And now I do feel bad

My brother sounded quite shaken on the phone and I can see why. I'm quite shaken up myself - I didn't think I'd be because I'd prepared myself for this. It's a fact that we all have to go but it is also a fact that we would rather go on our own terms.

Pancreatic Cancer - 10 months if he has the operation 6 months if he doesn't. It's slow growing in someone his age but even so, 6 months is no time at all is it? In younger people it is more aggressive as I recollect from some of the people I know who have had it.

I'm shocked and yet I knew this was coming - I suppose hearing it and how upset my brother was didn't really help things that much.

I might be feeling a little uneasy

But I'm sure my parents are going through purgatory and my brother probably is too as they meet the expert team discussing Dad's Pancreatic Cancer. I'm powerless to do anything as are we all of course. I must stop myself living it for him too - it will undoubtedly not be good for me.

I said a long time ago that your disease is yours and although you get support it's really only you who has the mental and physical battles. Anticipating what it will be like, how you'll feel, how others will feel and so on make for an interesting combination.

We all want to go to heaven but nobody wants to die - but we're all going to and that's the thing. Can you do anything about it? Not really, just come to terms with it and understand that is what is going to happen. You just hope it isn't too soon!

Well it wont be long now until I hear what the experts have to say. I suppose it will be all the obvious questions that Dad will have to ask and I do hope they've written them down as I told them to. These are important but they do have a local nurse who is able to answer any questions they've forgotten or that may arise.

I wouldn't want to be sitting in on today's meeting at all. I feel bad just typing this.

Tomorrow's The Day

Dad will get his discussion with the medical team and will find out the situation about his Pancreatic Cancer. It's early stage, that's good, it's Pancreatic which isn't quite so good and he's coming up 81 which makes things a little difficult and therefore subject to the "quality of life" discussions.

I'm trying not to sound blasé about it - it isn't, after all, a subject to be blasé about now really. I'm sort of hopeful that because it is early that they can give him something to slow things down and that he'll have some sort of opportunity to spend some time in doing things whilst he is able. I'm in some doubt about it myself, I know enough about Pancreatic to be dangerous and so decided not to go up and sit in on the meeting tomorrow. What good could I, a survivor, actually do when I can't imagine that there's going to be that opportunity given to him.

No matter what happens tomorrow, it will be a shock and it will be traumatic. I've to wait for the call in the late afternoon (I guess). My brother takes these things badly. I seem to have come over all calm and OK about it but I'm on the edge, I can feel it and I'm not sure how I'll react. I know what's coming and I think I know how I'm going to deal with it and yet, somehow, I'm struggling because of my own experience. I'm bordering on the edge, I can feel that and I think that it may change things. I've never been close to my father and that's because I'm very much like him. I'm sure he too has a similar psychometric profile to me. We don't do relationships very well and we have a number of other traits that may be perceived as being quite cold and almost ruthless but we aren't really.

I see a lot of myself in him except for some areas and I'm wondering if things will change and we will get a little closer, either through shared experience or through talking a little more deeply than we normally do. He is a very private person and I'm probably not quite as bad as that.

Anyway, it will soon be tomorrow and we will find out the prognosis and I guess the amount of time left - there I've said it!! Everyone dies of course and it wouldn't be the best choice of a way to go but it happens to us all. I've been lucky in a way that I've done a bit of path-finding for the family in terms of cancer treatments. I can only imagine what is going through my dad's mind as he lost both his parents to cancer. The trouble is, I can't be there for him or share my experience with him in its entirety and I don't suppose he'd want me to either. He's made one key decision and has to make some more in the next week or two. As I remind my brother and my mum, it is his life and he must decide what he is comfortable with. We have to accept his decision (whatever it may be) and we need to provide whatever support he needs. It will of course be hard on Mum and my brother too as he is quite sensitive to this sort of thing. He made a lot of fuss of me being ill and worrying but not enough to drive the 2 1/2 hours to see me of course :-) Sorry being a little bit wicked with that statement :-)

Let's hope it doesn't pull us apart - I could do without that.

