Six Years Coming Up

Amazing where the time has gone and no doubt I'll have more to say about that later on and nearer and after the time.  For the moment though, it's nice to say that I'm still here and that I'm feeling better than I probably have done for perhaps 8 or more years.  I think that, like my dad, I must have been "going down with" cancer for some considerable time as I was quite lethargic and didn't want to do much and was pretty grumpy and not my usual self.  I then got a huge pick me up with a great job but it was only a few months later that I started on the roller coaster ride that was bladder cancer.


After the early shock of it all and the fear and all that, I got on with the job of fighting it and getting well again until today I feel that I've given it a good shot and whilst I live with the danger of it coming back, I don't think about it day to day but what has happened recently, seeing my dad, who is unfortunately very much on his death bed with cancer, is that I'd never really considered those consequences and I'm hating the process and the indignity of it all.  I understand that we all have to die but there's something more to it than that, it's how the body hangs on to life and doesn't seem to give in to it.  I see dad all wired up to cannulas and nebulisers and I wonder why.  There's no quality of life here, there's no chance of recovery and it is just a matter of time until something "gets him".  


What I hadn't come to terms with and I'm still trying to is that - it could have been me.  I know that didn't happen but it dawns on my how serious this all was and how near a miss (1 or 2 layers of cells).  That small margin, perhaps my age and relative fitness, my determination and my family made the differences I suppose.  But, seeing dad's demise in 10 months (which is pretty long considering most Pancreatic Cancer patients don't last long at all) has made me start to re-evaluate my own survival and whilst I say you shouldn't look back and all that, it does make you think that it could have been very different and I'm back to the problem of being in this mid-life crisis for a considerable time.  I've had 2 years of hard work which I don't regret doing - it's pretty difficult to take the complete lack of interest in the project though even by those who say they want the problem solved.  It speaks volumes about the rhetoric of the Government, the building of Quangos that hold an interest in prolonging the problems they are set-up to solve and the general lack of innovative and lateral thinking.  Ho hum.


So this middle aged malaise is all about me and I've got some sort of added issue now with cancer.  Seeing dad it has brought a certain "respect", perhaps fear that I've brushed off or laughed in the face of it before.  I can appreciate why it is a feared disease.  I know that I want to do something different in the future and I'm flattered that someone I know wants me to go and do some work for them, which may just be the impetus that I need to get off my arse and go and do something :-) I might just snap out of this huge rut I'm in - but I still have all sorts of stuff going round in my head.  Not least is this crazy idea of just packing it all in and going somewhere warm and quiet and just relaxing and chilling out.