Off to bed and guess I ought to get packed

I haven't done that - a bit strange but I just realised that I haven't packed my case. I'll do that now and get off to bed and get a good night's sleep. Some relaxing thoughts and breathing and I should be OK. I need to get up early and get ready - Mrs. F is going to drop me off before she gets on with her day.

I do hope that I get out on the same day this time - it is always much better to sleep in your own bed I reckon and you feel far more comfortable too.

That is food out of the way

I've had my evening meal and I'm having a last coffee and then just drinking water from now on. No more food after midnight (or was that for Gremlins?) I can have water up until tomorrow morning at about 6:30 or so. I'll need just enough to take my tablets and then I can head off to the Hospital. Some breathing and positive thoughts and my MP3 player and off we go again.

Let's hope that this time there are beds available and I can get this over and done with. It means a lot to me to get it out of the way. Each of the steps you take along the way are major milestones in getting cured and moving on. This could just be the last of the "heavy" steps along the way. Diagnosis, TURBT, BCG and Biopsies plus the IVU X-Ray (my personal worst experience of all time) can all be consigned to the experience and the "in my past bin" I hope.

Only present I want this year? Yes you guessed it. Fingers and everything else crossed that it all gos to plan tomorrow.

Ho Ho Ho

A Good Reason Not to eat Ice Cream

Very funny - I saw this - it is too late for my Christmas List but how about coming home from Hospital to see this on the Toilet???

Mumbo Jumbo?

I used to think that Hypnosis was just that Mumbo Jumbo - I'm the sceptic (not septic) and the enemy of Snake Oil and all that stuff but I did go for Hypnosis and for me it did work. I was a bit tense the first time and a bit worried about it. I needn't have been and it worked really well on tackling some of the very serious anxieties I used to have going into Hospital. My blood pressure would go through the roof (it still goes up but not as much) and I'd be in pieces. Fears from my childhood of painful procedures, being wired up for days to rigid bits of kit and spending days recuperating at home made for me, after 11 or so operations, with up to a month off on each occasion have a childhood and education interrupted by what today are minor procedures.

Steve in his excellent Got Bladder Cancer Blog advocates using a breathing technique SEE HERE

I use something similar to the second technique:

1. Find a little space preferably where you are not disturbed
2. Get comfortable
3. Long slow deep breath, hold for mental count of 4 as you exhale slowly close your eyes
4. Silent mental count 1 to 10. Count each number as you breathe out. Between each breath say to yourself "one..Deeper Relaxed..Two..Deeper Relaxed.." etc
5. By the time you reach the number 10 you can go deeper by visualising:

• Counting again from one to ten
• Going down one escalator after another
• A beautiful spot in nature, noticing the sights, sounds and smells (or somewhere you feel at ease)
• Skiing down a mountain
• Walking downstairs
• Swimming in the sea or lying on a sunny beach
• Floating gently on a cloud

When you are at a level of trance at which you feel comfortable, give yourself positive suggestions. Give each suggestion at least 10 times - be passionate about it; feel it, believe it

Emerge yourself silently and mentally by counting from Ten up to One and then open your eyes. As you are emerging yourself, give yourself suggestions that you will emerge "full of confidence, energy and vitality for the rest that you have just had, feeling marvellous in every way"

The suggestions I was given are below:

Every day in every way I am getting better and better
I am in control, I create my own reality
Negative thoughts have no power over me, I am in control
I create my own reality through the power of my mind and this is so
I persistently think and act in the direction of my good and my goal; to be a happy, healthy, relaxed person
I am love. I am loving, loved and beloved
I am healed by the Creative Force within me
My body knows just how to keep me well and I pay close attention to its signals. I obey those signals, I relax, I let go and stay well
My body systems are co-operating with the surgical procedure, we are all working together to create healing
My blood pressure is normal and will stay that way
My lungs breathe easily and effortlessly
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.

Now - you may think it is all Mumbo Jumbo but for me - it worked really well and this, together with music (all types work for me although thrash and heavy rock don't really soothe the mind in a Hospital - they are OK post Op though) help me to calm down. I can take myself into Hospital and not need anyone with me anymore and I can and have managed to see off the 3 previous lots of biopsies and 2 previous TURBTs plus 24 BCGs this will make 6 visits for General Anaesthetic procedures on me in 2 1/2 years. Sure - no one likes it but if you can control yourself then you begin to get to the purpose of what this is all about. It is about curing you and making you better. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that and yet at the end of the day it IS what this is all about.