Bladder Cancer Podcast

This may be interesting - it is almost 14 minutes long and it explains Bladder Cancer, Symptoms, Treatment etc.

Dilemma in the making

My folks live a long way away from me. Sure I could drive there and back in a day but the journey isn't particularly nice. It takes you around the largest car park in the world (or part of the 125 miles that is known as the M25). Then the M11 which isn't too bad a road if it is quiet. It doesn't need much for it not to be. Then at the end of the M11 there is still as much time to drive although nowhere near the distance to get to them. So it could easily be 2 1/2 hours and often 3. That would mean me driving for 6 hours roughly as I'd be held up somewhere or other. of course L is going to Cambridge so I can perhaps fit some sort of double visit in but then you need to add a hotel stop on to that.

I'm not saying I don't want to but it obliterates a day entirely or two to make it a reasonable length of visit. We will go up in a couple of weeks time to see them as we are already heading up north beyond them. It means coughing for hotels rooms but I'm not really worried about that. I'm just sort of stuck about how often I can visit my dad. I think they used to go and see my granddad a lot in Hospital but I think that was once a week. I used to go when I was nearby up in London but got banned after granddad got to a point where he didn't want us to remember him how he ended up. I can understand that too.

It's at times like this I question why the moved away from here. Here where I could have seen them even in the evening and just driven down for an hour or two. But they moved away as did my brother and it kind of leaves me in a position where I feel a little bit bad about not being there to help out or visit. It sure is a quandary - what to do for the best.

As I said in the blog sometime ago I was a little bit annoyed when I finally calculated that my parents hadn't been down to see me whilst I was ill. Having said that, I've a feeling they must have come down for a day for some reason as they've sat in my comfortable chair that I bought just after I was ill. I wonder if they came down for a day with my brother. I think they probably did and dashed back home because of my brother's dogs. Mind you I might be imagining that as it certainly feels like a long time ago they were here. So, with the proviso that they might have made a visit in the past 5 years it still makes me wonder what I'm expected to do now that Dad's ill?

The thing is that I have to wake up to the fact that this will very probably be the cause of his death at some time in the future and maybe we will find out some more detail on Wednesday. It isn't going to be good news and I suppose they'll give him a series of options and we will just have to live with that. I'm sure he will set some rules and put them in place and things will be what they will be. I'm certain that it will just even out and I'll just have to make the adjustments I need to make and do what I need to do at the time. Now I feel helpless and have no idea what to say about it. Not sure what to say when we meet in a few weeks but that will just be another awkward moment that cancer brings about all too regularly.

All quiet - thank goodness

Spoke to mum and things are settled at home - dad's feeling well enough to drive again so they will give that a try later in the week and drive into town. It's a strange thing but he feels well and now they've put the stent in and things are operating as normally as they can, he's getting around without his stick and he's got energy and appetite back. It sort of explains why he wasn't at all with it when I went to see him some time back. I'm hoping to get up there in September and see him. Once the specialists have told him what's going to happen - I'll need to work out what I'm going to do in terms of going to see him when I can.

The trouble is of course that I've got my own commitments too and so I need to work out that side of the equation as well.

Hurrah

The laptop has taken all of its updates without a problem and I've cleaned out all those annoying bars that now come with software these days. What a damn nuisance - I can spot them when installing but also noticed that the virus and malware checkers also spot them so I can kill them off when needs be.

I really do hope we can get out backing as we can do away with all this utter nonsense you have to go through. I guess it has taken me the best part of 8 hours to sort this new laptop out. I've probably done more than the average user - like backed it all up, got recovery disks and recovery driver disks, password recovery (from last time) and I've upgraded everything from the BIOS to the office productivity software with their latest patches and upgrades. How a mere mortal is meant to know they are supposed to do this is beyond me. Mrs. F. has just been upgrading Firefox and its asked her questions about add-ins, compatibility and all sorts which she has no idea what it means.

