Warning - if squeamish, turn away now

This blog is not for the faint-hearted. Those of a nervous disposition are advised to turn away now.......

There is nothing quite so joyous as the gestation and safe delivery of a solid, tawny, stool - still less a series, after a debilitating week of d and v. It/they appeared early this morning, while most of you were mercifully, sound asleep - the deserved and desired product, no doubt, of the cutting out of some drugs from the regimen I've been taking. Di had been researching side-effects and the spotlight had fallen on ferrous sulphate ( taken because I was anaemic after blood loss during the operation) and tramadol (a painkiller) so we'd excluded both over the previous couple of days.

Pharmaceutical replacements were already in the pipeline however because as if d and v were not enough, I'd also experienced an onset of obsessive itching that has left much of my skin looking like an aerial view of the surface of Mars. So you drop a couple of drugs here, you take on a few more there - anti-emetic tabs, anti-histamine tabs and skin lotion. The kitchen work-surface looks like an illicit pharmacy. Come round for a meal and who knows what ingredients will be on the menu?

But returning, as I must, to the subject of my stools, they now hold the promise of the onset of a new phase in my recovery. The wound is healing and the 'cling film' covering it is beginning to peel away. (If interested, for a small fee, there are pictures, taken by an indecently-enthusiastic Diana). The remaining bruising is much less psychedelic though it is also difficult to escape the sense that the left side of my chest has been encased in a steel clamp. I practise deep breathing in order to stretch the wound; the skin, muscle, tissue.

Unfortunately the neurological problem with my left leg continues to make it difficult to sit comfortably for any length of time.

Finally a mea culpa; over the last few days I have been guilty of some severe bouts of 'feeling sorry for myself'  and must apologise to anyone who feels they have been a victim. As ever the star award goes to Diana for disdainful dismissal of my morose comment when boxes of the prepared nutrient meal appeared; 'God, I know death must be near when Complan is in the house'.

I'm back - well, at least most of me is.............

Firstly, I'd like to apologise to everyone who has been reading the blog (and I know from emails, followers and cards that there have been a few) for the interval that has elapsed since my last post.

It hasn't been an easy time.

Thank you Claire, for keeping the blog going over the time I was in hospital (even if your spelling of metastases was inclined to wander off the beaten track!)

I hope to write more about the period in hospital at some later date but will settle today for finding the energy to briefly update you all since my return home just over a week ago.

I'll admit that I wasn't looking forward to the transfer. Given the difficulty I was having in getting from the bed to the bathroom, coping with the many moments of energy expenditure entailed in travelling from my automated bed on the 4th floor of the QE to a 'fixed bed' many thousands of steps up from the ground floor of our house seemed an impossible task. I was firmly assured that it wasn't.

Nevertheless, the car drive felt like we were on a grand prix circuit, slewing around corners with Di apparently searching for every pothole she could find. At times like these the suspension on a standard motor car appears less than adequate.

Approaching our destination I experienced some nausea ( another word already on the move in hospital - from nor-zee-a to nor-sha. We must resist this trend to Americanisation). I stood in front of our newly painted pink door (!), bent double, hoping against hope that my body wasn't going to be wracked by a vomiting attack. The strain on my recently lacerated side would have been excrutiating. Di and Claire looked on helplessly until the moment passed. I pretty much flew up those stairs and into that wonderful bed I had so recently maligned.

Since then it's been pretty much a story of gradual progress marred by two developments; firstly, the realisation that the neurological discomfort/pain in my leg (the search for explanation to which had led to the discovery of the tumour) had not gone away and secondly; the onset in the last five days or so of a phase of d and v. This is not good news because apart from the debilitating effects it also plays havoc with the pain control regimen.

I'm just about at the end of my energy store at the moment. I can't end without telling you about the amount I owe to Diana and Claire and Joe for their care of me. They have been so attentive, so responsive to my needs - and they are faced with some time yet to come.

Many thanks too, to everyone for your support, cards and kind words. It is difficult to ensure that everyone gets an individual response but your thoughtfulness, especially at a time when my reserves are low, is much appreciated.

Thursday Update from Claire

Dad came home yesterday afternoon from the hospital. They had him all packed up and ready to go when Di went to visit at 2:30pm.

He is doing well and able to get up and down the stairs. He still tires very quickly, sleeps a lot and is on all kind of pain medication. Its good to have him home though where we can keep a close eye on him.

I have a feeling he'll be back updating this blog himself before too much longer...

Tuesday News (from Claire)

Today was the first time I'd seen dad for 2 days as I didn't make it in yesterday when Di and Joe went to visit. Imagine my surprise then to find him up and about (walking back from the toilet) and in his pyjamas (no more natty hospital gown).

He continues to look better and brighter and his appetite seems to be fully back to normal. He does still tire easily but we hope to have him home tomorrow and away from his continually vomiting neighbour on the ward.

Mini Update (Claire)

We went back in to see dad again today and 24hours have shown a big improvement. He was talking a lot more clearly and was just much more 'with it'. He was eating more today and although he still gets tired a lot he managed to sit in a chair for an hour. The staff are good but seem to be under pressure from the consultant to get him back home asap!

