Twist of fate

A very large building is going up near the chemo unit. Its going to be a cancer research centre. 23 years ago, I started my postgraduate studies at the Cancer Research Campaign, Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics Group, Department of Biochemistry, Imperial College of Science of Technology, LONDON, SW7 2AZ. I still remember the full address. Three years later I resigned my phd under a big cloud. Thats a story for another day. It changed my life. I am writing all this because I was smiling at how things have turned out: My supervisor is now a professor. One of my fellow graduate students is now a professor at Cambridge working on cancer. My wife works on mechanisms related to cancer. And I have cancer itself! You gotta laugh.

Had a raised temperature for a few hours last night. Hit 38 for about 2-3 hours. And now all fine. What is going on? I didn't ring C10. No way was I going to go in on a sunday night...

Scan Results

I kind of knew I would not hear those words. Those words uttered by my chemo mate, J. Those two words - Full Remission. And I did not hear them when Oncology rang me today. However my tumours are responding well. They are shrinking. The pelvis area seems to be clear. An area near the kidney has a tumour about 1.5cm big and needs to shrink more. My consultant, RM, reckons I will need 2 more months of chemo. This is very encouraging news. However they will scan me again in two months and we will decide then. I will hear those words then I am pretty sure. Roll on march.

Aniseed flavoured drinks

I had the CT scan yesterday. This is the first major scan after treatment started. Started off drinking the usual aniseed flavour drinks for an hour. Then into the chamber. No injection this time and the scan was to go from the neck to the groin. The aniseed had obviously softened me up. For the first time in a long while I let negative thoughts enter my head. What if they are still seeing tumours? J, my chemo mate, was scanned last week and he was all clear. What if I am not? Why are they taking so long? What are they looking at? And then inevitably thoughts of Pavel...and leaving the house for C10 or whatever ward. And not coming back..

Recently I have been trying to assess my neck lump. It has certainly gone down but I can still feel a fleshy lumnp. Or is it just scar tissue? Is scar tissue not harder? And I am certain I could feel less a few weeks ago..is it growing again? I will know the results in clinic next week.

Where did the snow go?

We are down from Scotland. The snow was missing up there as resoundingly as mention of Iraq in that monkey boy's inaugural speech. What a trip it was with three weak and sick people. It took us eight hours to drive down to Cambridge. On the way up by plane, security failed to detect syringes and needles in our handbag...

So we have a week together with my parents. Sadly this week is the week I can't eat anything - cos of chemo last thursday. And so I will have to freeze all my mother's delicious nosh for next week. They are in a nice bungalow not far from us. I am hoping to convince them to move down for good..

Eid Mubarak and Chemo

I got the all clear to fly. Called the airline to inform them about needles and noxious chemicals I will be carrying. Should be ok to fly with those things in the hand luggage (so long as I don't grow a large beard and a start wearing a turban in the meantime I guess).

Chemo yesterday and some news to turn my hair even greyer. Indeed even to make it fall out now. My chemo mate J had his 4 month CT scan yesterday and was told he is in full remission. Basically no tumours could be detected. HOWEVER he still might be given four more months of treatment ( 8 months in all). I was really hoping this treatment would only go to six months - but if J is given eight months (and he was stage 2 whereas I was stage 3 - a more advanced stage of disease) I suspect I will also be given the same term. My scan is next week. But good for J. I hope he is given only two more months. I will miss the un-pc jokes and general banter we share. I must atleast try and bag some discounted tickets from him - he works for an airline.

Eid-al-Adha today or tomorrow. Not that i am religious in any way...but i was wondering if eid is becoming/has become a commercial event like xmas is in the west. Of course for Saudi it always has been. Last year's pilgrimage earned it $1.38bn from about 1.4million foreigners. And that number is projected to grow. House of Saud has a lot at stake...If you read news from the Gulf about issues concerning charity and distribution of food to the poor and needy at this time, as one does when one has 4 more months of chemo left - bugger! - you will shake your head in disbelief at how this central pillar of islam actually works out. Like most things about this weird place I guess.

Chasing snow

Its been snowing in Scotland and I want to see the stuff on the hills. I called oncology for permission to fly this friday. It will depend on my platelet count, they said. If its too low the high pressure in the plane's cabin will leave me in a big bloody mess on the floor. I will found out today but so far my platelets have been doing their bit for queen and country fully. So I am hoping to be in bonnie Glasgae this weekend.

A week ago I received a letter from the Health Care Commission in my continuing struggle to get some answers concerning the delay in my diagnosis. I am going to muster the energy this week to make my second submission.

Taboo

I have been scouring the net for sometime for decent cancer jokes. There are very few to be found and they are ALL very unfunny. As some of you know I have been making up one or two myself - they are a bit too "toilet" to go down on the blog sadly. The good news is that today I finally found a mildly amusing one on the net. I reproduce it here without the author's permission...

