Another surgical procedure...............

Now, if you were paying attention earlier (and I could hardly blame you for losing the will to live, let alone for failing to pay attention) you'll know that I have two major conditions; advanced kidney cancer and sciatica/back pain. It was the search for the cause of the latter that led to the discovery of the former. Having been found, treatment for the cancer understandably assumed priority and the back pain went onto the 'back burner' ('back burner' - geddit?) So, with the cancer treatment now established as relatively routine it was time for the back to come to the fore ( Ta ra! - 'Oh well - please yourself.')

In terms of my day-to-day quality of life it is the back/leg condition that has the greater impact so I was pleased (as well as apprehensive) at the prospect of being re-admitted to hospital.

So, yesterday then I was back at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital for an epidural procedure. As a good number of you will know this entails injections (of, in my case, steroids) into the base of the spine. After kitting me out with some very see-through, paper underpants and the usual operating gown that served to provide public display of the aforementioned underpants (together with their contents), they gave me a light general anaesthetic. For this reason I'm unable to tell you a great deal about that which occurred after I lay face down on a bed/table configured in such a manner as to give even greater prominence to my posterior. An oxygen mask was strapped to my head and I was asked to tell the anaesthetist when I felt myself going lightheaded.

I was still waiting to give him the signal when I woke up in the recovery ward. I spent an interesting hour there watching beds with their prone patients come and go. Eventually I heard a young nurse calling for 'Frederick' and guessed that this might have been me. We got to know each other well in the next three hours of bedrest that I was required to take under her, and Diana's, supervision. She is Filipino and hates GPs, dentists and hospitals unless attending as a professional. After a pleasant meal of chicken soup, chicken pasta and ice-cream (following the 'complications' arising from my last stay in hospital, I've given up asking for the meat-free, dairy-free diet. Do you know, I even suspect that the chicken wasn't organic?!) I settled in to a prolonged spate of txtng while Diana went to find a restaurant.

My three hours on the ward passed very quickly. The Filipino nurse's concern for my welfare, as well as a desired glimpse of my surgical underpants, led her to insist that I sit on the bed for several minutes before standing and 'making a twirl'. After some demurring on my part she insisted too that I had the porter take me out to the car park in a wheelchair (this is after I had dressed). It was a good decision as the pain in my back was returning.........

And it is now the day after and so far things are as they were. The anaestheic has worn off, the neurological pain in my left leg is still there, as is the mechanical pain in my lower back. They did say it could take several days........... I live in hope.

As for the ulcer, about which I blogged in the last post, I'm pleased and a little embarrassed to admit that it has disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. Eight more days, chemo-free and I'm back onto the third cycle.

I know, you can hardly wait for me to blog about it.

End of day 27/28, second cycle

The night before the last tablet and I am awake at some unearthly hour, running the very tip of my tongue against the inside of my incisors. The sensation is as unmistakable as it is disappointing - a small ulcer - and just 24 hours from the drug summit and the exhilaration of the downslope!

Now in the last few days of the second 'chemo cycle'. I went to the Cancer Centre at the QEH last Thursday for my regular three weekly check-up and was seen by the specialist nurse and the pharmacist. I was pleased - on the principle that you are more likely to be on the schedule of those with the most elevated status when there is some perceived problem. So, my record of an early appointment with the oncology consultant, then with his registrar and now with the pharmacist could be viewed as a promising trend. I'm hoping that on my next visit I get to be seen by the tea-lady.

There was some concern, however, about my raised blood pressure and a suggested doubling of the hypertension medication but when I asked for feedback on my progress they were very positive.

And speaking of the positive - we've now been on our first proper holiday since the traumatic days of late spring. We spent three nights in the Lake District in a National Trust cottage little changed since the 1920s. Together with Di's sister, Liz, her husband Chris, Chloe their daughter and Mike, Chloe's partner, we explored the unbelievably perfect landscape around Great Langdale. One morning, rising before the others, I walked out onto the hillside and began to climb. After only a few hundred feet I was totally exhausted. Interested as I am in amateur dramatics, I decided this was a personal, portentous, watershed; those peaks of yesteryear would not be revisited; no more would I look down on the valleys, birds and diminutive lakes from some high mountain. I returned to the cottage, a chastened man of Wordsworthian proportions (we'd visited Dove cottage the previous day). After a breakfast that tasted of sawdust we commenced our excursion over Lingmoor Fell (no relation). A couple of, at times, admittedly very tough, hours later we stood on the top of Brown How; looking down on the valleys, birds and diminutive..........

I spoke to Claire the other day. Our conversation turned to the way she had responded to concerns for my health. She said that the time spent visiting us over the summer and reflecting on the circumstances since her return to the US had revealed an appreciation of the important things in life and a new directness in expressing herself. This realisation took me back to those earlier posts about the 'silver lining' and the Steve Jobs quotation - this experience is not confined to the 'patient' but is shared with those who are most closely connected. It felt like a significant moment.

As will be, I hope, the steroid injections I am due to have administered to my lumbar spine at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital next week during my drug-free 'holiday'.