I’m free!

Not in the John Inman, tape measure up the inner-leg Mrs Slocomb’s wet pussy sort of way, or in the Billy Hayes escaping from a Turkish Prison at the end of Midnight Express sort of way (sorry if you haven’t seen that and I just spoilt the ending). But more in the way that Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms get released when you boil water. I feel like a gas breaking free of a liquid, atoms spinning off into the great wide open with great gusto and a tendency to be poetic. The fart you have been holding in until you left the dinner party and then could finally let rip outside. The cause of this sudden freedom: my Little Blue Car. I had a Little Blue Car before, the one that tried to audition for Strictly Come Dancing by waltzing across the motorway slip road before pirouetting into the barrier with about the same amount of grace as Mr Blobby and Ann Widecombe’s love child on skates. But that was the Old Little Blue Car and now I have a New Little Blue Car, thanks to Zurich insurance, loans from the Bank of Mum and tallying up the coins we found down the side of the sofa. I jest not – our sofa is like a savings bank. And a pencil case. And somewhere to store nasty letters from the bank you don’t want to read. Shergar is quite probably down there somewhere, and Lord Lucan, The Holy Grail, Atlantis and Amelia Earhart (or at least her plane).  We take the cushions off and ‘Cyclonic bagless technology vacuum’  it regularly, but like a bed-ridden American, there are folds and flaps and deep, deep pockets that seem to harbour the collected flotsam of our lives.

So how has NLBC brought about such a feeling of freedom and why did OLBC not offer the same? It is all about my foot.  The ‘neuropathy’ in my left leg has made driving a manual car absolute agony (manual gear box, not manual as in ‘feet out the bottom, running as per Fred Flintstone’). I was OK for the first mile or so but after that every depression of the clutch caused me to grimace and groan from the pain.  I know it was real pain as I was doing it when there was nobody present to give me any sympathy. This has tethered me to a radius of about three miles, maybe four if there is not much traffic and a good tail wind. Trying to get anywhere at rush-hour is hard enough but the stop-start trudge of the traffic calls for more clutch work than you realise, and doing a hill start which requires controlled release of the clutch has been an uphill struggle. I’ve managed. I had to.  It was that or taxi fares. A return trip to the hospital was 6.8 miles, total cost £17.20 on the worst occasion – or I could grit my teeth and pray for light traffic.

Traffic is a fickle thing and you throw yourself on its mercy when you live in a city.  Like a menstruating Lesbian, it is best avoided when it is having a heavy flow day or showing signs of congestion. Catch it in the wrong mood and you can lose half your life just trying to pop out for a pint of milk (to find out you have been stuck in traffic so long they only sell milk in litres now). It is an angry, unpredictable beast.  And, by the by, whoever came up with the idea of speed bumps and then tried to explain them away as a method of ‘traffic calming’ should know that calming is the one thing they do not produce.

We have a plethora of early warning systems for traffic problems – you can check your route on t’interweb and have traffic updates texted to your phone, there’s ‘real-time’ updates to your GPS but everyone who has used these with any regularity knows they can’t be relied upon – your route is just as likely to be completely clear as tailing back to the Chanel Tunnel. And if you ‘come off at the next exit’ you are probably going to find yourself in an even worse pickle as two dozen articulated wagons, several hundred angry commuters and Mr and Mrs Wilburton in their Ford Cortina towing a two-person caravan all try to make their way along country roads barely wide enough for horse and dray. Predictions of traffic flow are at best, best guess; you can put up as many cameras as you like, build computer simulators that can plan twenty years into the future, install traffic lights and RTA broadcasts but nothing in the world can predict that Mr and Mrs Wilburton’s caravan is going to get a puncture on the top of a blind hill.

Avoiding rush hour is not always possible, like when you have a date with a voluptuous MRI scanner.  My most recent MRI scan was scheduled for way after Rush Hour (quite deliberately on my part) but the Gods wanted a giggle and caused several other patients to cancel so that I was summonsed early (half way through a cup of tea no less) prompting a hectic and whirlwind crawl, bumper to bumper across the city.

Whoever coined the phrase ‘rush hour’ must have done so with an absolute sense of irony and a tongue so far in their cheek that they caused ulcers and probably couldn’t speak properly for days. Serves them right. Maybe it is because people rush out of the office at exactly the same time, eager to get home in time to watch The One Show (although I can’t see why; that new Welsh woman is unintelligible most of the time and fluffing her lines the rest. Still, she LOOKS like Christine Bleakley and as most people are gnashing away at their beans on toast so I doubt they noticed the change).  Or maybe it is because they get a rush from the extreme sport which is ‘getting out of the car park’.  It can be chaos and at every opportunity some fuckwit will do something stupid, like the mother who pushes he buggy out into the road to force the traffic to stop, or the bus driver who adopts the ‘I’m bigger than you’ method of crossing three lanes of traffic. People lose all sense of fair play when they get behind a wheel. Box junctions become disputed territory – mini versions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Horn blowing and angry gestures replace common courtesy.  If you do dare to ‘let someone in’ you are met with a torrent of abuse because being nice is a sign of weakness and the pack descends on you ready to take you out at the next set of lights.

But one muddles through and hopefully reaches one’s destination with a full complement of wing mirrors and not too many new dents or scratches in the paintwork.  A little flustered, weary but ready for one’s appointment nevertheless. This was by no means a first date; the MRI and I are getting quite pally. I call her Maggie, which seems an appropriate shortening of her first name.  It’s her penetrating stare and the way she sees right through me that I find so magnetising.  She makes the hairs on my arms stand on end and in fact on this occasion I nearly fell asleep in her tender embrace until a nurse came in and broke the spell. We still keep in contact – she writes, I align myself to magnetic North when asleep in bed at night, and attract iron filings.

I heard from her few days ago when my results came through. They were looking for evidence in my spine of pressure on a nerve causing the leg pain; in medical-speak Perineuropathy or radiculopathy. Ridiculopathy more like, judging by the report which came back in such medical jargon that it would keep campaigners for plain English moist for months: “Heterogenous marrow signal with geographical area of high intensity on the STIR sequence”, “tear in posterior annulus at the L5/S1 level” and “There is also a low signal seen within the marrow of the iliac bones with no corresponding high signal change on the T2 sequences.”

I Googled and Wiki’d and Binged (or should that be Bonged?) to try to make sense of it all and think I deciphered it to mean that they can see where the lymphoma used to be and that I have a slightly slipped disc but there is no evidence of anything pressing on the nerves.  In other words, “we didn’t really find anything new”.  The whole report is trimmed with an air of not wanting to commit to a diagnosis in case it is wrong, which seems to me to be a sad indicator of how far we have wandered down the path of “where there’s blame there’s a claim”.  Do we really want a litigation culture of ambulance chasers and the inevitable waste of valuable time and resources that this demands?  Culpability and accountability are fine but medicine is not an exact science.  We know a huge amount, we have scientific methodology and validated processes but in the end so much of it if down to guess work and intuition. If the doctor makes the right call you get better. If not, you stay the same, or get worse and he tries again with another guess. With treatment like mine no two people respond the same to the drugs, and we just don’t understand enough to be able to predict exactly what will happen in every case. I have always said that in science there is no truth, only what we believe at the time. Once the atom was thought to be the smallest particle – and we held that as true until the atom was split. Doctors are the shaman of our day; they point their sticks and shake the bones and utter their mystical truths. Most of the time something miraculous happens but sometimes it does not. We keep going back to them because they are the best chance we’ve got so let’s not make their jobs impossible and leave them feeling so much pressure from litigious consequence that they are afraid to try their next best guess.

Of course, in all this, I am left with no idea of the next steps. The leg people say it isn’t legs and the spine people say it isn’t spinal. We are not quite back to square one, as we have eliminated two major possibilities but more back to the drawing board  and I will have to wait and wonder.

