburn around the car park and to rescue the clean clothes that I forgot the other day. And then, I took the bus back here.

I did have a pleasant surprise tonight though. I’m limited with what I can eat right now as my taste buds are out of order and I still have some nausea. I seem to be limited to pizza and to the cheapo pasta shop up the road and round the corner. But tonight, looking for a change of diet, I found an Asian take-away. They did a huge portion of vegetable stir-fry and rice for just €5:00.

I’m not a big fan of food from the Chinese end of Asia, but I did cheer up when he started chopping up half a broccoli. And I do have to say that this was one of the nicest commercial stir-fry meals that I have ever eaten (I stress the “commercial” because nothing whatever can match Liz’s stir-fry). I shall add this place to my list.

So tomorrow I need to start work. I need to sort out this accommodation question because I reckon that I’m going to be here for the duration, so I may as well come to terms with it.

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Wednesday 13th August 2016 – NOW, ABOUT LAST NIGHT …

… I was in bed by about 21:30 and it didn’t take all that long at all to drop off to sleep. And the next thing that I remember was that it was 05:35. I can’t have been for a wander during the night and I vaguely remember only the basics of some kind of nocturnal ramble going on during the night. It concerns Renown Garage where my taxi business was based during the late 1980s. They had dug up the petrol pumps and were concreting them, with this huge cement mixer. However, instead of water, they had mixed the concrete with petrol which had infiltrated into the foundations from the old petrol tanks. This had the effect (at least, it did last night) of making the concrete set quickly and super-hard, and they had far too much of it that they didn’t know what to do with it. I immediately seized on the opportunity to offer my back garden as a dumping ground for the concrete – with the aim of course of covering it over as a place to park my vehicles.

I felt quite better this morning, and even had an appetite for breakfast. And afterwards, now that I’ve bought some soap, I went for a shower and sorted out all of my clothes for washing. And this was when I realised that I only have one spare pair of undies and trousers – no socks, tee-shirt or jumper. Nevertheless, I put everything ready to wash.

I had to wait hours for the machine to free itself, seeing as the cleaner seemed to have gone berserk with the cleaning cycle, but it didn’t take long to wash. Meantime, I’d gone round to the supermarket for my baguette, tomato and banana, and as well as that, bought myself a bag of sweets and a bun because I was starving. This is definitely an improvement.

And my relentless thirst seems to have calmed down too, which is a good thing. You’ve no idea how much liquid I’ve demolished this last few days.

This afternoon I had a doze again for an hour or so and later on went out for tea. Thanks to all of the vegan cheese that I have, I went for another pizza and I polished that off quite comfortably.

Yes, definitely feeling a little better.

But you missed all of the excitement while I was out. Some young guy thought that he would be clever by cycling on the pavement around a traffic queue in the street. Instead, he cycled right into a grid in the gutter, his front wheel jammed and he went head-over-heels right over the handlebars.

Yes, I did have to laugh.

But tomorrow I’m back at the hospital. I’m having a blood test at the day centre and that will tell us whether I need another transfusion, or whether the chemotherapy is actually working.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s going on, and I hope that it’s working because I don’t want to go through too much of this under any circumstances whatever. It’s horrible.

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Sunday 10th April 2016 – AFTER MY REALLY BAD NIGHT …

… last night, the first thing that I did this morning was to dash to the washbasin by the wall (and I bet that you are so glad that I told you that, aren’t you?). And, strangely enough (or maybe not), I felt a little better after that. Mind you, that’s not difficult because I could hardly have felt any worse than I did during the night.

But having put all of that nonsense behind me, I managed to eat a breakfast and then I went off for a little walk. The Delhaize up the road was closed today (which I suspected it might be) and so I decided to head for the nearest bakery for a real stockbrood for once. And here I was in luck.

I’d forgotten all about the Belgian habit of everyone going to the banketbakkerij on a Sunday to buy koekjes – the breakfast ritual here in Belgium is for cakes and coffee and some of the cakes are magnificent. They aren’t for me of course, but they did have some sugar-coated raisin buns. Two of those with another coffee when I returned to my little room cheered me up a little.

At lunchtime, I had some vegan cheese on my butty and I’m a little disturbed because the taste seems to have changed. It hasn’t – it’s that my taste buds have changed since I’ve had chemotherapy and that’s disturbing me. It’s one of the reasons that I’m off my food right now. I don’t really fancy anything to eat and the idea of eating anything greasy makes me queasy.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that I’m cold too, and that’s not like me. I ended up having to turn on the heating in my room to make me feel better.

I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon – nothing like as completely as I have done over the last couple of days though – and later on I forced myself out to organise a pizza. I must start to eat some food some time. Luckily, I have plenty of sliced vegan cheese hanging around.

Delicious as the pizza might have been, I had to force myself to eat it. And I managed it too and I felt slightly better too.

But I’ve now noticed another little problem – where I had this drain in my right arm, the area is now swelling up, just like the very first time when I was at Montlucon hospital. That, as we know, turned out to be a wandering blood clot and led to my having all of those injections twice a day for three months. I hope that it isn’t – I don’t want to go through all of that again.

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