How can I be of a cheery disposition and (normally) be positive? I often consider this to be a number of things:

• A wake up call
• A blessing (perhaps not quite the right word)
• A turning point
• Time to reappraise what IS important

I wouldn't say that you get some sort of deep and meaningful religious insight or suddenly the meaning of life pops out and bites your bum or anything but you do start to see things in a different light. Seeing the operations as steps to getting better and the treatments, which are challenging to say the least, aren't there to be horrible or to hurt you they do actually make you fight and get rid of (to a great extent) your Cancer. You just have to mend your thought processes around to the positives in all the horrors that are done to you. I still subscribe to the old adage that there are people far worse off than you and that I am lucky to live somewhere that not only has the ability to cure me but has the staff, resources and know how to make it happen. In some places in the world, I'd be dead by now, that is why I shouldn't be angry anymore about having got cancer and that is why I should be positive all the time.

A quiet day

L - who is off to Argentina next year on a World Challenge Expedition - is out again today and for the next three days bag packing and hoping to get some money from shoppers so that she can raise the money to go. She is meant to raise as much as she can herself and she has done really well. She needs about £3,500 to go and perhaps £1,000 for equipment. She is over 1/2 the way there.

I found out that Mrs. F didn't tell A that I was going into Hospital although I think that A probably knew as I'm sure I would have said something. She will let A know after I come out. Mind you not that A would be particularly worried about me going in anyway.

There is little left to do except for me to pack for tomorrow and I must catch up on my studies and on writing up this 75th History which, I am pleased to say looks to be nearing some sort of shape as I have all the information and the general layout sorted out now.

I'm trying not to think about being uncomfortable next week :-)

Sorry - it still cracks me up every time I see this photo - OUCH :-)

This time tomorrow

I actually hope to be asleep and getting ready for Monday's Op. I have managed to do a pile of work today but need to consolidate that somehow and to catch up on my Foundation course work. I am actually 2 weeks behind which is a worry. Mind you - quite how I could have studied Plato last week and Poetry this is beyond me - my head just wasn't in it.

I also need to work out quite how I go about doing my two assignments. All of this can wait as there is always bags of time over Christmas and the New Year when I am at a loss as to what to do and so I need to make sure I do it then. it can all be done sitting down and I have a Laptop so it isn't as if I will hurt myself???

I have to remember that next week - don't lift or do anything too strenuous. We just realised that I cannot walk over to me in-laws on Christmas Day - it is just too far and there are a couple of up hill stretches that would for sure mean I'd start bleeding. The number of times I've done stuff and regretted it afterwards!! I just need to remember that they do dig much deeper with these biopsies and I have to be careful for a good three or four weeks.

You know, the main thing is to hear the words all clear in the New Year. It wouldn't quite be re-birth but it could be damn close I reckon.

Soon be over and done with

I have plenty to do over the next day and a bit of what's left today. I have to get my head back into going into Hospital mode again. Christmas can start on Tuesday I think. It will be strange going to our "traditional" Christmas party on Christmas Eve. Our host has been in Hospital and just out having been diagnosed with Diabetes and now has to inject herself - she and I share the same "love" of needles. I imagine the food will be curtailed but the girls will no doubt muck in as she and I lay there recuperating and relating Hospital stories to each other.

A will not be there but I hope all the other children (well two are 18, one is 16 and one is 15). We have been having this party for 17 years I think. It is nice - Church and then down the road to have a great evening. All three families used to go on holiday together and we went to Portugal a number of times and France and were able to hire large Farm Houses and Villas. All that is now changing with 2 of the oldest having been away at University, two at College and one left at School. It is like a switch - once we are there and the food and drink start to flow we know that Christmas has started.

While we were out last night meeting A's boyfriend's parents - a very nice meeting I have to say - L decorated the House, put up the Christmas Tress etc and so it looks Festive now. We don't tend to do this until a few days after C's birthday which was on Tuesday.

I've started pulling out my Christmas CDs and I'll see if I can cheer myself up a bit :-) Not that I'm down, just that yukky feeling prior to going into Hospital the sort of dread feeling - difficult to explain but as if you were about to go into a difficult meeting where you were going to get roasted by everyone. Anyway, sure I'll find plenty to distract me as I go on during the day.