I can live with the leg pain for now. I’m on new pills and they seem to be working well although I fear the recent phase of itching may be an unpleasant side effect. I could scratch my entire body to pieces, rake it to shreds with a sharpened fork, dig my nails in and scrape furrows into my arms and legs, not to appease my inner masochist but to try to gain some relief. I’m almost hoping it is eczema – from which I suffered as a child and which is known to be triggered sometimes following my treatments. At least if it were eczema I would not risk having to stop the pills for my foot, which have made such a difference, hence my newfound freedom.

I can now drive in relative comfort and certainly no more pain than when sitting on the sofa. Getting an automatic car was such a good idea. OK, it’s a bit ‘slippers and Horlics and tartan blankets round your knees’ but for me there is a damn good reason to go automatic. Although you have to be careful hw you tell people: if you say ‘I have an automatic’ they immediately fall to the ground, dive for cover and call for an armed response unit. In truth, it is technically a semi-automatic as I CAN override the gears, but by similar token, you can’t announce in public that “I have a semi” without risk of prosecution for lude behaviour. But sod it, I DO have a semi – a little blue semi – and now I’m not limited to my 3-mile radius. I really do feel like I have been released from a virtual prison. The world is my playground once again. It is hard to explain how emancipated I feel or how much being unable to get around took away from me, lessened me, encumbered me. For those of us who drive, we take the skill for granted, we don’t think twice about it, there is no stress or pain or restriction. To lose that is to lose a freedom. And there are so many of these freedoms that I fear we soon all may lose.  I just hope that the current government spending cuts don’t leave us all realising that you often don’t really appreciate a thing until it is gone.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Closed down the school, the clinic
And the local butchers shop
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They sneaked into power
And this is now what we got

They took away all the jobs
and billions from the public purse
The charged all the people
for the pleasure of their curse
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They sneaked into power
And took away what we’d got

Hey student, student
They’re gonna charge you extra fees
Education cutbacks adding to the squeeze
Jeeze!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They sneaked into power
And ruined the whole darn lot

Late last night
I heard it on the news
Benefits are going
The poor are really screwed
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They sneaked into power
And the country can go to rot

They sneaked into power
Serves us right that it’s gone to pot.

Speaking of things which have gone, summer is now but a distant memory and we seem to have jumped straight through to Winter bypassing the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness to dump us unceremoniously into winter’s icy grasp. We don’t seem to get autumn’s any more, not the chocolate box autumns of my youth anyway, that lasted for months and brought the brightest days, clearest skies and the russet rustle of richest leaves. I picture orchards full of trees dripping rosy apples, hazel nuts and walnuts falling from the branches, conkers and harvest festival, hedgehogs. It has all become so grey. The trees try to don their splendour and wrap themselves in colour but somehow the damp and dark days diminish their dazzle and leave but a dank and depressing dreariness; they shed their leaves as tears. Each morning recently I have awoken in the hope of a bright, crisp day when I could wander off with a camera and try to capture a little of the magnificence of the season and each day has lived down to expectation. Or, in fairness to Mother Nature, when she has shown us a flash of her scarlet and gold, I have been stuck in a waiting room unable to enjoy anything.

We had one nice(ish) weekend and one day a few weeks ago which was dry enough for an hour or two, allowing us out with the cameras and one afternoon when I gathered some leaves and berries which I brought back home to photograph. These images were actually taken on our dining room table where I could control the light and not get rained on! They came from a little earlier in the season than I wanted, but I still wake every morning hoping for a clear blue sky and a chance to jump into my wellies and go wander down by the river with Ratty and Mole and Mr Toad and jam sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer.

Maybe I sentimentalise the season, remembering the good bits of many past autumnal days and blending them into a composite that becomes more than the sum of its parts. Maybe it is always mostly monotone and shivery-cold. I blame Michael Fish – things have never been right since he mis-forecast that hurricane and again, we see a ‘science’ that is based on best guesses. Our local forecast is seldom right for now let alone tomorrow or later in the week. They stand there in front of their animated maps promising so much and stating things in such absolute terms when really they are just making calculated guesses; guesses upon which we base our lives and make decisions and take chances, just the same as with the traffic updates and the medical prognosis. But maybe that isn’t such a bad thing as a guess always leaves room for things to turn out better than anticipated. In that at least there is some hope, some small chance that it will be sunny or the traffic jam will have cleared or I will get better one day. Maybe.

One of the problems I encountered whilst on the last lot of treatments was that I was advised to avoid flying – one assumes in an aircraft, although avoiding hang-gliders and micro-lights seems to me to be a good life rule anyway and I don’t have the upper body strength for Icarus wings. It was all to do with an increased risk of blood clots. You will recall that the medication had played havoc with my body’s production of both white and red blood cells. I guess it works a bit like this: Take an average school playground to represent my blood, full of all types of cells, or ‘children’. So, take away the white kids (best not tell anyone you are doing this or you’ll probably have bother with OFSTED) to represent my while cells, and then take away the black kids (or red cells) and what do you have left? Just a load of Chinese kids.  Now, we all know what the Chinese are like, they group together (12 to a house on our Avenue, with Chinese Karaoke Opera playing at all hours but that is a gripe for another time). So the Chinese kids represent the platelets in the blood and, as per our MSG-loving friends, the platelets are responsible for clotting.  So I guess that explains why I was susceptible to Deep Vein Thrombosis and no way was I going to risk that (if only because of the stockings which are never flattering). This meant that we were not able to go to my Brother-in-Law’s wedding in Northern Ireland or even think about a holiday abroad. We did, at one point, hatch a cunning plan to get the train to London and then on via the Chunnel for a long weekend for two in Paris. But we would only have argued as I would have insisted on going up the Eiffel Tower and David would have insisted on NOT going up the Eiffel tower. I can’t imagine many things that I think he would rather not do. Well, not that don’t involve naked women of the opposite sex. So, the extortionate price and the almost guaranteed end of our relationship, plus the fact that the meds made me feel completely wasted, demoted that idea to the back burner and tagged it with ‘maybe when you are feeling better’.

Stopping the medication though had the huge bonus that I was once again allowed to take to the air and so David and I started shaking piggy banks and checking down the back of the sofa for enough money to get away.  He briefly revisited the notion of gay Paris (which I doubt really lives up to that name) and soon started to look towards the Mediterranean. We had Crete in mind; maybe on a subconscious level I thought that the Minotaur’s Minoan Maze might prove less complex to navigate than our lives at the time.  In truth we just wanted somewhere in the sun that wouldn’t be too full of ‘Brits Abroad’.  Neither of us have any interest in 24-hour binge drinking, sunburn because you passed out from the Vino, falling down outside the hotel and ending up in a foreign A & E department with concussion.  Something less vulgar was needed, something with more than three stars and absolutely no Karaoke or Kiss Me Quick hats. When you put limited budget, must be sunny, not on a hill (Hill is just a misspelling of Hell for me; Hull is too but for other reasons), decent star rating, all inclusive and a time-slot with no wriggle-room, choices are limited but we found somewhere in Crete as we had hoped. LastMinute.com had just the thing and so we booked it. In a race against the clock I had to get my passport renewed and that was an uphill battle in its own right with my photograph being rejected twice and a holiday booked for a few weeks hence.  But a late passport was the least of our concerns when, lying in bed watching the news one night I heard “Holiday firm Travel Options who also run Kiss Flights have today gone into Administration…” and my heart sunk.  I checked the paperwork. I re-read the small print. I read it again, just in case I was seeing things. There is was, as I feared, “Holiday tour operator: Travel Options”. So three weeks before we were due to fly we found ourselves without a holiday.

I really don’t know why I was surprised at this. I don’t know why I hadn’t expected it. People say I am a pessimist, but I never saw this coming. After three years stuck in a nightmare with all we have been through I honestly thought that the Karma of the Universe would grant us just a week away. But if Karma is a chameleon it has blended so far into the background of our lives as to remain invisible, and clearly we have no right to expect just a little good fortune. Thankfully ATOL and the Civil Aviation Authority will step in and luckily we were covered to get the full amount refunded. One day. But that means a claim and forms and all that kafuffle. It is not a speedy process and not one that can respond to the fact that David’s holiday time from work was committed for a few weeks hence.

The Royal Bank of Mum stepped in to lend us enough to book another holiday and there followed a few days of internet scrapping with all the other people who found themselves in the same position. I would find a holiday on t’interweb and before I could press ‘book’ it was snatched away by someone else. But tenacity is (or at least should be) my middle name and I found us a holiday in Turkey.  With a huge sigh of relief and the little stash of spending money we had saved or been kindly given by our friend in Germany who took pity on us, we eventually took off for the sun.

Turkey was a delight (see what I did there?) and much more than we expected. To be honest, that wasn’t much to ask of it though as my only knowledge of Turkey comes from Midnight Express and centres largely around an Istanbul Prison in the 1970s. Oh, and a vague recollection of a song:

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve a date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul

The weather was splendid and the accommodation, although small, was quite acceptable. The complex was vast but well designed and never too busy; we always managed to find a sun lounger and there were enough pools for the yabbering yoofs and braying brats to be kept well away from the more tranquil adult pool. Nobody forced you to ‘get involved’, there was no enforced ‘Welcome meeting’ where “Hello holidaymakers, I’m Sharon-but-you-can-call-me-Shaz and I’m here to make your holiday go with a bang” attempts to flirt with anyone under 60 and you are obligated to play bingo and take part in a belly dance contest. Any ‘entertainment’ was sufficiently distant to not disturb us if we wanted peace and quiet. We went ‘all inclusive’ and that proved to be a great success. The food was plentiful, tasty and edible – which I do find important qualities in gastronomy. There was always fresh salad and fruit, with meats cooked on barbecues outside each night. They did the most amazing things to watermelons, avocados and radishes and even offered a class in fruit carving, although nobody’s letting rip with a scalpel on my plums in the near future thanks you – I like my fruit to remain intact. We don’t drink alcohol but Coke, Fanta and water were all freely available as were ice creams and even midnight snacks.

We were in an area rich in Roman and Byzantine ruins and hired a guy to take us on a personal tour of some of the best historical sites. This was far better than the more organised boat trip which we also endured later in the week. It cut down the amount of walking and waiting by an enormous amount and meant that we were not stuck in the hotel but could be driven round the best sights of sites in air-conditioned comfort. We could take as long as we wanted at each location and didn’t have to stand in queues. The amphitheatre at Aspendos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspendos is stunning and the best preserved in the world. Not being attached to a coach trip, we were there at a time when the place wasn’t swarming with happy snappers and between us we got some great photos, despite David getting vertigo anywhere above about three steps up and me being a semi-cripple practically crawling up the ancient stones akin to Edmund Hilary surmounting Everest, except HE had Sherpas. That good old British do or die attitude kicked in and I made it to the Gods and boy was it worth it. If anyone ever wondered what the Romans did for us, apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, they should stand at the top of that place and listen to the acoustics. Add sound engineering to the list too!

We also visited the aqueduct that fed Aspendos town on the plateau hill above the amphitheatre, which was a stunning sight against the clear blue sky and must have looked amazing when it was first constructed. Photographs can’t do justice to the sheer scale. We travelled back via the gladiator town of Perga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perga but my gammy foot prevented too much exploring!

The next day we took a more familiar group excursion which failed to live up to the brochure’s promises or the enthusiasm of the chap who sold it to us but did let us see the ancient town of Side (pronounced See Day) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side%2C_Turkey and the temple of Apollo which was about as Epic Roman Ruin as you could possibly hope to see. Bazaars and queues and children and tourists and far too much walking for poorly me when we thought we would be on a boat all day. Luckily I had just started some new tablets for my foot which helped enormously and at least shifted the pain from right in my face to periphery attention – but that is a digression for later.

We spent much of the rest of the time by the pool, with books and bottles of coke. I swam for the first time in ages and vowed to do more when we got home. We lazed and dozed and generally relaxed and for a few days we could pretend we were how we used to be. David had half a day (which turned out to be much longer) off on a quad bike doing manly macho things and getting covered in dust so that when he came back he looked more like a clay cast of himself than flesh and blood. I too got caked in mud but in a different way as I treated myself to a Turkish massage and ‘relax therapy’ at the hotel. And THAT was amazing, albeit I had to keep telling the guy that if he tried to massage my left foot he would end up with it in his face. A Turkish coffee body scrub is as close to heaven as I think you can get without exchange of bodily fluids although I was less convinced about the merits of painting my face with mud. So we both had a day getting down and dirty even if not together. The journey back to the airport was something of an experience, then mini-bus driver got lost, tried to sell us Turkish wives, narrowly missed a wandering goat (the moped driver behind didn’t) and I think tried to draft us into smuggling him into England as an illegal immigrant.

It was a great holiday made all the more special by the fact that we had a whole week together and all the health hiccups and work worries, bills and bustle of ‘normal’ life were set aside for a while. But the bubble burst and we had to come home to find it all still waiting for us.

The universe is supposed to be about balance, Yin and Yang, that bloody Karma chameleon, and we foolishly hoped that a nice week away was our entitlement, our payback to balance out all the grief we had endured over the last few years. How very naive of us – it worked the other way; a good week in Turkey meant that something awful HAD to happen upon our return and to set the Universe back in kilter, driving to work one day David hit a patch of oil and played pinball with the motorway crash barrier gaining a new high score and crunching my little car in the process. On the down side he was by a matter of fluke driving my car that day but on the plus side nobody else was involved and he wasn’t hurt.

My poor baby was battered and bleeding, with broken joints and scratched skin, but rushed to hospital by a man from the RAC who shook his head and did a good impression of Rolf Harris saying “it was just toooo week, I don’t think it’ll make it throooough the night”.

So we locked horns with the insurance industry and started to try to pick our way through a process which seems designed to confuse, obfuscate and complicate. I could write a book on what happened but for your sanity and mine I will try for brevity. I was entitled to a hire car for four days while a decision was made about whether my vehicle was a write-off. This happened, I got a car from Enterprise without fuss, but the four days expired before I had heard any decision about my Fiesta. Under the terms of the policy if the car is to be repaired I should have a hire vehicle for the duration of the repair, but if it is beyond economic repair (BER) then I cease to qualify. But what happens when, on a Monday morning, you have taken the four-day hire car back but still don’t have a decision from Zurich? I was stuck – I might be entitled to a hire car for the next few days or I might not. I couldn’t make any plans, couldn’t arrange my life at all. No point in hiring a car if Zurich were going to give me one anyway. But Zurich didn’t understand that. Asking a simple question like “when will you have the decision?” proved too much for the Bangalore helpdesk muppets.

I have every respect for helpdesk staff; they have a difficult job, take all the flack, have to be extremely good at their jobs, have a huge amount of product knowledge, patience and skill. I know. I have been one, I have run support desks and David spends much of his life staffing one and coming home exhausted and frustrated with tales of idiot customers. But Zurich’s offering is something else, something born from the pits of hell and staffed by people who have clearly dropped a chromosome and been plugged into a ZX81 to compensate.  I reference a computer here because clearly they had no will of their own and everything was driven by very set scripts. If you asked a question that was out of sequence or not on their screen you sent them into a recursive loop with lights flashing, steam coming out their ears and “does not compute” warnings blaring in the background.  Computer says ‘no’. Really, they could not answer even the simplest question unless you phrased it exactly as they had it in front of them, and when David phoned they could hardly understand him at all. OK, so he is from Northern Ireland but he doesn’t have that strong an accent. How they can’t tell if he is saying ‘eight’, ‘two’ or ‘three’ I will never know.

The details are not important, the outcome was. My car was indeed written off and eventually it was established that I would not get a hire car and would have to just wait and be patient for the settlement figure to arrive. No, they could not send it by bank transfer as it had to go by cheque because, for some reason, that is an easier process. Who uses cheques these days? I can’t remember the last one I wrote. They are out-dated, slow, expensive to process and prone to getting lost in the post. Bank transfers are fast, cheap and secure. But Zurich remains firmly positioned in the 1990s and nothing I could say would get them to budge.

Clouds and silver linings though. This has meant that my car will now be replaced. We had just paid it off, so at least there was no negative equity on it or hassle with outstanding payments. We have found a new car, well, new to us. It’s a Peugeot 207 1.6 VTi and chosen not so much because it was in very good nick and with low mileage for an 07 plate but because it is an automatic drive. I know automatics have a bit of a ‘grandpa in his slippers’ reputation but my reasons were sound.  At the moment I can’t drive very far at the best of times because my left foot is still causing pain and using the clutch after more than a few minutes becomes a new form of torture. So I’m limited to a 2-mile radius provided I have popped enough pain killers to floor a charging rhino. Thus an automatic, which has no clutch and can be driven without any involvement at all from the left foot, seems an ideal answer.

We should collect it at the weekend. There is still plenty to go wrong. The cheque from Zurich will only just have scraped through clearing, as will a cheque from my mother who has once again come to our rescue and lent us some extra money to help. Of course the Insurance paid a lot less than the price of a new car so we had a shortfall that is going to stretch us to the limit. We have gathered together every spare penny we can find and shoved that all in the bank and I think we will scrape by at the weekend with just about sufficient funds to make the payment, IF (and it is a big IF) everything lines up, the bank remember to raise the transaction limit on our card, the tax goes through with no issues and we manage to sort the insurance. I am sure that Murphy and his Law will be waiting in the shadows for us though. And what goes wrong won’t be what we expect. Maybe a tornado will blow through the showroom and destroy ONLY my new car. Maybe there will be another strike at the refineries and there won’t be any petrol to be had. Maybe a jelly monster from out of space will eat us all. Something will go wrong. Wait and see!

Now I am giving the liver treatment a break I have has time to concentrate on other things with the people at the hospital including the aforementioned leg pain. During all this trouble with cars I have had two appointments at the hospital (which is why having transport was kind of important) to look in more detail at what is causing the pain.  We all thought it was neuropathy, problems with the smaller nerves in the foot and leg. So the first test was to check this and involved Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) tests of the electrical impulses between various nerve endings. This was just like a TENS machine, sending measured pulses of electricity down the nerves and measuring the time they take to get from A to B. That was simple enough, if a little disconcerting to have bits of your body made to twitch outside of your control. Dr Frankenstein was on to something. The next part of the test though was much more gruesome and involved a needle deep into the tissue of the muscles in my legs and ‘listening’ to the pops of electrical activity as the muscles were tensed and relaxed. That but was less fun.

The outcome seems to be that it isn’t neuropathy that is causing the problem but something further up. Put simply, the problem isn’t at the plug; it’s in my ring circuit. That means spine. That means an MRI and I have now been for that scan too. Whilst I only feel pain on one side the tests showed that the muscles are very weak, surprisingly so, or at least they are functioning as if they are not getting the full signals. I suppose some weakness is to be expected, I am not exactly active, going for a jog or even a walk is not really an option at the moment, but  they think that these tests show more than just a weakness due to lack of exercise. Who know what they will find or what the outcome may be? It could be compression from a slipped disk, an infection, a trapped nerve or anything. So that may be another challenge, but I shall persevere, I shall climb every mountain, ford every stream, and follow every rainbow, ’till I find my dream. (Am I starting to sound a wee bit too much like Julie Andrews?)

Our leisure centre has finally reopened, following all the hassles with the residents association and people who had not paid their bills, the repairs and the politics. But the pool is once again functioning, albeit not as nice as the one in Turkey and so we are trying to go swimming a couple of times a week and that will help build some strength back and hopefully I will start to feel a bit better about myself. My body image is the stuff of another blog. I just hope nobody decides I have to have an operation on my spine. I played Operation as a kid and it put me off the idea of such things completely. Do surgeons really think you have a ‘bread basket’ in your stomach and ‘charlie horse’ in your right thigh? Does a buzzer go off and your nose light up if they don’t have a steady hand? And the poor man who gets operated on ends up with no ‘bits’. You know, THOSE bits. Just look at the picture. He had all those important things removed (his funny bone and his Adams Apple) and they still managed to whip off his goolies too. And I’m not risking THAT!

I am ashamed that it is so long since I last sat down to update the dusty pages of my little blog so forgive the cobwebs and the feint smell of mildew (that’s me, not the blog) for I feel appropriately chastised by those who have been generous enough to miss it and kind enough to encourage me to scribble a little more.

I have my reasons for this absence, some better than others. When I last wrote I was standing on the brink of a new treatment regime intended to scrub out my ailing liver and lend me a new lease of life. Any lease though has an associated cost and for me that was some very bad reactions to the drugs. In simple terms my body stopped producing enough white blood cells (which fight infection) and red cells (which carry oxygen to the muscles, organs and brain). This left me as pale as a ghost and about as weak. I am told that the effect was the same as if someone had drained a third of the blood from my body and then asked me to run a marathon. I ended up having to visit the hospital every day, ironically so they could take more of my blood to test. I’m sure I was left with little more than ectoplasm and will power flowing through my veins.

Think of that shot they always show on wildlife programmes of a new-born quadrupeds (horse, camel, cow, deer – whichever you pick). The scene where the said baby tries to pull itself tottering, wobbling and frail, exhausted from its recent trauma, to its unsteady feet for the very first. That’s pretty much how I felt, although thankfully with only two legs to coordinate and no hump (if you were thinking camel). The solution, in both senses of the word, came in the form of booster injections; two for the haemoglobin, one for the white cells. Along with the original treatment, which was also injected, I was jabbing my stomach every day for 14 weeks with anything up to 4 different syringes. I don’t know about you but I don’t really enjoy sticking needles in my already sore and punctured tummy. I’d rather have a cup of tea. just for future reference.

I endured all of this with as much strength of spirit as I was able and the unending endurance of David who must fear my hospital visits even more than I do because of the hell I then put him through. Now, I am a very firm believer in “Murphy’s Law” as it never seems to fail me. It played out in its usual style in this case too and after 14 weeks I was not showing a significant response to the medication and the treatment was stopped. The trials and tribulations of the last few years meant that I was simply not strong enough to cope with a dose sufficiently high to make a difference and so that 100 days of hell was for nothing. To be honest it was a relief, just to give my bruised and perforated stomach some respite. I know I will have to go through it all again one day, maybe with new and better drugs and that is a Damoclesian sword of some weight. Part of me feels like I failed, like somehow if I had tried harder or squeezed one more drop out of each syringe, the outcome would have been different, but clearly at the time the drugs were poisoning me and not having the beneficial effect I needed.

Through all of this I have kept myself sane with the garden, pottering around, doing little bits of jobs at a time, but grateful for something to distract my mangled mind from the medical mayhem that left me feeling like I was living in an episode of Casualty – and not even a very good one. The new greenhouse became a bubble of ‘other space’, somewhere unimpinged by needles and tablets, blood tests and scans. An escape. I could do as much or as little as any day’s symptoms allowed, with no pressure beyond the challenges of a late Spring and frosts that ate into the season like locusts leaving the land barren. To close the door to the greenhouse was to shut out the telephone, the calendar of hospital appointments, the drawer of tablets, the sharps bin for discarded needles and that whole part of my life and I honestly think that break, even for a few minutes, helped me stay marginally on the right side of survival.

I could sit on my little plastic stool in true gnomic fashion, dibbing away at pots of seeds, watering seedlings with the sprinkler on the hose and generally doing Percy Thrower proud (substitute Chris Beardshaw or Alys Fowler if you must and if you are too young to remember the days when it was perfectly normal to see a Percy out in the garden on BBC One). The heavy work has been down to David, the Dimmock to my Tischmarsh if you like, and I have to say I am proud of what we have achieved. In no particular order, we managed potatoes, runner beans, French beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, spring onions, full-sized onions, garlic, beetroot, sweetcorn, strawberries, cape gooseberries, sweet peppers, jalapeños, apache chillies and hundreds of tomatoes. I also have rhubarb (or bubub as my Grandfather always used to call it) and two grape vines which won’t crop for a year or two. For fun I grew some sunflowers and they added no end of colour, as did the French marigolds and nasturtiums, which are both supposed to act as natural pest control methods. Adding to the fun crops, we still have a good-sized tub of purple potatoes – yes, they really ARE purple all the way through.

