Seeing the World

I have always thought of myself as a long term planner.  It’s served me well on the whole, although I have enjoyed the spontaneity of organising overseas trips at short notice over the last year and perhaps should have lived a more spontaneous life!

But the short trips were always booked with the big trips (New England, Chile, Australia) already lined up behind them.

Today I have no interest in booking that far ahead.  I’m two months into a drug that has an average success rate of eight months.  And my last drug gave me about 25% of average.  The options beyond osimertinib should add to my time, but not by much.

With the afatinib, my mindset was “average is 32 months and I’ll double it”.  Five years is long term!  Perhaps it’s proof that you can’t fight cancer’s course.  Just manage your mind to handle it.  We all die at some point.  I can handle it being sooner than I expected.

But I am definitely struggling to get short termist.  I should probably be at a stage where I’m buying my own home again.  There should probably come a moment where there’s a long term commitment conversation with Rachel.  Or I should simply be booking a bloody great summer holiday for me and Chris!

While these things aren’t quite driving me nuts, it sometimes feels a bit vacuous thinking in such short term ways.  There are football trips to come – my two longest ever train journeys.  My first ever new year away from home should be nice.  And a trip to Anglesey for the week after my birthday.

Beyond that, nothing.  And it’s right that I shouldn’t plan any further ahead.  But I find it really tough to focus my thoughts no later than the end of January.

Preparing For an Oncologist Appointment

Well as headlines go that’s not a bad one, is it?  Albeit that they all got out about five minutes after I joined them!

I’m quite chuffed with the deal I got on this hotel.  I assume booking late helped, but £60 a night for some great views over Windermere and breakfast to come pleases me.  And sitting in the hot tub staring out at those views as the light faded was great.

I had planned to eat out.  The hotel menu is priced a little bit on the high side.  But in the end I ate nothing but a handful of prunes to help (unsuccessfully so far) clear up a minor medical issue down below!

I am sat here trying to make sense of my current health situation.  My mobility remains impaired but I can still move around, a little slowly, without looking like a complete crock.  There’s a bone pain somewhere between back and pelvis and, from time to time, my hips hurt.  The latter kept me awake last night until I finally succumbed to taking a naproxen pain killer.  That’ll offset the benefits of the prunes!

I don’t think they do room service for breakfast.  So I’ll shortly haul myself into the shower that sits over a bath.  Last night I was easily successful in climbing over the side of the bath to benefit.  There’s something of a paradox in how the osimertinib is working on me.  Before I started using it, baths had been a problem as my pelvic tumour grew.  Now they’re a lot easier.  But other new aches and pains seem to be afflicting me in different ways.  There’s a little sense of relief that I’m not flying from Brisbane to Cairns and driving on to Port Douglas today to take on rainforest, crocodile farms and the Great Barrier Reef.

I’ve no plans for the day.  Doubtless it will involve sauna, steam room and hot tub at some point.  All seem beneficial to my aches and pains.  Maybe a drive out somewhere tomorrow.

Coniston

It’s just over two years since I climbed my only mountain.  Returning from a visit to friends in Scotland, I checked into a B&B, prepared my brand new rucksack and, after a hearty breakfast the following morning, I went for it.

It took about six hours to get up and down the Old Man of Coniston.  The weather was misty.  My fitness was vastly improved compared to a year earlier when high blood pressure had triggered a doctor’s suggestion of weight loss.  Five stone into a seven stone reduction and I’d converted from couch potato to mountaineer.

It was a solo endeavour.  Nobody to high five at the summit.  It possibly contributed to knackering my toes resulting in today’s ingrowing toe nails.  But it felt fantastic.  A moment of personal pride.

Coniston Lake itself was a destination for two or three family days out as a child.  I recall a small gravel beach, wading in chilly waters on a sunny day and tales of Donald Campbell and Bluebird lying at the bottom of the lake.

I took Chris about three years ago and recall the tiny fish in the lake feasting on our feet.

Its always been a location I like.  More beautiful than nearby Windermere.  And it was enjoyable to circumnavigate it today.  I parked up for a morning coffee in the small town of Coniston.  Asking if parking was free I got the reply “you can park there for free until Easter”.  Fair enough.

Caffeine consumed, and 500 Nectar points earned from sticking £5 of petrol in the tank, I commenced my lake lap.

It was quite emotional in bringing back memories of childhood, my more recent climbing efforts and also this year’s travels.  The narrow road down the east side of the lake reminded me of the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro.  Without the wheelie bin.  And while there was no 9,000 foot volcano overlooking the lake the early winter climate was reminiscent of Patagonia’s Lake District in southern Chile.

I am really pleased with what I’ve achieved travel wise this year.  And this destination within two hours of home reminds me how sensible it was to quit work, requesting garden leave, and packing in as much travel as possible.

There might be places I’ve missed out on.  But I’m not regretting any of it.

My DIY Dentistry

While not quite a case of extracting a tooth by tying string around it, tying the other end of the string to a door handle and swinging the door, last night saw me arrange my own filling.

A rogue toffee crisp created the problem.  Removing an existing filling in one bite.  A bit of a disaster on two counts.  I don’t have an NHS dentist and because of the Zometa bone strengthening drug I’m not meant to undergo dental treatment.  Something to do with damaging my jaw as the Zometa swims around my system.

With a gaping hole in what’s left of my tooth, which hopefully had the nerve removed many years ago, I did what anybody in this position would do.  Logged on to Amazon.