Last Day

My little baby is off skiing in the morning and I wont see her over the Christmas period. Mixed emotions about that. I'm really pleased she is off doing things herself and doing something I have never done (well only for minutes have I ever skied in Finland years ago). I think that is commendable and I am sure she is going to have a great time. That leaves Mrs F and L to be with over Christmas. It will be a massive change - after all we have had 18 years together as a family at Christmas.

So tinged with a little sadness I'll see her off tonight and also with some satisfaction that she is getting and gaining her independence. It is hard to let go but you must.

Not a great lover of Chili

I think I woke up every hour to have a sip of water last night. I don't like chillies a lot well at least not like they were presented in the food last night. My throat certainly knows it has had some and quite how people eat really hot ones is beyond me. I like spicy but not chili hot food.

I didn't have a lot to drink either, a few beers at the pub and one with the meal and that was it, so I cannot blame that for waking every hour.

This morning all is OK with the world, the sun is out and I'm at my desk working before 9. It's the day of the Office party but I'm not tempted to go, lovely though everyone is at work.

I'm catching up on e-mails from friends and find mixed news from them. One has had a Brain tumour and is undergoing treatment, another is recovering from a nasty disease that threatened to stop him working. It didn't but the recession has done that and he gets made redundant today. Judging by the news coming in, quite a few think their jobs are at risk. A couple are getting odd contract jobs here and there. It depends where you look as I still get a steady stream of offers for Program Management work and yet certain retail and manufacturing work is at a standstill. Goodness knows what the banking sector is like but my colleague last night reckoned that it was currently a bit of a "blood bath" and hard work to make a living working in. He may have to lay off some of his people having already gone to short time working and instigated other cuts. He wasn't happy about that but has to face the reality of the situation.

Anyway, the rest of the day beckons and I need to get on top of this history research.

Useful Videos

There are a couple of useful videos on YouTube about Cystoscopy

Here is the male version



Here is the famale version

Time to go out again

I am about 1/3 of the way through the research for this history I am writing and that has taken the best part of the afternoon and now I need to go and get myself fed and ready to go out and meet a friend of mine and take him for a beer to his local. I am kind of looking forward to a chat with him. He is a lovely guy and we just need to make sure we don't drink too much - we are prone to doing that occasionally :-0

Finally I get down to working

It has been a long time coming but I finally started to get organised and managed to clean the office up and not get distracted by other things.

I sent an apology e-mail out last night to many friends as I have been so disorganised this year that I haven't sent out cards, newsletters or any sort of correspondence. At least I got an e-mail out to most!

I am writing a History of the Lodge - luckily only the last 25 years of our 75 year history and it is a bit like watching paint dry at the moment as I am trawling through the minute books and taking information from there to use in the document. There is a lot of going forwards and backwards in time to cross reference things and it is time consuming and rather dry work. I hope to be able to keep interest levels up or I'll never finish it.

Discretion

I keep getting invited to the Office Party on Friday but I am reluctant to go as I have a meeting with A's Boyfriend's parents in the evening and the very last thing I want to do is turn up after a few beers to that. It would make for a good script in a sitcom though!

I'd love to go to the Office Party, it would be a real hoot and I know that a number of people want me to be there (I can be quite amusing and almost charming at parties). The trouble is that I know I wouldn't just want one beer and if I have an audience, then the actor - well stand up comic - comes out and we would have a good laugh and joke.

I think discretion is definitely the right thing to do. I must be on my "best" behaviour at least to start with on Friday as I have never met these people before and I am not the easiest person to deal with especially if you don't get my sense of humour or my attitude to life. With a light lubrication of beer I can imagine that it would be a very one-sided conversation. They are all off skiing in the morning as well so I imagine it wont be a boozy affair.

Technology

I've been in the High Technology sector most of my life and computers still are a pain. I have three of my own in my Office and each is a specific machine. This one is a large powerful desktop, large monitor 19" and keyboard and mouse. I have a tablet PC which is very light, portable, touch screen that folds over and it has hand writing recognition - it is very nice. Also I have a semi laptop with a 17" screen which is more a desktop replacement but has everything I need if working away from home.

