My NHS career

It's been a busy time since I last blogged.

My NHS career has been going from strength to strength and for a period last week I was working at it pretty much full time. It can't be long now before I have my own parking space and possibly a desk with a laptop and phone. Thank goodness I decided to give up my earlier career in Education when I did.

On Wednesday, I saw the consultant ophthalmologist who examined my right eye for developments in the small haemorrhage and 'cotton wool spot' referred to in an earlier post. To my relief she announced, after a lengthy period spent following her instruction to look directly at her earlobe while she, at intimately close quarters, shone a light into my eye, that she could no longer find the offending areas. My eye had healed itself.

On leaving the hospital we drove to visit Judith and Gethin in the South Derbyshire village of Ticknall. After a late lunch we walked in the grounds of Calke Abbey. There are oak trees in the ancient woodland of this National Trust property that are as old as any in Europe. They are truly stupendous. The trunks of these trees are a frozen symphony of timber and deeply fissured bark. Massive burls swell like outsize, solid boils on the trunks or boles that are, in some places, hollow and rotted. Yet the trees still generate new growth of twig and leaf among the dried stag's horn branches. The wreathing embodiment of time, some have existed since before the Norman conquest. They were here long before any of us and will outlive us too.

The following day I had two appointments.

In the morning we spoke to a member of the consultant oncologist's team. After some discussion about my blood pressure - which centred on the data I proudly presented from readings on my domestic monitor - she was satisfied that I was ready to start my second 'chemo' cycle.

There was some concern about the level of my white blood cells but another sample taken from my, by now almost empty arm confirmed that the count was headed in the right direction. At the time of writing I am on day 3 of 28.

There was time then for an interval before my afternoon appointment at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. We went first to the Barber Institute on the campus of the University of Birmingham. There is, if you were not already aware, some wonderful art within this impressive 1930s building. We were fortunate enough to join a lunch-time talk given by the gallery's director of education on Anthony van Dyck's, Ecce Homo. You may not recognise the name but you probably do know the image; a powerful version of a nearly-naked and bound Jesus mocked by a Roman soldier who is placing a cape around the tormented 'King of the Jews'. The painting may be striking but it is also disturbing in that the soldier is black and his association with the malign darkness that contrasts with Jesus's luminous skin says something about contemporary attitudes to issues of race and ethnicity. For this reason it had been highlighted as the gallery's contribution to Black History Month.

We had lunch at Winterbourne before heading up the Bristol Road.

The new self-check in systems at both the QE and the ROH work very well and before long we were being warmly greeted by the consultant orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Ishaque. He showed us some images from the recent MRI and Xray. He said that these images indicated that the fatty sheath that surrounds the nerve in the spinal column was missing at one point in the lumbar region. The cause was the irregular shape of my lower spine. The images are disturbing but he also appeared to be confirming that there was no link between the kidney cancer and the back/leg pain - which was good news.

The other good news was that the diagnosis (very similar to that made by the ROH physio a year ago) led on very quickly to a treatment procedure; an injection of steroids into two sites close to the 'squeezed' nerve. These injections may help to reduce pain in the short term and through reducing inflammation in the affected area, in the longer term as well.

There are of course no guarantees and I will have to wait at least 4 - 6 weeks.

However, I now feel better for having a diagnosis, relief that the cause is not an unidentified secondary tumour and reassured that I am 'in treatment' rather than waiting, waiting, waiting.

So, it has been a significant week; in part, luminous, in part, disturbing, in part - a walk in the park.