21/12/15 Part Duex

21/12/15

What came next was quick.

The head of the department sat down in my personal space and
told me straight, "it looks like you have a tumour in the same
place as before and it looks like cancer." "ok" i responded thinking
to myself, this time I'm not going to say thank you.

"I want you to come in for a biopsy"

"ok"

"and whilst you are in for the biopsy we can have a good look
around in there as you are knocked out, have a feel about so that
we know how much of your tongue we will have to remove"

"ok"

"it's our goal for you to be able to swallow food again once more"

"ok"
  I really could not bring myself to say anything else.

I can't have the same treatment as before, something to do with a
maximum concentrated dose of radiotherapy in one area, they did
mention this and I think I even wrote about my fears of having the
surgery in an earlier blog but it was hypothetical then, now it
seems it will happen.

Friday December 18th and I had been invited to Poole Hospital for
a morning appointment under general anaesthetic to enable the
medical professionals to take a biopsy of ground zero and to have
a good look around. I was anxious, but like always to all of my
appointments I was a little early, I was told I was 1st on the list for
one of the operating theatres but alas when ever I get told
something like that, shit normally hits the fan and this time was
no exception. An emergency case had to go in before me so I
waited. I do hope he or she got all the care and attention that they
needed. Early afternoon and I'm being led through the maze of
tunnels to the theatres nothing to eat or drink in the past 14
hours except for a mouthful of water and 2 cocodamol to cure a
Thursday night Rum session hangover that didn't really appear, I
Did drink on Thursday but I didn't get drunk, never-the-less by
now I was hungry on the verge of crabby, "just keep calm Steve
and carry on" was the mantra in my head. I hadn't realised quite
how calm I was keeping until the anaesthetist team asked me "are
you meditating?" "I wouldn't know how to" I replied "why?" my
pulse was at 52 bpm and my bp was at 97.

3 hours later......

 ...I think and my dependable brother is here to pick me up, cheers bro. ooh that
smarts somewhat, Angie the nurse is talking to me, I can't really
hear her, ahh Andy is here it must be time to go where is my
clothes?  What is she saying? pain medication? yes please can I
have some morphine? where's my clothes? ow that REALLY hurts,
oh she is saying something else, what was that? "you've had 7
biopsies do you have any allergies?" ow fuck it hurts to talk I shake
my head my bro passes me my bag, I get dressed, we leave.

I came away with a bottle of morphine and a couple of
400mg ibuprofen. That'll fix it. Not.

Had the family over for a roast on Sunday, Mums birthday so I
cooked us all a semi Christmas dinner. I guess it was ok, I couldn't
eat it myself, so I just had to make the meal using the force, my
kids are ok today and I have not heard anything bad about my
brothers kids so I believe I got away with it. When I say I couldn't
eat it myself, I mean I can't swallow even drinks are incredibly
painful to consume, I kind of wished the hospital fitted me with
the feeding tube last week and were doing the biopsy this week
but alas it is to be the other way round. Tomorrow sees me back in
Poole for the fitting of the PEG tube. Ho hum I've been here before,
but at least I should be able to get some calories in me, I've
already lost half a stone and I can't really afford to lose anymore.

So that's it so far, I'm going to keep typing this time around, not for
you lot, but for me and maybe my kids for when they are older and
they wonder what their Dad was like. (and he doesn't care so much
about spelling or punctuation this time) Hopefully this will shed a
little light on him for them.

bye for now and Have a .....

21/12/15

21/12/15

Happy Christmas to one and all.

On again, off again. This relationship between myself and this
blog over the years has blown hot and cold more times than the
worst showbiz marrages, although i don't expect to be getting
divorced from this partnership any time soon. Yes, i am sorry to
one and all and especially my beautiful wife and kids for that
terrible disease that played cupid to this Laptop, Blog and myself
3 and a little bit years ago has raised its ugly head again.

The cancer is back.

4 weeks ago I had a routine check up, I saw Joe, I let him know
that I was starting to have have the odd difficulty with
swallowing, I was expecting this but not quite as bad as it
hasbecome, every meal time I was having to cough to clear my
throat as my food just kept getting stuck, I expected this just to
be because of the scar tissue left behind in my throat, Joe agreed
this could just be scar tissue but to make sure he set up an MRI
and a video xray swallow test. 3 weeks ago, MRI, nothing to
report other than apparently I take a good picture, that's just
down to practice I guess, 2 weeks ago a video xray, this was a
new one on me and I didn't know what to expect, not alot really,
water with contrast, a thicker solution with contrast, a
marshmallow covered in contrast and finally a digestive biscuit
dunked in contrast. " oh, i can see you are having problems" said
the radiographer. That was nothing compared to the day
following, I may of had trouble swallowing the test foods but there
was certainly no problem in getting the contrast out of my body...
whoosh thats one way to empty your intestine, they could have
warned me it was going to cause a rapid evacuation.
Now we are at last week, Tuesday saw a follow up visit to green
clinic, expecting to see Joe, but when I got asked to wait in the
consultation room, Joe did not enter, his boss did followed by 2
other consultants, the radiographer and Karen the cancer nurse,
shit, my heart sank.

It's still sinking.

When I know more, I will write more, until then pretty people

Have a Week, a Day, a Month or an Hour.

Bye for now.