This morning, with an urgent MS Update required, two of my machines were playing silly buggers as they were updating themselves (I'm sure I turned off that feature a few weeks ago) and hence I lost a number of configuration settings. The other PC just refuses to work properly this morning and whether it has been updated or just given up the ghost I now have to find out. It is typical that this particular machine is the one I need today as I was working up a few documents on it last night.

I cannot believe that in this day and age we cannot do better. I'm lucky, I can generally fix stuff like this but Joe Public must wonder what on earth is going on.

Hopefully after I have this fixed I can get on and tackle the pressing parts of my growing to do list.

What's important

Yep, it is important that I get this done and it is good that my friends are rallying around and will cover for me. I get worried about letting people down but that's just my nature. the quicker I get sorted out then the quicker I can get back to a "normal" life whatever that may be.

Whilst next week isn't going to be easy it really is the best way forward, I know it is and whilst I feel a little uncomfortable about it, it isn't the end of the world if some of my tasks don't get done.

I just need to convince myself - if I repeat it often enough perhaps I will :-)

That kind of day

I wasn't meant to be working.  there is nothing for me to do but today, I got a small stream of minutiae that just beggars belief.  Surely it would be as easy for someone to pick up the phone and do some of this themselves? 

I have wasted and frittered away almost the whole day on little stupid bits of work that are total distractions to what I am doing.

In addition two massively long phone calls and suddenly I find that it is towards the end of the day and hardly any of MY stuff has got done.  I've saved lives everywhere else and sorted out stuff that you'd hardly need to think about and most people obviously didn't.

Now it looks as if Thursday and Friday night are also accounted for and suddenly the pressure is on to make a real impact into the growing pile of things to do before Monday.  The most annoying thing about this is I used to be the most organised and structured person and these days all of that has disappeared and things just pile up.  I just don't seem to be able to concentrate on the job in hand but I am also working with people that all I do is fire fight for them all the time.

22nd December or 5th January

Good old e-mail.  Just got one in offering me the procedure next Monday or in early January.  Typically none are convenient but the 22nd is the only one I can go for as I have a very important meeting of my Lodge on the 10th January and I do a lot of work in that and I need to be fit.

The trouble is that I screw up most of my colleagues and they will have to take the brunt of the enforced absence during our practice sessions.

Needs must and suddenly my attitude has changed and so has how I feel.  My stomach is churning just writing this.  I just want it out of the way now but how strange that I feel this different from reading one e-mail and making a decision to go in on the 22nd.  It is a sick feeling way down and far away in my stomach and at the back of my throat.  It must be the suddenness of it all I really do feel most strange.

Disappointed

It has been just over a week and by now I should have been suitably recovered to go out and start to enjoy myself but not really drive or do anything too strenuous as they do cut deep with these biopsies - deeper than when they actually did the TURBT so they say.

In a way I'm pleased that I am off work but also disappointed as it would "all be over" by now apart from the results of course.  I temper that with the fact that the system looks to be in some difficulty at the moment with a vomiting bug sweeping the country and the Hospitals and many people ill with winter ailments and a number who have been injured with falling over in the ice etc.  They, of course, need those services rather than me.

We are coming to terms to what Christmas is going to be like without A who is off to France skiing.  I think she is also beginning to realise that it is her first Christmas away from us.  It will be a bit strange but there you go, inevitable really.

Today it looks as if I may actually get some work done and so I ought to sign off the blog and go and do it!

As a by-the-by it was interesting that Steve's and my blog both now rate highly on a Google search for "bladder cancer blog" we are on the top two pages - that's impressive.

So Mrs F came back from work

And we went out for lunch.  My next door neighbour who has had (and is now clear) of Lung Cancer - they cut one of his lungs out! turned up and so we had a drink for that.

So nothing got done this afternoon at all.  So much for thinking I had finished going out and drinking/eating etc.   

Was interesting talking to my next door neighbour and his brush with the Big C.  Gee, they just whipped out a lung and he got the all clear yesterday!   Less than a year but as he said - a lucky year in that way and it is amazing how we think like that isn't it.  He then went on to tell me that it was next to nothing compared to what I had gone through???   That kind of shocked me.  I still don't think I have gone through that much or that is the approach I am taking.  I suppose that to anyone who hasn't had it, it looks pretty bad.  Maybe I'd better not dwell on that, I've asked myself that question a number of times.

I'll ask it again though - I wonder if it is a lot worse than I have experienced it to be?

Too Much Time on your hands?

Someone obviously has: