Reflections

I went up to the pub and met my mates and we had a good few beers and a belly full of laughs and I managed to squeeze out my apology for being a "bit of an arse" a little while ago.

For some reason, I like to beat myself up and give myself a hard time about my condition and how I treat my friends and how - well - self centred I am.   You may think that when you have Cancer, it is all about you and I suppose you would be right.  The problem is that I suddenly get a gripping fear about it all being about me and that I somehow turn into a "Me. Me. Me. Me" sort of person.  I suppose it does do that and then I try and redress the balance.

It's not easy being in this place and it's not easy balancing your own needs with those of others.  This blog is the pressure valve on many occasions and thank goodness it is here as without it, where could I have turned?

Today the news has once again been good and I can only hope that it continues to be so.  To everyone I have offended in the past 4 1/2 years I apologise but there is every possibility that I will continue to offend you for as long as I write :-)

Wishing you all a great Christmas - I think that now I am going to have one and that I am ready to pack up work for a short while and just relax properly.

Clear

Well that went better than expected - all clear and things are looking up.  The cytology was clear and the scope was fine - in fact better than I expected it to be.  That was clear, so pleased with the news and really delighted that it was a better experience than the first one I had which was of course when I was bleeding heavily and not really at all mentally ready.

Today I started off with drinking quite a bit of water and coffee and just kept going and had around 2 or 3 pints by the time I left to go to the Hospital.  The hairdresser distracted me and I went to have a shower and got myself ready.  As it happens when we arrived I was whisked in pretty quickly, did  a urine test and got changed into my gowns, I swallowed two ibuprofen and two paracetamol and then went in - they gave me two antibiotic tablets and I was then on the bench and if I was there 2 minutes that was all it was.  The Registrar did the procedure and said that he'd like to see me in 4 months for another scope.  

There was some discomfort but not the awful stinging I had last time and it was similar to having the BCG done.  The nurse said my breathing was good and I explained that all the BCGs I'd had probably helped - as usual my stress balls caused some comment but as I explained - I find it works well as I don't move my hands about and it allows me to concentrate on breathing as well.

I'm now going to sit back and do nothing for the rest of the day!  I also had a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch as a reward - I don't eat bread and so it was like comfort eating :-)

I'm obviously delighted with the result and can look forward to Christmas and every other day in a better vein.

Slept Well

I don't tend to if it is an operation and I'm ready to go in and at the moment just waiting for the hairdresser to turn up so I can get my hair cut and then get into preparation mode at full tilt.

Drinking plenty of water and liquids so that I am well hydrated.  It may hurt when you pee but making sure you can actually pee and just wash it all through is equally important.  

These procedures are important little milestones in the overall scheme of things.  I am hoping that I'll get a clear of course but nothing can be guaranteed.  I liked the fact that people tell me how well I look these days - hell I must have looked rough before :-)  I did see some older photos of me and I looked grey and washed out so perhaps there is something in that?  I am hoping that all will be well today - that would mean a good Christmas and New Year and no matter how I play down the fact that this is just one of those things you have to do and that it doesn't play on your mind.  From experience the relief and energy you get after being told things are OK is massive so there must be some seed of doubt and worry, I guess it is just natural to fear the worst - even an optimist must do that I guess.

At least this will be out of the way though and that is a good thing.  More later. 

Judgement Day

In 12 hours to be exact - I'm sort of ready to go, we have the hairdresser at 9 in the morning and then I can go have a shower.  Mrs. F will run me down to the Hospital and I can call her when I am out.  I have my stuff ready to go - a Kindle, MP3 player, stress balls, Meds and some water, my letter and a few other bits and pieces.  I must remember to have plenty to drink.  

Mrs. F. and the girls are going off to London to see the Nutcracker and so they will just drop me off here and I'll look after myself for the rest of the day.  Hopefully they will be home in the early evening.

It is Mrs. F's birthday on Thursday and we were going to book a restaurant but the weather looks atrocious for Wednesday night and in to Thursday morning.   It looks as if we will have a severe fall of snow like a few weeks back.  Not looking forward to that I have to say but we will just have to see how it is.

I'm reasonably relaxed about going for the flexible cystoscopy tomorrow.  I've had one before and although that was a long time ago, I remember the only bit was how bad it stung.  That is why when I arrive and just before the procedure I'm going to bash down two ibuprofen and two paracetamol.  I hope that it will sort me out long enough to get home and then I can just curl up in bed for an hour or two.

Still not right

So I cancelled going out Saturday as my throat feels like it is wrapped in barbed wire and now I've got the sneezes to go with it.  I wanted to go but realised that if I got cold or chilled travelling there and back I may not make the do on Sunday.  It all happens this time of year.

Have maxed out on Paracetamol and had the team around today as well.  Things are coming together quite well but a few minor problems are just holding back our progress at the moment.

At least we got the customer survey and questionnaire finished and I can publish that in time to bore all my friends at Christmas.  

Best head off to bed and see if I can't shake this cold or whatever it is off.  It isn't debilitating as such it is just a nuisance.  It has been a week since I had my tooth out and that appears to be healing OK although there is still some swelling around the area. 

Mrs. F & L are off to Gloucester tomorrow - L is attending the University there for an interview.  She has a presentation to give and has to discuss education with them.  I think she will do well.  They have to get there and stay overnight in an Hotel and then carry out quite a bit on Saturday and they'll get back Saturday night.

I hope that I'm fit and well when they get back or for Sunday when we have our Christmas Carvery Lunch which I am really looking forward to.  Of course next week will be interesting too as I have my judgement day and it is Mrs. F's birthday too so again a busy week ahead.

Rough

I feel rough as you like today - sore throat still, I'd have thought that should have gone by now and thudding low down headache.  I've had enough pills to kill a horse and I'm finding sitting down trying to work just isn't doing anything for me at all.  

I will perhaps give up and just go and lie down when Mrs. F and A and L arrive back from the Nativity Play up at the Nursery.   

I was disappointed to hear last night that a friend had lost her job after 15 years in the job on some trumped up disciplinary.  Little people hide behind this sort of behaviour, if you want rid, step up to the plate and say so don't dress it up as something that you made up that they did wrong.  This is someone who went out of her way to make sure things happened - in her own time and all the other heroics she performed.  The good thing is that the people left behind who assisted in the betrayal don't know the half of it and it should be amusing to watch it all tumble down like a house of cards.  However, she is left with the bad taste and feeling that she did wrong when  once again some little jumped up spreadsheet jockey - who obviously has no balls - wants to balance his books.  Good for him, I hope that his employers - for he answers to others - sh1t on him like he has on others.  Little prick.

I've quite tired myself out doing that little flame out.  I'd like to meet the little git face to face, little dictators are my speciality :-)

Right - retiring hurt - I feel I want to cough but know it will feel like barbed wire if I do :-(

Blimey it's cold today

Then I found out Mrs. F. had wound the thermostat down to 15!  15 for goodness sake no wonder my feet are like blocks of ice.  The best bit is she gets in and says it's cold in here why don't you put the thermometer up?  

The laptop has been playing up all day - it intermittently drops the network but not the internet and just randomly connects and disconnects as and when it feels fit.  This is apparently quite normal.  Of course if I'd like to invest a few thousand pounds upgrading the reminder of the house's PCs and infrastructure then it would go away.  As if!

Finding that some of my team aren't taking the launch of the web site in the right way seeking only to publish the web site address without positioning it with the obvious result that people don't get it and have written huge critiques about it.  That has been put right now and hopefully the little note positioning it will go out and stop wasting everyone's time.  Certainly we got fed up with trying to fend off loads of comments that wouldn't have been fielded in the first place if they were correctly managed.  Some people have an overly romantic view of what it is to build a company from scratch thinking, I am sure, that this will all be easy and corporate.  Those of us who have done it before know that this is the honeymoon period, the worst is about to break upon us in 2011 if we get the money.  I feel I may have to just give these guys a reality check talk soon.

So today has been one of cold feet (in more ways than one) a few smack downs and at last I have completed the customer survey form and got that on-line and in a printable version - thank goodness for that.  It has taken me months to get everyone to agree it and finally that is done.  

This time next week I'll have had my judgement day inspection and no doubt be hopping around peeing razor blades.  I am getting myself prepared for that but frankly, after having had plenty of things shoved up me without the benefit if local anaesthetic and all the other stuff they do to me these days this will be a relief not to have to prepare myself for an in patient procedure.

Aspirin

The latest information on Aspirin - amazing findings out this morning from the BBC and I just saw the interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11930988 it is pretty impressive findings based on lots of data.

A small daily dose of aspirin - 75mg - substantially reduces death rates from a range of common cancers, a study suggests.

That's the dosage I've been on for around 4 years so let's hope that it is so.

Fun

Having fun, enjoying the company of people and just all getting along with each other.  It was so nice this evening to find that the guy I've been having so many problems with over quite a period of time is almost back to his old time best.  He is still in deep trouble but at last seems to have accepted that and is fighting his way back.  His old sense of humour is appearing again and that's just great and it is pleasing to see that.  Fingers crossed for him, he has an interview and could land himself a job that may actually steady his ship and allow him to build into 2011.  I do hope so.  He has had a wretched time of it this year.  It will also give me a bit of a breather too.

Talking of a laugh, L & A were on top form tonight L has my sense of the absurd and A has my darker sense of humour.  Between them bouncing off each other and taking the rise out of me too it was seriously amusing in the house tonight.  We haven't had quite so many laughs for a long time.  I like it and they are very funny when they relax and get going.  I hope that the next few weeks will be good for us over the festive season - goodness knows we haven't had the best of times these past 4 1/2 years and I'm seriously considering just putting everything on hold and just going for a two week mellow and chill out, leave the business to look after itself and see if we can't all get back to normal again.   

Not that things were abnormal but you can probably imagine that things have been strained and we have all had to deal with me being ill.  I may whinge about how I've been, to them it can have been no easier seeing my looking like sh1t and perhaps  not being my usual self.

Time to let our hair down and make up for the rather staid Christmas holidays we have had before.  I will see if I can make that so for us all, it would be a good goal to aim for before the end of the year.

No Screening For A While Then

This report just out:

http://www.screening.nhs.uk/bladdercancer and the report can be downloaded here show that it isn't conclusive to run screening tests at the moment to diagnose bladder cancer.

I know that I am still providing samples regularly which I believe are in part to do with this.  They get the sample some time before hand and can relate the actual results to those in the sample.

I'm still pretty impressed with the rate that discoveries are happening and after listening to Professor Colin Cooper a month or so back about the advances in Prostate Cancer research - I think that things are moving in the right direction.

Let's hope that bladder cancer, which is getting pretty much high up on the list of male cancers at No. 4 will be able to be detected early and dealt with swiftly in the future.  Until then, we need to be thankful of the work that has been done to date especially in the efficacy of BCG.

1 week to go until my Judgement Day.  At least I will not be going through the pre-assessment (would have been tomorrow) and all that palaver.  Now to see if I can brave the Flexible Cystoscopy out - after having my Wisdom tooth pulled last week and root canal a few weeks before that I sure hope so. 

A Cold - Just the After Effects?

I can't tell whether this sore throat and occasional sneeze is a cold or the after effects of the tooth extraction.  I have felt lousy for the past 4 days ever since I've had the tooth hauled out.   I'm still whacking back the tablets and hoping that they will resolve the headache and other jaw and throat issues.  

Last night was one of those nights where - as often happens - I got to thinking too much and the room closed in around me and I felt claustrophobic and melancholy all at the same time.  I'm not sure what brought it on, maybe the slight tweaks in my throat and nose were making me breath unusually or perhaps thinking about things too much from the previous blog.  I certainly had an unsettled night taking a while to relax and then to actually fall asleep.

Little episodes like this happen and I sometimes don't understand why - I'm really fragile and vulnerable at those moments.  I was really sad and down and just felt sorry for myself.  Luckily these episodes pass and I can get up and on pretty fast from them these days.  

I need to see if I can find out what the trigger event(s) were so I can recognise this sort of thing coming and deal with it.  At least it isn't as bad as the earlier episodes which gives me hope that these will continue to get fewer and farther between and be shorter and less intense.  They are still not very nice though.  I guess my heads repairing itself as well as my body getting back to some sort of normality.

Perception

Is everything so the tag line on our site goes.  But perception means many things.  I like our tag line as it works on many levels it says a lot about how we feel about the business and how we feel about ourselves.  It also asks the reader to reflect on what they are thinking and feeling etc.

So perception - how do I or others perceive bladder cancer?  It floated into my head tonight and I  considered what I knew from the various conversations I have had and some of the observations I made on my journey.   There are major differences of course if you talk to someone who has or has had cancer as opposed to someone who hasn't.   

Perception is the knowledge between those of us who have had cancer and how we immediately understand the situation of the other person.  By this I mean as soon as we both realise that we have had cancer then we automatically have a bond of understanding and we know what the other has probably been through and it is OK (generally) to talk in some detail about what went on and how we are, the tests and the blood and gore etc.

If we haven't got that cancer bond then it can be a difficult conversation and that in itself is where the perception bit comes in.  It is just difficult in terms of subject matter and different people process it differently and that makes for some interesting conversations.  

I was quite surprised to see someone almost jump back in surprise when I said I'd survived cancer :-) it was as if I'd have come back from the dead or something.

Some people are curious, some patronising, some fearful and some just want to get the hell away from you.   It's all driven by what you do and don't know and what you think or how you are taught to think.

Ouch

My Jaw is aching - not surprising I suppose considering the near 1 hour struggle the guy had getting my tooth out and yanking it this way and that.  The damage I can feel with my tongue is pretty extensive and where he has had to leverage against my lower jaw and lip it is still numbed.

So I've had plenty of pain killers and some throat tablets too as I've got a sore throat and sound like I've gargled with sandpaper for a week.  Talking of gargling, having to wash out my mouth with salt water 3 or 4 times a day isn't too much fun either.  

The snow is melting fast and I was able to get out and drop L off to work this morning without too much drama.  I certainly could do without the jaw ache and mild headache and sore throat though.  

Oh well I shall just have to get on with it and hope that it settles down over the next week or so.  It will be the other end in a week and a bits time.

Ooeerr

I went out last night, walking down roads where the snow ploughs had been - it was an amazing, quiet walk through frost sparkling roads to the pub to meet my friend.  To my amazement the pub was heaving.  We had a couple of beers and then wandered off to another pub that was a little quieter.  We had a few more beers and I wandered home again in a spooky white sparkling world.

Even after ploughing the snow must be 4 to 6 inches thick on the road.  This morning a quick thaw has gotten under way which is really getting going now.  We have the prospect of an overnight frost though and I need to drive tomorrow.

This morning I had the Jaw ache from hell and had to come downstairs to get plenty of pain killers and just lay down in my chair for a few hours.  I eventually dozed off and things are a little better now.  I suppose I ought not to be surprised considering how long it actually took to get the tooth our and also the amount of damage my gums, lips and jaw have taken.  I just need to keep taking the tablets and gargling and getting back to normality.

Salt Gargle - Yuk

I hate gargling with salt - not having tasted table or sea salt for a long time now it really is quite strange tasting so much salty water in my mouth.  It is doing me good so I have to remember that.  At least I am not looking like a Hamster this morning but I'm pretty tender and so using the pain killers just to take the edge off of it for the moment.  I woke up and there had been a bit of bleeding last night so my pillow looked a bit like the Godfather scene :-) it always looks a lot even if it wasn't.

So today the girls and Mrs. F. Have dug the drive out to the road and in some areas the ploughs have been through and sorted out the bus routes.  Local stores have been replenished and gradually people are emerging into the white scape around here.  The ploughs haven't got to us but the road looks passable with care this morning.  Just as well as we have to get L to work tomorrow somehow.

At least I have been able to get on with some work these few days and now that I'm clear of dental work for the foreseeable future I only have to go get my blood done and have my flexible cystoscopy.  I wonder if I can actually look this time?  Not sure that it would be in mine or their best interests as to pick up even the new slimmer me may be difficult :-)

More days locked in

It seems that we will still have this appalling weather with us for some days yet and that's OK as I can stay in and get all my work done. There is sure to be plenty of disruption to come with burst pipes, refuse collections to be caught up and deliveries and post to catch up.

I'm just about to polish off some more pain killers and then do a salt gargle to sort out my mouth. It is OK but as with all these things needs careful attention and to follow the instructions to make sure it resolves itself properly.

Other than this I am feeling OK and looking forward to the morning when I can get a warm drink and food inside me.

Just to give an idea

This was yesterday - today it has doubled and so snow is half way up the cars.

Snow and A Cavity

Well another 8" of the white stuff overnight and the country is paralysed. Barely anything moving, no trains and just the odd 4WD.  It is so deep most people don't realise that they are actually acting as snow ploughs with their front spoilers piling up snow.  Efforts to move a van around the corner have made 2 hours and about 10 yards so far.  

The trip to the dentist was hard going, sometime up to my knees in snow but as he had made it in it was incumbent on me to do so as well.  The Wisdom tooth extraction was difficult and I can really feel it as there was much pulling and grinding and plenty of extra local anaesthetic which is now wearing off.   It has left a pretty badly damaged mouth and local area but plenty of pain killers appear to be sorting that out.  We are waiting for the snow to stop a little later today then the temperatures will plummet to -6 to -9 Celsius which is about 16 degrees Fahrenheit if I remember rightly!

No trains at all today again and it is amazing that we have this much snow this early in the season.  It reminds me of when I was a kid.  We don't do snow in England and we have no investment in the sort of kit that many others have as we don't normally get this sort of winter...

Anyway, no more tooth work for me until the new year - I'm going to see my dentist in March for a check up and see how things are.  For the rest of the day no hot drinks or food and starting tomorrow the old salt water rinses and slowly get back to normal.  I have to say that the Root Canal work might have been preferable but looking at the state of my tooth it sure needed sorting out.

I need to go and get some more tablets in a minute as these are wearing off and I feel like an opponent of Mike Tyson must have done.

 

Gridlock

If yesterday and today are anything to go by. Why two quite large lorries decided to come down our little road is beyond me. They both got stuck and thankfully a 4WD came and towed them on their way but - of course - not one could get anywhere whilst that was happening.

I reckon I haven't seen snow like this since 1967 or perhaps 1987 - it has drifted to be up to 2 feet deep - this is a lot for us in case you were wondering. Last year 6 inches of snow brought the place to its knees, this has done about the same and we are in for more. so they say.

Tooth due for extraction tomorrow which I am not looking forward to. I will call in the morning to make sure they are still going ahead. It will be a fair old walk to there - it is normally 20 minutes or so - I expect it will be 30 or 40 with it snowing.

Now that's what I call Snow

What an amazing sight this morning.  There was a fair amount of snow overnight but it just got worse during the morning and Mrs. F. kindly went up to the Hospital with my pee sample as she had to take A to get her blood test done.  I was waiting in for my business partner but the roads and basically the whole country shut down again today and so he ended up going home as the road here was blocked by abandoned cars and traffic accidents.

As there were hardly any people around A got her blood test about 30 seconds after she got there which was a blessing as she, like I, does not greatly like such things.  They handed in my test so that in 2 weeks time I can have my Flexible Cystoscopy.  Not something I'm greatly looking forward to but something that has to be done of course.

It looks as if we are in for more travel chaos - they only knew the snow was coming for about a week and they still couldn't cope.

Suddenly Christmas is upon us and I've a mountain to climb in terms of getting things done and trying to make sure that I have work and leisure things tied up.  Trouble is there are just so many things vying for my attention.  Oh well - I'm sure they'll all get done sooner or later.