Operation Update from Claire

Its a bit daunting stepping into dad's shoes to write this blog - I have to remind myself that people's main reason for reading it is to keep abreast of dad's progress and his creative writing skills are simply a bonus!

So in my own way (apologies in advance for spelling errors) I'll update you...

For those with limited time (I have a tendancy to ramble), in summary the surgery went very well with no surprises. Dad is doing well and looking good, despite being in some pain. Read on for the long version....

Dad, Di, Joe and myself arrived at the QE hospital at 6:45am, and went straight to the new Admissions Department. This consisted of a waiting area with a few chairs and glass-fronted booth containing an assortment of nurses. So we settled down to wait. After a while dad was ushered away for what I assume were some simple pre-surgery checks and to get into his lovely hospital gown (or as I liked to call it, dress) and his dressing gown. Then he returned to us and we settled back in to wait again.

Around 9:30am we were brought out of our lethargy by a sharp rapping of knuckles on the glass of the nurses booth and dad and Di were summoned to speak to the surgeon. When they returned I could tell immediately the mood had shifted and not for the good. The surgeon had apparantly informed them of all the things that could go wrong and additional scenarios that might happen - spleenectomy, chest drain, further evidence of metastesees in local organs etc. This really brought home to me how the positive everyone has been the last few weeks since their visit to Dr. Jane Plant in London and now we were struggling to find that again. They were told that the surgery would kick off around 10:30/11am so we resumed waiting.
A little while later another surgeon came out to talk to us and this one had a much warmer demeanour and positive manner (he was also rather good-looking which helped also - well helped me anyway, I'm not sure it had any effect on dad). The surgeon spent a little time talking about the operation and what would happen and told us it would all be happening very soon.

By 12pm it became clear that the original estimate of a 11am start time was a little off and we started to look a little enviously at the other admissions we had arrived with at 7am as they were all wheeled or walked away. Dad however seemed perfectly happy to be reading his paper and not in surgery! Back to waiting and around 1pm we were told they'd changed the 'order of play' and he might be moved up to the ward before the op but currently there wasn't a bed available. Finally by 2pm he went in to pre-surgery and a little while later he was wheeled away, with Di looking on, for anaesthesia.
Fast forward to 8:30pm and Di found out that he was back on the ward and doing ok. We found out today that he didn't have a spleenectomy, there is no chest tube, he didn't need intensive care and they didn't even have to remove the rib they thought they would have to. No one has talked about any new metastesees so we're taking that as good news also. I went in to visit him earlier today and all in all he's doing very well. He is in some discomfort but his colour is good and he is (mostly) lucid. I have just heard from Di that tomorrow they hope to have him up and about a little. They hope to have him home by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

The beauty in Brum.

In the last few weeks Diana has done little work in the 'paid employment' sense. However today she has to attend a court hearing to be cross-examined on the content of a care proceedings report she wrote as the commissioned independent social worker. She usually travels to the centre of town by bus but I volunteered to take her and thereby reduce 'wear and tear' on her uncomfortable but professionally-tonal heels - they always come out for such occasions. After some demurring, she accepted my offer.

I think that there must be something wrong with me.

This isn't the first time I've experienced such a thing in recent weeks, but as I drove, the city streets, even in rush hour, appeared attractive, full of colour and interest. I could take pleasure, and find fascination, in the commonplace, the mundane. I found myself absorbed by the variety of texts on white vans, advertising slogans, buses and street furniture. City workers, intent on reaching their destinations, were part of a constantly shifting and unknowable complexity of lives filled with unimaginable connections. Buildings, some of them seen as though for the first time, appeared impressive, indicative of the city's confidence and dynamism. I even found myself strangely detached from and observant of, the time-saving, gap-finding strategies of other motorists.

Thinking about it now, two days out from my op., I guess that although I have reached a condition of some emotional stability, something of the vulnerability and fear remains. I was, I am, sensitised to the existence of life; life in a city, condensed, intensified and on constant, shape-shifting display.

I would like to continue to be a part of it.

An unexpected gift.

While we were away in Wales, Parcelforce and the Post Office tried to deliver two objects too large for the letterbox. We got around to collecting them today. The first, at the Kings Heath postal depot, contained a couple of books Di had ordered from Amazon; Jane Plant's recent publication, 'Eating for Better Health' and another by Colin Campbell, a nutritionist she admires, entitled 'The China Study'.

Diana had thought the books might have been posted separately but, since they were packaged together, what, we wondered, was in the other? We had to drive to another Post Office in Moseley Village. As we travelled I read an endorsement from the Sunday People for the Plant publication; 'This book could - quite literally - save your life'. This sounded promising.

I stayed in the car while Diana gathered her proof of identity and the card that had been pushed through the door and made her way across the busy Alcester Road. I had time to glimpse at 'The China Study', subtitled 'Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health' and described on the cover as 'The most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted'. To be honest, although I am interested in this stuff a part of me is glad that Diana is the one who is undertaking the research.

