26/11/12

26/11/12

OK.

 

This is better, I can cope.

 

Last time around, at this stage, I was feeling awful but this time, it’s not quite so bad. Yes I have the foulest of tastes in my mouth but I can drink, eat some things and keep it all in. The taste is really an all together new experience to me and it is said to be different for all us chemo patients, I say it’s new to me however it’s the same as the first time, Rank. It’s a flavour that starts at the pit of my stomach, the lower regions of my belly, deep from the puddle of bile and from there it seems to manifest itself into a form of two to three day old stewed coffee from McDonalds without the sugar, picking up notes of bad fish, complementing the overwhelming accents of chemical poisons along the way to my tongue where it descends upon my taste buds with a hard, almost snake skin type texture.

 

As I said, it’s different for all chemo patients. So the trick I have learned is to find the key ingredient that can “cut through” the taste. I’m doing well with good quality expensive well smoked British bacon accompanied by our very own free range eggs, as long as the bread is not anymore than slightly toasted, as the excessive toasting can be terrible as concerns the texture on my poorly tongue. One of the other flavours that I seem to be having a great deal of success with is Beer, not a vast amount but it does seem to cleanse the pallet and settle the stomach enough to do more eating of cheeses in the evening, which has to be a good thing as I need the calories.

 

So another two days left to run on this pump of chemicals then it is to be disconnected and I can flush out this mouth rankness so come Thursday/Friday this week I should be on course for enjoying sugar in my coffee and the wonderful flavours of beans on toast, which I do have to admit, I am looking forward to. Also Thursday is to be the day when another good friend of mine has decided to abuse his own great looks for charity. Mark the man who has hidden behind a beard for most of his adult life has taken the challenge and decided to remove all remnants of hair from his own head, he has chosen to do this and to do good at the same time by setting up a just giving page to raise his target to give to cancer research. You can read his story here;

 

http://www.justgiving.com/Mark-Alman

 

Thanks Mark and well done on reaching your target. (I feel compelled to let you all know that you can still donate on this page, but please do not feel as though you have to, I haven’t) I am looking forward to sharing a beer with you and all your baldness.

 

Next step, Wednesday, off to Poole for a CT scan and a mask fitting, should be interesting if nothing else, interesting to see if I notice any reduction in tumour size on the scan and interesting as so much as having a bespoke built, made to measure mask crafted to the contours of my own face. I have heard from others that know others that have had tongue, throat and neck cancers that now they have chosen to decorate the walls of their homes with their new mask. This I can quite understand and will probably do a similar thing maybe I could hang a necklace of my own teeth around it or just screw my old teeth on with the screws they removed from my ankle many years ago after it shattered during a bike accident. 

 

Who knows what I’ll do.

 

This is me Steve Royal. Stronger than before and burnished by beer.

 

Have a week.