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End of Year wrap-up

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Me Dec 2020

 

Hm, where to start? This year has been a bit crap hasn’t it?  I’ve just tried to light my fire bin in the garden and everything is too sodden. Even the wood I chopped up and put in there is wet and sodden which sums up the year as a whole.

No one knew what would happen at the beginning of the year. I spent last Christmas and New Year with a cancer diagnosis looming over me, and whilst I was going through the operation in Feburary to have a tumour removed from my leg, the news of Covid coming was everywhere. I was lucky that the op went ahead and the chemo which followed was not delayed… as it has been for so many and for those people I really am sorry.

I won’t mull over this too much as I know people do it have it worse off. And I’ve written a bit about that in my last post – Life is relative – but I wouldn’t wish chemotherapy on anyone. It’s one of those things that starts off OK and then as the treatment continues and your immune system is shot, that everything else goes off the rails. I contracted Covid from hospital and spent 3 weeks getting over it. I was blue lit to Northampton general and spent a week there with 38.5degree fevers twice a day underneath a freezing cold air conditioning duct. It was horrendous. Three weeks with a fever that high twice a day wasn’t pleasant. Luckily the disease didn’t go to my lungs as that could have been a different story. I thank my fitness for that but it could have been 50/50.

I’m done with chemo now, and I’m focussing 100% on physio and getting my leg strong again. I’m on track to put on weight again with a target of 79kg… got another 4 to go and I’m working on building upper body strength again as well. I have a page where you can track progress here: Instagram

I want to say a big thank you to my fiancee Annabelle who’s been an absolute star and a rock this year, having to put up with me being in hospital for 3 weeks at a time or more at times and doing much more housework than previously whilst I recovered. I honestly wouldhn’t have been able to do this without her. A big thank you also to my family and friends, for the video calls and calls in hospital to keep the days occupied.

I also want to say a shoutout to the company I work for for being so tolerant and for allowing me to keep my position. I’m phasing back to full time in Jan 2021.

I’ve been able to keep up with freelance work also, which is useful and will be continuing with that next year.

I appreciate life a lot more now, that’s something new. Every day I wake up now is a good day. I saw some not so nice things having been an inpatient in an oncology / heamotology ward for over 6 months. My emotions are wrecked though. The smallest thing can have me balling my eyes out and just looking at photos of last year can do that but I’m stronger and I’m going to be stronger…

 

And that’s a wrap. Thanks for reading and all the best for 2021 if you read this far!

Life is relative

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I’ve done a lot of reading this year. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospital, most of which was spent waiting and drifting from breakfast to lunch to dinner. So to make up for that I set myself a higher than normal reading challenge on Goodreads and made a concerted effort to read much more than I normally would.

I garnered a rather unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam war. A war often forgotten about because it was so unjust and for the longest time America wanted to move on and hide their shame. It is afterall, up to that point, and probably thereafter, the only war America has ever lost.

The war went on for nearly 10 years by the time it was all wrapped up and troops had all moved out. A lot of kids grew up in that period and a lot of politicians, and world leaders, came and went.

I have been comparing my experiences of that war and some other battles fought with my own battles this year. The  essence of this is, that there is always someone in a worse state or having a worse time. Vietnam basically has two seasons: hot and hot and wet. The climate is horrendous. Insane humidity that no one can train for. The training that troops in America undertook before shipping out, were nothing like what they were to expect. Nowhere in North America is as wet, hot and humid as Vietnam Jungle is for the most part of the year.

So you’re sitting in the jungle, it’s hot, you’re soaked through and you’ve not slept properly for a fortnight or more becuase each night you’re dug into a foxhole in the pissing rain with your boots disintigrating and your clothes rotting with no change because supplies have run out. To add to the mix your radio equipment is unreliable and you’ve lost contact with HQ and each night you’re bombarded with mortar shells and machine gun fire.

8 months of chemo, where I spent 3 weeks at a time for most parts in a hospital ward getting little sleep but getting fed 3 meals a day on a regular basis and as much tea or coffee (as bad as it was) as I wanted is nothing compared to what thousands went through in Vietnam.

So I compare my own experience with the things I read and decided it could have been a whole lot worse and it’s not worth complaining about. Afterall, it’s just a little speedbump in the road. I feel for the hundreds that didn’t make it back from Vietnam, fighting an unjust war that in the end no one wanted to fight.

I’ve also added in a second book below which tells the real life story of a 17 year old boy on the Eastern front in Germany (just in case you’re fed up of jungle and humidity) where he endured starvation and freezing cold, wearing inadequate clothing, and suffering frostbite whilst fighting for his life!

Cancer is bad, but these folks had it a lot worse!

You may want to read:

  1.  A Rumor of War, Philip Caputo (Vietnam War)
  2. The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer (WW2, Germany, Eastern Front)

You may want to watch:

  1. The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
  2. The War, by Ken Burns

(YES, both bias towards America but believe they’re telling the whole story).

Cancer, Chemo and Corona

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It’s a weird world we find ourselves in right now. Even more so and scary when having to undergo a pretty involved operation and now continuing with chemotherapy. So just to bring people up to speed with that — the operation I had earlier in the year was to remove the primary tumour. Further scans are good. Chest CT came back with no change prior to the op. The downside is that there are no base line scans to go on, so the only scans are since Sept ’19, up until last month. The scans get repeated, and the next will be due in around 6 months.

I’ve now started chemo treatment and already had one lot at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, and where I’ll be back at the beginning of May. They’ve been great so far and Ward 41 rocks.

With Covid-19 going round, undertaking chemo isn’t necessarily ideal, as it tears down your immune system. I’m pumping myself with vitamins and drinking plenty of fluid as that’s recommended to keep everything going. They’ve told me to carry on eating as much as I can and I can even have the odd beer.

In other news, physio is actually continuing on my knee and leg where I had the op earlier, so this is a two pronged approach. I’m currently mobilising with crutches fine and have 20 degrees of movement in my knee joint with a new swanky leg brace. I’m doing 4-5 sets of physio exercises a day to build up muscle and tendon strength in my leg.

Honestly, the start of this year wasn’t great, but when Corona came along as selfish as it sounds, I’m in the same boat with everyone else now. I’ve not really gone out away from home apart from hospital since the beginning of the year. I’m beyond the crazy stage, and have come to adapt. With me being able to mobilise better I am now able to at least get into the garden a bit. Getting transported to the hospital is the most outdoor action I’ve got in recent weeks and you soon get over how much you take for granted just being able to go outside. It’s been a challenge but hopefully by the time lockdown gets lifted, my physio will be coming on and I’ll at least be able to sit in a car. 6 cycles of chemo in theory takes me to around November 2020, if they decide to go that far. They may stop at 4 depending on how well I handle it.

One thing I have taken out of this whole journey is how damn lucky I am compared to some people, and that there is and will always be someone worse off. I’ll probably try and keep some of these posts shorter but wanted to clear things up. Cancer is a funny topic, with many people not wanting to openly speak about it or experiences but I think it’s worth bring people up to date.

One thing I would say is in any circumstances such as this, is that please do go and see your GP as soon as something doesn’t look or feel right. Don’t take painkillers for prolonged periods of time to supress pain as the pain shouldn’t be there to begin with. I went after a month of persistent pain in my leg, and I’m so glad I did. I’d urge you to do the same!