The next time I saw her she was staggering towards me carrying a large box. It was addressed to 'Rod Ling and family' and two sides were covered with an array of stamps that would have made quickened the heart of any philatelist. The stamps were arrayed in slabs like exotic wrapping They were obviously foreign. They were Israeli and so enticing they must have been approved by the State Tourist Board. The box had come from my son-in-law's family, the Lichtensteins, in Tel Aviv.

Struggling to control the excited child in me I peeled away the tape to reveal an amazing collection of nuts, dates, prunes, halva, dietary supplements.. At least I think they are dietary - Amichai will have to translate some of the labels.

As for the nuts and dried fruit no translation was necessary. Perhaps these juicy, treacly dates are medjool. I didn't stop to ask Di whether Jane Plant and Colin Campbell would approve.

Many blogged thanks to the generous Lichtensteins.

Pre-assessment day, Tuesday 5th July

Looks like this surgery thing is for real then. A part of me had been hoping that it was some kind of dreamtime or that I was in a remake of The Truman Show and somebody soon was going to shout 'Cut!' and 'It's a wrap!' - but there's still no sign of it happening and the inevitable conclusion follows....

So, I had the assessment; height and weight (I pointed out to a pleasant but 'heard-it-before sister' that I was wearing a particularly heavy trousers belt with a solid metal buckle), bloods, ECG, MRSA swabs, urine sample, bp and undertook a thorough questionnaire. Most of this was about reassuring the QE that I was fit enough to undergo general anaesthetic - an outcome confirmed by a young female doctor who seemed perplexed by the revelation that I had been 'put to sleep' before but not as a result of any hospital visit. I was referring to the now outmoded but once common practice of anaesthetising by gas for dental extraction.

All this heavy-duty reality checking was a long way from an idyllic three-day weekend spent in mid-Wales. We had spotted a 'window' in our schedule last Friday. Claire had given us time off from grandparent duty and Di had contacted a recommended B&B located above Lake Bala. 'Bryniau Golau' was a favoured holiday location for Grahame and Tricia (fellow allotment-holders) and so we headed north-west early on Saturday afternoon.

The weather was wonderful - as you know - but the hedgerows, the trees, the wayside flowers, the stillness of the lake, the chapels, the churches, the orchids in the dunes at Aberdyfi, the vistas, the Mawddach estuary, the mazey-medieval, black-stone, streets of Dolgellau, the road up the valley and over the moor and down to Lake Vyrnwy - images burned into the retinae - but hopefully missing that small haemorrhage I was on about several 'posts' ago.

And back to Brum on Monday evening; humdrum Brum, home-come Brum. The best holidays are those you are glad to get away for - and glad to return from. I needed to be home because I needed to get my head into  a place where I could think about what was to come.

Today is Friday July Ist

Today is Friday July 1st but this post is largely concerned with Wednesday, 29th June. Diana had set up a meeting with someone we'd first heard about following her diagnosis with breast cancer nearly 5 years ago. Professor Jane Plant is a professor of geochemistry at Imperial College, London. She contracted breast cancer herself nearly 20 years ago and was given just a few months to live. My understanding is that as an academic scientist she felt herself well-placed to conduct a literature review of the published research relating to the factors causing cancer and possible ways of treating it. She became very knowledgeable about the importance of diet and its relationship to the epidemiology of cancer. She went on to write a number of books and to establish a consultancy. I emailed her and outlined my condition. She suggested that we waste no time in visiting her in London.

Jeff and Marian, long-standing friends from my university days were ready to offer us a bed for the night but we knew that, however pleasant and relaxed the evening spent with them, we'd have to make a quick return on the Thursday to keep our appointment with the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham.

The journey to London was uneventful, apart from my forgetting to collect my shoulder bag from the luggage rack on arrival at Euston. It was successfully retrieved at the cost of an hour of our buffer time and an unwelcome increase in my bp.

Our meeting with Jane Plant at Imperial College lasted an hour. She asked questions and took notes. We asked questions and Diana took notes. It's difficult to sum up this intense period spent absorbing a great deal of information but I was buoyed by her optimism about my prognosis. She felt that conventional medicine (surgery and chemo) would in combination both excise and 'hit' the cancer already in my body; her contribution would be to offer advice on the way diet and environmental awareness could help prevent further metastases from gaining a hold.

So there was much talk about growth factors, the various no-no's, dietary supplements and other anti-cancer foodstuffs. Some of this matched the info we'd already garnered from another book, some did not. She was not a fan of the book in question and as they disagreed about the efficacy of a daily glass of red wine I was saddened to lose one of the few benefits of returning to the 'fold'; comprised of those who imbibe alcohol (after my long ten years in the wilderness).

I won't go into the dietary details - they are available in her various books. Just one comment though - if dairy products are as much of a public health issue as she, and, I believe, others think, why are we not picketing supermarkets, cheese-manufacturers and yogurt-bottlers? Her advice is not just for people like me - seeking to  lengthen their lives having contracted cancer but for everyone - including those who are, as yet, cancer-free.

One more thing - Jane also had little positive to say about the private clinic with whom Diana had set up an appointment in the coming week - so that looks like saving us a lot of money and time; money and time we can spend on a mini-break beside Lake Bala this weekend. Adios (as was said to Andy Murray a few minutes ago!)