An elderly man was not feeling well for a few weeks, and so finally went to his doctor. His doctor asked him to come back in a week for the test results.

"I've got some bad news," said the doctor when the man arrived, "I'm sorry to tell you this but you have Alzheimer's and cancer."

The man sat stunned for a moment, and then replied, "Well, thank goodness I don't have cancer".

Hospital Nostalgia

We have spent so much time in hospitals over the last three years that its got to the stage we feel nostalgic about them. Its a bit like the bond that develops between hostages and their captors. Hostages - so i read - soon develop some kind of perverse "rapport" or "relationship" with their captors...read the psychobabble on google if you want. Anyway, Laura and I often find ourselves reminiscing about the hospitals we have seen. We talk about the nurses, the wards, the cafes located in the foyers etc. Singapore is a favourite of course. Mount Elizabeth holds lots of memories not least the amazing Takashimaya shopping centre located opposite.

Dhaka's Holy Cross and Red Crescent - yes its origins are christian and muslim - holds memories too. Of cats in the Cardiac Care Unit, of piles of rubbish being fed upon by crows in those cold winter days we were there, of the nurses and orderlies waiting for bakshish on the day of discharge, of the politicisation of the hosptial notice boards etc. We love talking about it all. The main reason we do is probably because the overall story had a happy ending. We rescued my mum from Dhaka and got her sorted in Singapore. I hope we will have similar happy/interesting memories of Addenbrookes.

Call time

Could someone call time please on this chemo lark? Am i allowed to wake up now? Can I pay more and fast track this whole thing? I know I am probably half-way through but boy that fact does not help in the slightest bit. And yes another thing - the next person to tell me to keep a positive attitude will be physically assaulted. The number of people who repeat that inane mantra ...will you please understand that the problem is not about being positive? Give me a deadly disease and believe me I will move electrons to become positive. The problem rather is about the daily struggle to eat, shit, work and live.

Is the frustration showing?....yup, I am losing it.

Thai disaster

No not the tsunami disaster but the thai meal I ordered. Poor Mrs P is not well and so her younger sister sent three dishes. This is to be a regular thing three days a week. Not only were the dishes tasteless and oily but the servings were enough for about one person in total. I will send a vicious note with my cancellation order tomorrow. I am so frustrated with this food thing I don't know where to turn....Check this chicken stir fried with some veg and soy sauce. I mean what the hell?



Pavel's nanny turned out ok and thats a relief.

Rest day

A bit breathless going up stairs. Feel like an old man. Need to check with doctors re my latest chest x-ray. One of the drugs - Bleomycin - is a problem for the chest. However cold etc finally gone by yesterday after only a mere 25 days...

Found tons of old photos from all over the world. Will spend the day sorting and sticking into albums. Starting next week we will get help from a nanny with Pavel and we are trying out a thai cook three times a week! "Yummo" as Pavel says.

Oh and Laura injected me today with GCSF. Pretty good.

Borderline

The old bone marrow is not producing as it should. So for the first time I will be taking some daily injections to coax my bone marrow into raising my neutrophil levels. On tuesday I was down to 1.1 (dont know what units these are in but borderline I am told between safe and unsafe).

Influenza

I have influenza A. They are now figuring out how to give me chemo this thursday without having me in the day unit. I am a danger to immune-compromised patients. What a winter I am having. Pneumonia followed by Influenza.

fickle

Yes I confess I have broken my "no restaurants" resolution. Hey! I have a good excuse. I managed to lose 4kg in about 9 days and I wanted to put some weight back on. To all dieters - forget diets and instead get a high fever of say 39.3degrees C and do some serious night sweating. This last bout of night sweats has been extreme and a bit like when i was incarcerated in C10 ward. Water literally drips from my head. And there's plenty of body sweat too. Its like i have been in a rave or something. I need a towel to dry myself off. And not just once but several times during the night. In the morning there are usually 3-5 discarded t shirts in the basket. Quite extraordinary. Yup Laura has been in the spare room these nights.

Looking back

Hot Water Bag status: finally shook off temperature yesterday. Cold remains - it has lasted three weeks. It obviously likes me.

Taste Bud status: with chemo and antibiotics both hard at work, everything tastes the same. I reckon in this current state I could even eat a whole plate of Bobotie - the most disgusting dish in the southern hemisphere and available by the bucketful in Cape Town.

The end of 2004 was nightmarish. Many lost their lives to the tsunami. Susan Sontag was claimed by leukemia. I understand that she suffered on and off from cancer since the 1970s when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Someone once told me about her book "Illness as metaphor" - I have decided to read it finally.

Earlier in the year, and on a personal level, I learned that my father has been suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy. Its a disease affecting the brain. The prognosis is dire. My poor dad - he was very active even after his retirement as a consultant. The hospitals still ring him now to offer him jobs. He can hardly walk unaided and is proned to falling. He retains his faculties thankfully.

So good riddens to 2004 and I look forward to 2005 albeit with some trepidation.