On the same theme we have some heritage purple carrots too. I need not discuss the fact that carrots were originally purple as that is quite well known these days but to actually see one and eat it is quite odd – they taste exactly like any other carrot, no hint of purple at all.

Two small plots and a 6′ greenhouse have meant that we didn’t buy any veg or salad for the duration of the Summer, so I wonder how many food miles that has saved. I would quite like one day to check the countries of origin of a weekly veg shop and tally up just how far things have travelled. There is, of course, no taste comparison to even the best food you buy in a super marker – no matter how super it claims to be. There is something quite special about podding and eating some peas straight from the plant you grew yourself and knowing that no nasty chemicals were used, they have not been refrigerated, packed, shipped, stored or stacked. We don’t claim to be living The Good Life just yet, we would argue far too much about who is Tom and who is Barbara if we tried, but the garden has given me a the escape I needed from the more clinical part of my existence.

With the seasons as they were there was a quiet time with the veg, when seeds were sown, bulbs planted, spuds chitted and nothing I could do would speed up nature’s clock while they grew. With a decent period of dry weather and still the need to be outside we plotted a plan to build a pond. I had two in my last house and have always wanted one here too, but time and lack of inspiration had contrived to drop that down the list of priorities. But I needed something else to do, a project to occupy my mind and so the pond idea was resurrected. Even when I was fit and well, the prospect of digging something on the scale we wanted would have been beyond my reach and David, whilst willing and able to help in the garden is not fool enough to get roped into a task of that magnitude. He did offer, bless him, but with the same tone a death-row inmate might offer to paint his cell – I could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. But thanks to my mother’s kindness we found ourselves with the funds to ‘get a man in’ and said man was got. The excavation took him an afternoon, it would have taken me a month – I make no exaggeration; I was not strong enough to wield a spade so would have had to manage with a trowel!

I have to say that the guy who did the work probably hadn’t dug many ponds before. The plot of land is on a slight slope, it rises by about six inches towards the patio. Despite a detailed diagram, example photos and all the measurements written down for him he never quite managed to grasp the concept that water tends to have an affinity for the level and if you make a pond with one side higher than the other it will only ever fill to the height of the lowest part. You all know that. I know that. David knows that but Doug (I shall call him that as it seems appropriate – what do you call a man with a spade in his head etc) didn’t know that and couldn’t grasp that the high point needed lowering. OK, I can forgive him for maybe not quite having the same vision for this aquatic fantasy that I held in my head but some basic common sense would help the guy no end. I thought as he was digging that maybe he had not quite understood the plans so again I explained that the level needed to be dropped at one end to compensate for the slope. He nodded with the understanding that a slug might have when presented with a quadratic equation and then proceeded to dig in the shelves around the edges. He knew I wanted a shelf of about 6 inches around part of the pond and another one at twice that depth to allow for planting marginals and lilies. But the numpty only went and dug these in parallel to the existing sloping ground, NOT on a level so, when the water was put in, one end of the shelf would be under the perfect 6 inch depth but the other would practically be dry. I gave up the fight and thank god I was having one of my better days or else either him or me would have ended up at the bottom of the hole waiting to star in a future episode of Brookside.

David cantered home in his shining armour and put things right, even managing to use the huge spirit level that I had been waving at Doug all day. The pond was lined and filled, and over the next few weeks I taught myself how to lay the edging bricks. Of course, these things I have to do slowly and on a minuscule scale so I was mixing mortar with a trowel and only enough for a few bricks at a time as my energy was unpredictable and I could end up flagging (no, not laying flagstones) at any time. So, bit by bit the edging was laid, everything was tidied and it was ready for draining. My inept attempts with the mortar were not always successful and loads ended up in the water. Lime mortar is bad for fish. It makes them dead. So it had to be removed by draining the pond. One learns from ones mistakes. I never said I was any good at it! That’s why I’m not a builder called Bob – although I’m sure a Digger called Doug could have found new skills at which to not excel.

No story is complete without a countdown to add to the drama and this is no exception. Ours was not so much your usual ticking clock or digital countdown but more a very traditional version. Think by way of example of a bucket of sand with a hole in it – when the sand trickles out the bucket is lighter and tips a fulcrum to set fire to a rope attached to the swinging axe… Our example was bigger – it was water in a lake that was slowly running out and as a result a hosepipe ban was due to be triggered any day. So amid imagined tension-building orchestration and quick cut-away shots to water guages in Crummock Water we had to get the pond emptied, cleaned and refilled before aqua became a black-market commodity and possession carried a higher penalty than cocaine.

We did it, with one day to spare. “The Ministry of Water today announced a hosepipe ban in areas including Manchester, Salford…” I think at one point we had more water stock-piled in our pond that United Utilities had in its entire reserve. But we were prepared, we had a butt, we could catch rainwater in hollowed-out oranges and bathe in the dishwasher. Stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. If things got bad I had ice cubes in the freezer we could melt down for soup. Of course, the day of the ban was wet, I mean piss-wet-through wet. And it kept being wet. Wet with a capital WET. The wettest wet since sliced wet. God, or Nature or the Baby-Jebus-in-the-sky has one bitch of a sense of humour and we had a month of wet Sundays and enough wet Wednesdays in a week to get anyone called Noah reaching for the power tools and books on animal husbandry. On the plus side I didn’t need to water the gardens and the butt was always full for greenhouse irrigation.

Political equality forbids me to draw any connection between the dark and ominous storm clouds and the General Election and of course this year we had all the razzmatazz of an American-style fight for the top job – except the Yanks fight over the White House and our guys bicker over a terraced council house. How frightfully droll that the outcome was the one thing that absolutely nobody in the country voted for and hardly anyone wanted. So Morecambe and Wise moved in to Number 10, no doubt sharing a bed and re-enacting the ‘breakfast’ sketch every morning. If I’m honest, I have pretty much now forgotten which one is which. Its like Ant and Dec. Does anyone really know? The Labour party were left to lick their wounds as Gordon was given an enormous political wedgie and frog marched out of the limelight. At least when Mr Brown said he’d keep an eye on things’ you knew it got his full attention. Still, maybe time will show that four eyes are better than one. This of course left the Labour party with a dilemma – who’s name to put on the letter-heads at Party HQ? They would have to elect a new leader but the ProntaPrint order has to go off, well, pronto. Solution: put the Miliband brothers up for the post – that way the business cards could just say Mr Miliband whoever gets the job. Now THAT is the sort of money saving scheme they should have adopted before the country fell into the economic abyss. Oh well, ‘all change’ at Downing Street and that is Tweedle Dum, Tweedle  Dee and Milib-Andy-Pandy safely ensconced in their new positions and the country thrown back to Thatcherite strikes, unemployment and cuts. As ‘about the size of Wales’ is now a recognised  unit of measure, and allegedly  we need to cut back as much as it costs to run ‘a country about the size of Wales’ for a year I think I have seen a solution here…

I shall leave you for a short while contemplating the absurdities of the British political system, our declining manufacturing industries, growing unemployment and cutbacks to the NHS which quite honestly make me fear for my own survival, while I slip off and write Part II.

March has sprung with all the zest of Zebedee on valium or a slinky trying to boing its way back UP the stairs, but at least made an attempt to be springy, and the last few days have been glorious with sunshine and blue skies. It makes a change from the rain and cloud of recent weeks, but I suspect that winter is but playing possum. We have finally managed to edge the veg plots – a cunning plan to try to ensure that we don’t end up mowing more crops than we get to eat – and we eventually got round to digging in several bags of well-rotted manure.  It frustrates me that I have to rely on David for the manual labour, but any physical effort still leaves me exhausted and panting for breath. I sound a bit like Darth Vader making a dirty phone call! I did manage to cover the two plots with fleece though, so that should start to warm the soil and hopefully get seeds off to a good start when eventually I can sow outdoors.  I’m looking forward to being busy in the garden – I can potter for hours and when there is an end product I don’t feel like I have wasted my life so much.