Spoke to the parents this morning - all seems calm and so I'm pleased about that. Big day on Wednesday when they find out more.

One Leaves the Other Appears

My daughters that is L is in Tenerife, A has just arrived back from Edinburgh and I am sitting at my PC with the new laptop going through the usual setup routines and booting and rebooting, uploading, downloading and generally doing much what I did a week ago. It's Deja Vu all over again....

I'm greeted with a label urging me to back up the system - I don't need a prod I understand this but I just love that the reasons I should do this are:

Causes of Data Loss:

56% Hardware & System problems

30 % Human error and computer viruses

9% Software corruption or program problems.

So what are the other reasons - that isn't 100% :-)

This is like saying that the new car you bought only has a 5% of working properly! It's amazing that we have to put up with this.

Damn PC

So it went back to the shop today to get the money back and interestingly they tried it out and verified my diagnosis... It's taken the best part of 24 hours of my life that damn machine. Setting it up, backing it up, setting all the scanners and stuff up, then downloading all the updates (hundreds of them) to repair the flaky software and then it blue screened then the password trouble (now known to be the shift key issue) and then resetting it all back to factory default all to find it was a fault with the machine. How any ordinary Joe would manage to do this is beyond me. I supposedly know what I am doing and I have to say the last two weeks of broken PCs has convinced me that there just has to be another way.

We've got our money back and now invested in another make of PC altogether - I've already got one by them and hopefully it will be the answer and provide L with a laptop that will last through her University education. Incidentally she is just about to fly off to Tenerife in a few hours with her friend - her first holiday on her own. I hope she has a good time and enjoys herself.

My business partner is on his way over and we are going to catch up on where we are and plan the remainder of our work. It's been the hardest work and yet somehow enjoyable to see it all coming together.

How can this be?

L's new PC doesn't work properly - it appears that the problem may be an intermittent fault with the keyboard. All that time I've spent on it was down to the fact that the Shift keys are buggered. Add in all the hours of backing the sodding thing up to start with, making recovery disks, uploading all the latest software and hundreds of updates and the damn thing has just bombed out on me. So what I now have to do is take it all the way back to its original configuration and start again. This is why we set up Doddle in the first place so no one would ever have this nightmare.

Talking of which we enter the hardest part of all - we are so close we can taste it but cannot quite fix the final words, diagrams and figures into the final document. We've all the right words but not necessarily in the right order.

I am beginning to feel a lot fitter now and my back pain is all but gone. I will slowly get back to exercise over the weekend - it's a real nuisance being injured as you just daren't go and injure yourself further.

Bank holiday weekend coming up and so a curry and beer might be in order tomorrow :-)

Mmm - facing up to the inevitable

It isn't easy is it? Dad's got Pancreatic Cancer. It's early stage and it hasn't spread. The operation is an ordeal that, frankly, a younger person would struggle with and so that's been discounted. My brother needs to get his head around this. I think I understand the thinking behind it myself and I can see that the decision will inevitably lead to a different course that now needs to be run.

It isn't an easy decision and yet it is in so many ways. I'm not sure if I'm being strong and helpful or bloody minded and hard but I'm doing the "voice of reason and logic" at this end. I've not suggested anything nor have I advised or pushed for anything. That isn't my job at the moment, I've got to be supportive and a good sounding board because whilst it's all personal and emotional, the decisions made need to be based on firm understanding and knowledge of what they mean.

I think it is not going to be an easy few weeks until we hear what the specialists say and then that sinks in. It's not an easy cancer to deal with and the outlook isn't great.

I'll no doubt talk to them about diet and things once they've had the discussions themselves. At the moment, eating and everything else is just fine in fact he's probably felt better now than he has for well over a year.

I feel a bit bad now that it was illness that made my last visit to see him such a misery for me. Now I understand that, I kind of feel a bit bad for being upset by it.

As for me, I'm beginning to take it in a bit now. I had some terrible nights early on when I knew he was ill mainly because of his hatred of Hospitals etc and I knew it would freak him - well luckily he's done OK there and so that's good. He knows he has to go in and have the stent removed and a new stainless steel one inserted. That will keep him as well as he can be in one area. I'm hopeful that whatever route he chooses it will be right for him. I'm not looking forward to the next months and year(s) at all but everyone dies eventually. Mum's pretty cut up about it of course as is my brother and we will just have to work it out as we go I suppose.

Dad seemed to be accepting what was going on and needing to know more about it which I hope next week's meeting will resolve.

That was an awkward moment

Spoke to my Dad. Danced around and sort of half laughed at the seriousness of his situation. I think he wanted "my blessing" that he wasn't going to go through the major operation that would be needed to potentially sort things out. I think my brother thought it wasn't the right thing to do but I guess I'm a bit more pragmatic about it than that. The operation for Pancreatic Cancer is a pretty heavy one even for a young man. Steve Jobs had it done and you can see that whilst it can be effective in an 80 going on 81 year old man what exactly would it do?

It's a Quality of Life thing if you ask me. But it took me back a bit as I wasn't expecting to talk to Dad at all for a few weeks but he appears to have bounced up and is putting a little weight back on and isn't stumbling over any more and his mind is back - he was very worried about losing that. In fact we noticed that to start with.

So it's put me in the tiniest little tail spin.

On the big upside - a good friend got his results today and they are all OK so that's good. Very pleased for him too. It's all the hanging about and worry that you could do without...

As a final whinge today, the brand new PC we have just decided not to take the password we set for it and I've had to go in and do a registry hack to change it. It's cost me another 3 hours that I didn't want to lose! Crazy - it did this after it updated itself. Crazy.....

Ramping up

Even more now as we get right into the guts of the business plan and the ideas come together and the plan begins to fill up with content. It takes some time to do small parts of the document, like the area I've just done showing share ownership and the changes in that over a period of time. Somehow you need to illustrate this n a useful and meaningful way - not easy as some of this stuff is pretty dry in terms of what you can say about it and we don't want to be stating the obvious.

On top of that it's been a pretty disruptive day all around and I've just been tide to my desk. The TV man came and replaced the set top box which is great because it has an optical output which is now plugged into my surround sound system :-) So Grand Prix racing is going to sound great on it as do films - I've tried it out a little but it is late and so don't want to wind the sound up too much. The sub-woofer makes a pretty good rumble though and so I'm looking forward to trying that out in anger later on.

Back to business and my head hurts

I was working with an old friend this morning who wants me to get involved in a deal with him that would be a pretty useful little sideline to what I'm doing now. Crazy isn't it, nothing comes along for ages and then, just when your doing well in your own thing, along comes another that I really ought to get involved in mainly because it would help out my friend and who knows, there may be something interesting at the end of it too.

Then I started working on the valuation of our business and the share distributions, dilution and so on. I've been building a series of models that allow us to model potential scenarios in that area.

Then my head decided it was about to explode so I stopped :-) Thank goodness for that!

Then the TV Set Top Box decided to die so that needs to be fixed in the morning. It looks like we are going to get a good old summer storm tonight with 50mm of rain (2") predicted it should be a hairy old night!

That's reassuring then

Spoke to mum this morning and I could hear dad in the background being, dad! Mucking about, firing off one line jokes and all that. So that's good. A couple of days and they're over the shock part and I guess realising that they not going to know until 31st August what it all means and what to do about it so no need to worry on that front.

Dad appears to have got his balance back (or mostly) and his mind back which he was worried about. This really does interest me because I was pretty put out that he sort of ignored me last time we went to see him - he wasn't his normal self and he appeared to be more interested in the TV than me. Well it looks as if that was also part of this too. I remember being pretty put out at the time but in hindsight I can see that's wrong on my part.

Nobody else saw it because it was gradual. Me - well I saw it because I hadn't seen them in perhaps 6 months.

Anyway - it appears that things are settled a bit for the moment. The 31st will be a stressful time I'm sure. I'll be seeing if I can get up there sometime in September to see them.

Mary Archer's Bladder Cancer

In the Telegraph today - Jeffrey Archer's wife Mary has a new bladder to combat the disease. It is an interesting story but the words used by journalists are still - well emotive perhaps?:

• "Battle With Cancer"
• "It is a formidable operation for the surgeon, let alone the patient."
• "decided to describe their ordeal to inspire other sufferers of the disease"

It does show what a wonderful job they can do though for more advanced stages of the disease - thank goodness that I didn't need that although there was a phrase mentioning "exhaustive chemotherapy" which I can see in this case would not be a real option and this procedure gives hope for us all. It is a little different in the case of males as it also involves radical work on the Prostate (I think) which has its own side effects.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It occurred to me that one of the strange things about life is that you sometimes don't appreciate what you have. For example, L is in Cambridge, she's found her accommodation, she's making plans, she's getting to meet people, wander around where she will live for the next 3 years. She is SO excited and I know, just because of her personality, she will have the time of her life. It's what I said to her. You will look back on this time as the most fantastic time that you will ever have had. You'll be young, at the peak of your energy levels and you'll be with lots of people, some of whom, will be your friends for life. I didn't go to University, so how do I know this? Well, my friends that did go and our friend's children are changed forever by the experience.

I always regret not going but I don't blame the system that stopped me. In all probability, I wouldn't have the life I have now so it's academic (or isn't). What I then thought about is some of the people I've met in my journey. I've climbed the greasy pole, I've had great roles where I've managed massive change projects and indirectly affected millions. Sounds great doesn't it but does it make me happy? I have a smug regard for the good things I've done but when I worked at the Charity it taught me another angle. I could use my ill gotten skills for good :-) The stuff I learnt fighting my way to the top could be leveraged to "do good" and suddenly, work meant a different thing. Most of the people I worked with did great things and they did it for very little money and yet they appeared to be quite happy in general (of course everyone has a moan every now and then). What I mean by this is that they had a simple, happy life. They didn't need to think about too much, money was important but wasn't everything. They invariably had a strong family life and they just seemed to enjoy themselves and be 'happy with their lot'.

I'm sure that if you'd push them to be more ambitious and to get on and climb the greasy pole etc that they would but they were just happy where they were, doing what they did and doing it compassionately and happily. Work life was (in my eyes) drudgery and not exciting at all, there weren't difficult challenges and there were very few 'dramas' happening. For me I have to have the excitement, the challenge and the deadline - it's the the thing that I have always had - but am I happy?

Yes I'm happy but actually I do have a hankering for just doing a simple job and then ramping up my social life. I've often felt that a job that was local, somewhere in the country or near the sea would be lovely. Arriving home in time to sit down outside, look out over a fine Vista with a glass of wine. Having enough money to have friends around for get togethers and the like, wandering in to a local pub, having a beer or two and being one of the locals. All those things have a certain attraction for me. But the people I worked with had little but appeared to be happy with their life without all the things that make my life buzz along.

I'd like to think that the girls will have a happy life if at all possible. This current atmosphere of greed and the pursuit of more and more goods and consumables doesn't help to set the scene and it doesn't actively engage the whole of society. It drives a wedge between the haves and the have nots which actively exposes the disparity in our society and splits us. Perhaps we will all wake up at some time in the future to the ugly face of capitalism - I saw a picture of Victoria Beckham with an £18,000 hand bag. Some people don't make that sort of money in a year. At some point in time surely we might have an outbreak of sense somewhere?

If I can borrow from our American Cousins the phrase Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness set down in the United States Declaration of Independence. I think it would be nice to have a simple straightforward set of rules like this in the UK. Sure we have the Constitution, Magna Carta but I doubt that anyone else could quote from that. I doubt we'd be allowed to bear arms though :-) We are dangerous enough without that :-)

So as I see L being SO excited and SO pleased to have got the place at University and just turned 18, I see all the hope and wonder that we set out with at that age and I hope that that is what she gets. She is a very funny girl with a great sense of humour (and an opposite nasty side if you do ever upset her and go past tolerance level) so all bodes well and I'm proud and envious all at the same time.

The Curry Club

Off for a meeting of the Curry Club. 17 of us and I've decided to drive tonight and not to have a beer. It does me good not to occasionally - I have a few left over from last week in the Fridge so can have one when I get home if I'm desperate.

We only have a couple a year - it will be a good turnout with 17 of us there and will be nice to catch up with all my mates. I'll also be able to give the Jag a run out - I've hardly driven it this past year - so it will be fun to have a little drive around :-)

My back is almost back to normal and I hope to restart exercising next Monday - I actually miss it and was most annoyed about it early on but a few days off and a curry tonight wont go amiss.

Reflections on Dad's Cancer

Sooner or later we all have to come to terms with stuff happening to our parents. It's that sort of time of life when that's what happens - my friends have all gone through something like this. So now it's coming around to us and it's not a good time at the moment of course.

I'm pretty cold about it at the moment - we aren't going to know more until the 31st August and so I can't do much about it. I'd love to stick my oar in and get some FOCC going for Dad but it isn't my place to do that at this particular time. I may suggest it after we hear what is going on. It sort of sounds as if they will offer treatment but not an operation - not surprisingly you need to be young enough to handle the severity of it.

I was more upset when I first heard what he had - it's a precursor to Pancreatic Cancer (Jaundice) yet he had none of the other side effects. The upshot is that it is early days and that QOL can be provided. The downside is that it isn't a 'good' cancer to get - it has a pretty bad prognosis and Dad's indicated that he isn't up to fighting it.... His wishes must be obeyed but I think I'll explain some alternatives that I know of.

You know my take on it that it is all about living, you do everything you can to achieve it. Let's hope that he gets his head into gear and decides to take this route. But I have to respect his decision whatever it may be.

Oops - upset my brother

Come to look back on it, Mum was pretty matter of fact and told me what was going on and then said talk to my brother. So T has all the details and the nurse didn't know what stage (other than early) or much else really. We know there is no tumour and we know that at 80 going on 81 the full operation just isn't on the table for Quality of Life (QOL) reasons.

The next appointment is 31st August and so we hope to find out what will be on the table at that point in time. It's a long way off isn't it? They aren't exactly rushing and so that is a partly good sign I guess. However, as I said to my brother the problems are that, generally speaking, all the cancer patients I knew had a worse time during the treatment than they did from the cancer which, strangely enough, wasn't painful or even noticeable in my case. The treatment was the thing and then I realised that T wasn't really as with it as he made out.

Of course everyone is upset and I probably did my worrying 3 or 4 weeks back with a general lack of sleep and worry about my Dad. He's obviously upset and Mum and T need to come to terms with it. I already have and in a way I'm being very matter of fact about it because how else can you be? I suppose me saying to T that everyone has to die didn't help the conversation along too well now I come to reflect on it but he should know me by now. I've a healthy regard for being alive these days.

However, Pancreatic Cancer does command some attention with only 5% of those diagnosed making 5 years. That figure has been like that for years - it's a difficult one to tackle and so Dad's options are somewhat limited and the 31st will provide the answers. T invited me to go up for the day but I really don't want to do that - it probably isn't right that I do at that time and I'm not sure what, if any, value I'd be.

I'll get up and see them in a few weeks anyway as I am due to go up north and it will be a good opportunity to see them and to carry on to my cousin's birthday party.