For less than a fiver I found my target.  A temporary filling kit!  And last night I put it to the test.  The kit is basically a tube full of concrete and a baster to smooth things out with.

A squeeze of the tube, out came too much cementy stuff, onto the finger and into the cavity.  Smooth as you like.  Although my tooth now feels about an inch longer than any others around it and an inch wider.

But at least the hole is filled until I can take further medical advice.  And though the night some of the more extreme shaping appears to have smoothed off.  I wonder how long the whole thing will actually last?

I’m a Coniston Man Myself, but …

Next Tuesday’s visit to see Oncobabe has been put back 48 hours.  The first response was a moment of irritation.  I only booked the appointment last week after the hospital failed to confirm when they were going to see me.

Next response was to grab my osimertinib life retainer pills and count them carefully.  They run out next Friday, so a Thursday prescription should be ok.  Hopefully.

It then grabbed my attention that I had three or four days of uncluttered time next week.  While popping over to Pompeii and the surrounding area appeals, my flight ban has me looking closer to home.  And The Lake District is just two hours or so drive away.

While I had in mind a friendly B&B, a hotel has come up tops with a mix of views, breakfast and hot tub combined with a 10% Black Friday discount.  I was quite excited with the discount as I’d have booked without it.  Minutes after booking an email promising a 12% discount materialised.  £3.66 lost!

I do prefer the beauty of nearby Coniston.  Occasionally visiting there with my Mum and sister as a child.  And I’ll doubtless drive around it one of the three days I’m there.  But Windermere will do as a location.  And I don’t have to cook my own breakfast!

Did Giving Up Coffee Cause My Cancer?

It’s something of a futile exercise trying to work out what caused my cancer.  The key lifestyle precursor to my diagnosis was a successful health kick.  Over a two year period I turned myself from a very fat bloke into a merely overweight bloke.

Walking.  Healthier and less eating.  Coffee reduction.  All the sorts of things that “they” say you should do to enjoy a long and healthy life.

The last couple of days of news have told me that my 90% reduction in coffee intake made me more likely to get cancer.  Those free plastic cup fulls of a substance passing itself off as coffee from the office vending machine were doing me so much good.  The switch to water, tea or even lemon in hot water, at the expense of coffee, might be what’s done for me!

I also switched from enjoying a sugary Coke to taking in diet versions of drinks.  They do say that something in that gives you cancer.  But then being overweight is another cancer risk,  so you can’t bleedin’ win.

And being honest, I can’t tolerate coffee without sugar or sweetener.  Both of which are supposedly bad.  So my switch to unsweetened tea was surely a good thing, right?

So despite the numerous academic surveys that appear telling you what today’s miracle fruit is, or how a bottle of red a night  is good or bad for you, I’ve come to the conclusion that whatever lifestyle changes I made were made for the right reasons.

Ending up with lung cancer was just one of those things.  A random act of unkindness from somewhere.  A freak of nature that did for me, rather than anything I did to myself.

Hi Dave, Are You Still Alive?

Aviva provide the bulk of my income.  £550 a month.  It was Friends Life health insurance policy but a takeover changed that.  My bank account continues to receive the cash though.

Rob, it seems, hasn’t lost his job in the takeover.  Three months to the day he’s rung me again.  A well spoken gentleman enquiring about my health and treatment.  I furnish him with information about my medication change and walking stick.

I choose not to overplay things.  He asks about specialist appointments and I confirm I’m still seeing Oncobabe.  In the medical sense.

Two minutes forty six seconds later the call ends.  His sign off is that the company will carry on supporting my claim.  Sporting of them!

What he doesn’t do is ask the key question.  “Are you dead yet?”.   Given my condition, it’s obvious I’m not going to get getter.  So I can only assume he’s tasked to ensure I’m still ticking over, in an ever so subtle way.

It’s all pleasant enough.  But it is moderately intrusive.  Hopefully I’ll still be in passable condition when he calls again in February.  I’ll even get a pay rise in April!

Making Phone Calls

Well the syringe worked.  Both ears are now wax free.  The left one is great.  The right one one still about 80% deaf, marginally improved.  Looks like the eye specialist was right to blame it on the dreaded palsy.

Still, it’s an improvement that I’m grateful for.  My little tube of eye drops can go and live in a drawer out if site.

I have also been able to use the phone for talking.  Novel.   Sorting out my share certificate to online dealing account.  I need stamps now.  Booking a hospital appointment for the eye.  And the sad moment of closing my American Express Platinum charge card.

I paid £450 for this card in a moment of excitement.  35,000 Avios, travel insurance (with relevant exclusions), car hire excess cover (which paid out £250 after a wing mirror calamity in Montenegro) and airport lounge access everywhere but Reykjavik.  Indeed, as we belted around Chile it was particularly welcome in remote corners of the country.  The good news is that they’ll refund me £112.50 of my annual free too.  The bad news is that if I want another one I have to wait six months!

Overall, I think I’m up on the deal.  Granted, my croissant and coffee in Bratislava airport wasn’t exactly up to scratch, but the lounge pass did help feed me internationally at times when I’d have been very reluctant to by airline food or pay for overpriced airport refreshments.

If I’m back in the international travel game again next May I might just treat myself to a new one.  Although I’ve 144,000 Avios to use up with a BA Silver membership that allows lounge access with certain airlines anyway.

It’s good to talk.  But it’s even better to hear again, even if not fully.

Where is Everything Up To?