I have a few seedlings already coming up in pots on the kitchen window – peppers and tomatoes mainly, although today I also started some plugs of sage, parsley, basil and chives, to get an early crop of herbs. I’ve run out of window sills now though. There are really only two in the house that I can use – any put on the others would fall foul of the cats, who have no respect for anything if it is in their way, and Solo has secured his vantage point both downstairs and in the bedrooms. He sits on guard chattering away to himself as though he is giving a running commentary on life in the Avenue. Maybe he is. Should I float the idea of “Desperate Felines” with the BBC? There IS a ginger cat on the street – who I shall have to refer to as Bree from now on.  I digress.

Most of my bulbs are now at least showing signs of spring and we have had the crocuses in flower; they bring a little cheer into an otherwise overcast existence.  I have hyacinths, tulips, daffs and grape hyacinths all yet to come to flower, although they are at least shooting so we should get a nice display. I should really be using the pots and tubs for veg, but a little splash of colour in the garden is an indulgence I think I have earned.  Speaking of colour, I’m also planning to plant some nasturtiums amongst the veg this year – they should look pretty and are not totally against the whole ‘Good Life’ ethos as they are edible and lovely in salads. That is if the slugs don’t get them first.

I hate slugs. This year I have bought some slug traps to sink into the soil and hopefully lure them to their deaths. I normally don’t like killing anything – I would shoo a wasp or a fly out of the house rather than squish it, but slugs are the exception and they should die with exquisite agony in the full knowledge that they are an affront to Mother Nature and all things good.  The only thing they are any use for is target practice – load a few into a hand-held catapult and see if you can hit a tree/wall/bus etc.  You may remember that last year I managed to cover the tennis courts opposite with splattered slug innards, and this year I may have to up the forward attack in my war against the little slimy bastards. Copper is supposed to give then mild electric shocks. I think copper, wired to the mains, would be an even better idea. Let them spit and frizzle if they try to get at my spuds! There is some satisfaction in the look of terror in their stalky little eyes when you approach with a large tub of salt or a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays. I’d live and let live if they buggered off to someone else’s garden. It isn’t like they NEED to eat my peas and carrots – there is plenty of other vegetation available, so I have to conclude that they do it out of spite.

I am taking the war airborne next – or at least off the ground as I’ve decided to grow strawberries and tomatoes in hanging baskets thus hopefully elevating them above sluggy reach. The sneaky gits will probably find a way to foil even that plan – probably bribe a thrust or two to parachute them into the baskets. But I am steadfast. I shall not flag or fail.  I shall fight them under cloches. I shall fight them up the walls. I shall defend my land, whatever the cost may be.  I shall fight them in the baskets, I shall fight them in the plots, I shall fight them in the greenhouse and in the tubs. I shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this garden or a large part of it were subjugated and withered, then our vegetable plot, armed and guarded by the best slug pellets money can buy, would carry on the struggle and, step forth to the rescue and the liberation of the potatoes, new and old.

We are still getting frosts and it is way too early to move any seedlings outside to the greenhouse-thing we have. (It is really just a plastic bag on a frame, looks as cheap as it was, can’t be heated  and only holds a handful of pots, but its better than nothing) With the cold we have also had blue skies and yesterday I did have a meander round the estate taking a few photos for a community website we have been designing. This is the so-called community which is rapidly transforming into a Lancastrian version of Palestine, and all over the issue of the blessed swimming pool repairs. Since the proper last residents meeting the sides seem to have declared outright war on each other. I fully expect reports over the next few days that one group or the other has developed WMDs and I wouldn’t be surprised if I see Kate Adie and a BBC crew dressed in khakis and trying to file a live report from behind one of the hedges amid the screech of percussion shells and grenades. A small faction of pool protestors has already lodged complaints with parliament and Watchdog, in an attempt to remove the current residents’ committee and managing agent (who are walled up in a fortress of bureaucracy and legal protection. Others are simply refusing to pay for the pool repairs, withholding funds, meaning that there are further delays and I doubt we will have the facility back in working order this side of summer at this rate. I just want to swim. Was that mortar fire and a rocket launcher I just heard?

To be honest, I went out to take the photos yesterday as ‘busy work’ to try to take my mind off the fact that I had another hospital visit scheduled for that afternoon, at which a decision would be made on  whether to start the next phase of my treatment. Now that the cancer is in remission (touching wood) there are still some residual problems that need to be addressed, including damage to my liver. My kidneys are also under close scrutiny as some of the medication I have been taking is known to cause renal problems. Because my liver is one step away from best being served lightly fried in butter with onions and a nice bottle of Chianti, that has huge detrimental impacts on lots of other bodily functions,  even if indirectly, and could be the cause of my sickness and mood swings. My pancreas is also not a happy bunny, but again this may be as a result of medication or my lily-livered liver. So the upshot of all this is that following more poking, pricking, prodding and postulating they want me to start treatment to fix my liver ASAP.  That is likely to be at least a year of injections, tablets and generally feeling ill. Allegedly it is ‘a walk in the park compared to the chemo you have been through’ but still not something I am looking forward to.

I knew this would be needed, so it was no real surprise, but I had hoped we would get a little bit more time before it all kicked off. Knowing about something and it actually happening are two different things and this is not a situation I face gladly or with anything but a heavy heart. I have the rationalization that going through this is better than the alternative but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish it were avoidable. I really wanted to be able to go away on holiday for a week before we were plunged back into the helter-skelter of medical mayhem. I owe that to David, who has been my rock over the last two years and who I am now asking to go through something similar all again. He deserves a holiday; we both do. But this next phase is a pretty unsubtle spanner in that particular jet engine. We wanted to go to the Maldives – tropical beaches, minimal intrusion from other tourists, sunshine and white sand, books to read and lagoons to snorkel, children only available spit roast as a course for dinner, no mobiles or interweb or TV or stress. We have been saving like squirrels for the last 18 months, but prices are extortionate and we were just a few months away from having the pennies. But that is all blown out of the water now as I expect to start treatment in the next fortnight so our tropical tranquillity is now unattainable. So I’ll be starching my stiff upper lip and soldiering on with grim determination, facing whatever this treatment throws at me with good old Dunkirk spirit. I shall fight it in the hospital, I shall fight it in the wards and I shall not be defeated. But if you go on holiday to somewhere sunny this summer, don’t send me a postcard.  I hate to see a grown man cry, especially when it’s me.

I’ve been somewhat remiss in not having blogged for quite a while now; I think my muse has finally succumbed to the need for hibernation, and with the cold weather who am I to deny? And to be honest, there hasn’t been any major event of interest worthy of its own journal. So today I will aim for a catch-up of what has been happening and share with you the few insights that the last few months have brought.

I last left you  with our house in disarray as we were in the middle of having our boiler replaced. All went remarkably smoothly, despite having chosen to undertake this challenge when the country was colder than the chiller cabinets in Asda, and still in a state of panic due to ‘the coldest winter since the last time it was this cold’.  But despite the ‘idiosyncratic’ nature of the old heating system, and fears that every pipe would explode under the pressure of the new one, all went to plan and we now bask in the comfy warmth of consistent heating, a thermostat that actually works and the savings of not having to heat a huge tank full of water every time we wanted to take our coats off indoors. Let’s hope the fuel bills reflect all our efforts and at least we can enjoy the smug inner- glow of knowing we are now several shades greener with smaller carbon footprints.

I talked also last time of our Residents’ Association and the fated pool, which was leaking faster than a cabinet enquiry and in need of much TLC (aka money).  The various interested parties did indeed meet and, as expected, we spent a good few hours in heated debate, name calling and tantrums the like of which I have not witnessed since primary school. We really were back in the realms of, “My dad’s bigger than your dad”, “You kissed her behind the bike sheds”, “He stole my sweeties” , “…’cos…”, “I don’t want to play any more”, “I’m telling on you” and, “You’re smelly so there”. The playground bully demanded most of the attention (and our dinner money), employing the tactic of just repeating the same thing over and over and at increasing volume, then staring with an “I’ll get you” menace at anyone who challenged that point of view. When the representative from the Management Company tried to answer questions he was pelted by verbal eggs, and the incontestable argument of “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”  before he could actually make his point. And reason was thrown out the window long before the bell went for the end of play time and the various gangs skulked off, presumably to either set off stink bombs in the lifts or at least nick off down the 7-11 for some fags and a bottle of Lambrusco.   Needless to say, nothing was resolved, progressed, or promised and our pool remains as empty Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard the day before her child benefit’s due.

I have also suffered the annual indignity of the ‘birthday celebration’ which, for anyone over about 20, serves only as a reminder that you are just another year closer to oblivion, that your mortal coil is showing grave signs of rust and that your allotted ‘Three score years and ten’ [*] is sounding much more like a marketing ploy than any sort of promise.

* [Figures based on recent  Bureau of Statistics survey in association with Hello Magazine and Laboritoire Garniér – sample of 32.7 people surveyed, 8.92 responded and of the responses, 83.4% said that they were not dead. Oh, and 8 out of 10 cats prefer not being dead too, which is like, over half but they have nine lives anyway so what do they know?]

I tell you, I think myself lucky to get to the end of the week, let alone having any aspirations to reaching retirement age. Which is a shame as I think I’d make a very good grumpy old man and have no problem at all with being a burden on all around me. I’m practising slurping soup, afternoon napping, wearing slippers and complaining that music is too loud, but the TV too quiet and pointing out random things that were better when I was your age. Of course, with medical advances average lifespans are increasing and with stem-cell research we’ll soon be able to re-grow any bits of us that drop off, fail or turn to mush. Soon enough we will become real life examples the indestructible stars of the cartoon world. No plummeting  anvil will stop us. No head-on collision with a rocket-powered train will derail us for long. Falling from a mountain precipice into a near-bottomless ravine, with an enigmatic ‘pfuutt’ of dust to mark our demise, will not in fact mark anything but our exit stage left in the direction of the nearest Acme Stem-Cell and Burger drive-thru. “A new left leg Sir? Certainly, and would you like fries with that?”

I mention this on the anniversary of the announcement of the successful cloning of Dolly the Sheep (1997) and a recollection of the amusement that I felt back then at the negative propaganda and scaremongering that surrounded all things genetically modified. We would all soon be growing third ears and x-ray vision! We’d be creating designer babies by the crèche-load and mutating into human-triffid monsters. But that was such a knee-jerk reaction when you consider that we have been playing around with genetic manipulation since the first farmers realised that certain types of crops grew better than others, and that they could breed fatter livestock with better pelts if they only mated the ‘best’ of their animals.

We have been cross-breeding plants and animals for thousands of years, to steer production towards the characteristics we felt desirable at the time. We breed grain for certain conditions or for its resistance to certain disease. A cultivar by definition is a cultivated variety of a plant that has been deliberately selected for specific desirable characteristics (such as the colour and form of the flower, yield of the crop, disease resistance etc.). When propagated correctly the plants of a particular cultivar retain their special characteristics. THAT is old school, Ladybird book of Agriculture, Farming for Dummies.

Travelling on the train last Autumn I was struck by how much shorter the wheat seemed to be in the fields we passed, compared to what I remember from a few decades ago, as farmers have bred short-stemmed varieties much less susceptible to wind damage.  This is nothing new – agriculturalists pick the crops most suited to their needs and prevailing market forces. We used to call it ‘cross-breeding’ – these days we opt for the more sinister connotations of ‘genetic modification’ but what difference does it really make if the process happens  over a few generations in a field or a few months in a laboratory? The end result is the same. As are the risks and the benefits. If we are going to survive as a species we will have to embrace these technologies, find ways to increase yield and grow crops in ever-more inhospitable environments.  We can’t afford to take some hippy moral high ground based on ignorance and a fear of the latest buzz word. It is stem cells today, was genetic modification last week and cloning a fortnight ago, but they all amount to the same thing: a scientific development to which the public have a pre-programmed reaction – fear. These days social network sites are blamed for sparking public outrage, but the process has been happening ever since mass communication allowed viral spread of such hysteria. It is just a bit quicker with Twitter. We seldom stop to consider how much the media colours our opinions on all matters from politics to science, the weather to Cheryl Cole’s relationship challenges. I remain undecided whether we need quite the amount of ‘news’ with which we are bombarded, especially when that news is heavily weighted with opinion and commercialisation. And I wonder if this doesn’t sometimes negate us from the responsibility of making up our own minds.

When we are told that “Thousands sign petition to stop embryonic stem-cell research” are we not then almost incited into adopting a similar opinion? It is easy to get enraged with the rest of the mob.  Sometimes just reporting a thing is an act of influencing opinion. We used to call it propaganda and we used it as a weapon.

This dalliance with genetic engineering isn’t something limited to food supplies either. There are plenty of examples through history of our experiments in Eugenics – the selected breeding of humans to try to improve the race. The obvious example is, of course, the Aryan experimentation programs of Nazi Germany and the killing of disabled (or otherwise ‘broken’ people) through involuntary euthanasia. But similar thinking has been applied in countries across the globe, from Australia to Japan, Scandinavia to the USA. We do it every time we terminate a pregnancy on the grounds of likely disability or illness. Even going back through time the writings of Plato and his stories of Atlantis are based around the concepts of Eugenics, with the Atlanteans  representing a Nordic super-race at war with the Athenians. (And there is some suggestion that Hitler was trying to recover the genetic purity of Atlantean blond-haired master race.)

Taking a wider perspective, it could be argued that any medical interference is unnatural and a disturbance to the order of life. Be that through medicines to prolong life to prenatal embryo scanning. How is the mother who decides to abort a Downs child any different to the farmer who plants wheat which has been cultivated for its yield, or indeed the child who is inoculated against polio? What about the patient who accepts a heart transplant or chemotherapy for cancer? What about the couple who can’t conceive without medical intervention – I remember the frenzied news reports of the first test-tube baby, although the practice is commonplace today and hardly newsworthy. These are all meddling with the natural order but all provoke different emotional responses – usually depending on how close we are to the discovery. The mark of civilization is surely how we deal with these things and how we ensure that they are focused for good. And we WILL come to terms with cloning, genetic modification and stem-cell organs because these things can never be un-invented. Pandora has a very leaky box. We can’t go back, we can’t undo the research so surely better we embrace it and look to the future with open eyes and considered safeguards rather than drive the experiments underground?

Maybe I am biased – after all, I have taken many medicines in my times, to prolong my life (some of them were tested on animals, all of them were tested on other people), I have eaten bread made from cultivated corn (but I have not yet mutated into some horrendous carnivorous UK version of Audrey II), I have chomped on a steak or two which were undoubtedly sliced from farmed cattle (yet I show no signs of growing horns, hooves or a second stomach), I have grown carrots known to be unaffected by fly, and, heaven forbid, I have even eaten battery-produced eggs.  When I was a kid, if someone in the neighbourhood contracted mumps or chickenpox they held a ‘party’ with all the local children attending to try to catch the disease – these illnesses are much less dangerous in pre-adolescence than if contracted in adulthood and offer some degree of immunity if caught as a child. Is that not just a primitive form of stacking the medical cards and trying to outsmart nature? I have taken inoculations against tetanus and to allow me to travel to foreign lands without fear of dying of some local pox. I’m guilty of having chosen both the seasonal and swine flu jabs, preferring that to the potential ‘natural’ risk of death. Not content with that though I have also been guilty of using ocular enhancements, removable devices to correct my failing vision, without which I would almost certainly have fallen off the aforementioned precipice in my near-blind state to land at the bottom of the ravine with a billow of dust – which is just as well as there are so few Acme stem-cell drive-thru establishments in Salford. I was born prematurely, in a time when the chances of survival were much lower than they are today and practices were barely one step up from casting spells, pointing bones and sacrificing baby lambs to appease the Gods of midwifery. Without medical intervention I would not be alive. The same can be said of my battle with cancer. If the natural course of events had been unhindered I would not be here now. As an individual I guess I make a mockery of Darwinian Theory – I’m certainly NOT the fittest by any measure, but in that there is also some hope – as a species we are finding ways to adapt, to survive and to overcome the current challenges we face; this starts at valuing and preserving the life of an individual and is then expanded exponentially to benefit the whole race.

In historical terms, a few centuries ago someone who administered potions to cure the sick was seen as a witch, a Sharman, one who conjured magic and fear. Then they became apothecaries, chemists and medics and held in the highest esteem. Our attitudes change as benefits are proven. So too will they change with body-part replacements. After all, we have organ replacements now, and even whole face replacement, as macabre as sounds to our current sensitivities. But how many of us would refuse the surgery if we found ourselves in need? Moral high grounds are very dodgy places to build an ideology.

I have not yet commented on the other factor which comes into play as part of the argument for or against scientific advancement. Sooner or later someone will raise an objection on the grounds of religion, usually citing arguments that we should not try to play God, or that what we are doing is sacrilegious and a corruption of God’s will. I guess the stance taken by Jehovah’s Witnesses is an extreme example, with their religious refusal to undertake life-saving blood transfusion treatments. My religious views are no secret but I wonder how a Jesus known for having found a way to feed several  thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, would object to us looking for modern equivalents. This also was the man who healed the sick, drove out madness, returned sight to the blind and raised Lazarus from the dead. Surely there can be no serious religious argument against medical research and if we are guilty of interfering in God’s great plan, then so is his son.

On the subject of Jesus, i was amused to read that Elton John has recently expressed an opinion that Jesus was in fact gay. Wake up Elton – that conspiracy theory has been going around since people were first nailed to trees for being different! I assume you are basing your argument not just on his sense of compassion and taste in open-toed sandals but also for the fact he spent most of his life getting pissed with a bunch of twelve other blokes and singing Tim Rice Lyrics? Way to go Elton. That is almost as funny as the hype and fanfare which preceded the live episode of EastEnders last week. Was I the only person in the country to be completely underwhelmed?

Why all the fuss? What was SO special about the BBC broadcasting live television? After all, it isn’t so many years ago that ALL television was live. I wonder what percentage of new output from the BBC is live – a fair amount I would speculate, when you consider news and current affairs programming, sports, coverage of major events, political debate and even phone-in shows. Live drama is hardly a new concept – THAT has been going on in theatres for centuries. Combining drama with a live broadcast isn’t new – look at the early soap operas, sketch shows and so forth. Okay, so drama is faster paced these days, but current technology, sets, lighting should all be able to cope with that. And EastEnders was far from a totally slick production – I noticed camera goofs to rival anything seen on Acorn Antiques, and it was very clear where spacing shots had been written in to allow for time slippage. Did I see Miss Babs loitering behind the bar in the Queen Vic and was that Mrs Overall poised just off camera with a plate of macaroons and a fresh mug of coffee?

Still, as Marion Clune, AA producer [*] once said: “We professionals notice – Joe Public never clocks a darn thing”

[* Thanks for the correction!]

nor·mal (nôr?m?l)

adjective

Conforming with or constituting an accepted standard, model, or pattern; esp., corresponding to the median or average of a large group in type, appearance, achievement, function, development, etc.; natural; usual; standard; regular

Oh to be normal, to look normal, to feel normal, to ooze normality. An odd request, maybe, and one which begs the question, “what IS ‘normal?” to which I can only answer, “not me.”

All my life I have felt segregate, especially at school – usually for reasons beyond my control: a different accent to my peers, a non-standard height, gay not straight – being a petite posh puff was no primary school picnic in the park! Being picked last for football became the norm, so much so that the act itself almost became more of a joke than I was. No amount of logical reasoning can counter the illogic of a mob of pre-pubescent peers and ‘pick on the poof’ was the preferred playground pastime. Too often those differences have been used against me, so maybe it is not unexpected that I would quite welcome the disappearance into the monotone of normality. Age and growing tolerance have improved things greatly of course. There has been a massive normalising of gay relationships for a start, and that is brilliant. That is evidence of how a perceived extreme has been absorbed into the mainstream, well, mostly absorbed – I think we are still a way off a time where David and I could kiss in Tescos without raising an eye – but there again, I don’t think it is necessarily right for anyone to be snogging by the Deli counter, as were a straight couple I saw the other day.

Our society has such a confused way of dealing with anything it sees as different; it is either ridiculed or revered, dreadful or desirable – sometimes both at the same time and maybe it is just fashion which dictates what is in vogue at any one time.  Twenty years ago being a puff was akin to having leprosy but today we are the ‘must-have’ fashion accessory. No street is complete without its resident gay couple. We have become the token blacks. But that is a lot better than I ever dared dream would happen and I’m not complaining.

Maybe ‘normal’ is a somewhat utopian ideal, unattainable for a species as diverse as ours, which relies on mutation for development and praises those who break the mould. The Guinness Book of Records would hardly include “the most normal person in the UK” or list all the names of those “of most average height” – instead we hail the tallest, the shortest, the fastest, the thinnest (I can feel a song coming on here…) Survival of the fittest and the basic concepts of Darwinian adaptability means that some must be less fit and, to borrow from Mr Orwell, maybe it has to be that some animals are more equal than others. It isn’t normality that pushes at the edges of social, scientific or medical understanding.  Frontiers are only explored by the exceptional. But it is still normality that I crave.

Many, I am sure, would think of ‘normal’ as boring, homogenised, lacking in diversity, individuality or creativity. The gay community, as a subset of humankind, is a great example of the conundrum we face – on one hand wanting the level playing field of equality and on the other, our desires to retain our separate identity. We want to be treated as normal people but still be different, ab-normal – after all, does ‘queer’  not mean ‘strange and unusual’? But we all judge ourselves against the concept of normal all the time; are we too fat, to thin, too tall, too short, too loud, too quiet, too active, too sedentary?  Does my bum look big in this? Is my hair style fashionable? Am I behaving in an appropriate way? Do I fit in?

I’ve never regarded myself as anything other than a misfit; that tends to happen when you are significantly below average height, need glasses, and have hair that, if left unshaved, looks something akin to an explosion in a wire wool factory.  I’m the next best thing to a hobbit, except they are generally cuter. I hide behind humour, proclaiming myself to be “unlanky” or “not really short, just further away than you think I am”.  But I have always tried to take care of my body, after all it came with a non-exchange clause and, whilst some spare parts may be available, a whole body transplant remains the gift of Time Lords and I have yet to master the finer points of reincarnation (besides, I’d probably come back as Sylvester McCoy and Who’d want to do that?)  So, one makes the most of the raw materials available, without falling foul of fanatical fashion or the need to buy enough male grooming products to keep Cliniqué in business for the next decade. I will never tread the path of the Adonis, the male model or ‘dreamboat’.  I hold no aspirations of winning the Mr Universe competition, and, even if through some galactic irony, I did end up in the final alongside a Slitheen, Judoon, Sontaran and the inner squidgy bits of a Dalek, I’d settle for fifth place and the train fare home.  If beauty really is in the eye of the beholder then I thank whatever higher force there may be that I fell for someone who is short-sighted, colour blind, has monocular vision and a lazy eye. But that said, I’m no troll either. I may have fallen out of the ugly tree but I managed to miss a few of the most severe branches on the way down.

I have such a tempestuous relationship with my body image, largely based on the prejudices of society against someone who doesn’t quite fit the standardised concept of ‘normal’ and I have talked at length in previous blog entries about the difficulty of finding clothes or shoes that fit. You learn to be less fussy when the choice is ‘this or nothing’ and any sense of a clothing ‘look’ I might have is based entirely on availability rather than design.  There are a few exceptions to that rule and a couple of ‘outfits’ that I think DO suit me, but none of them fit me anymore and so I shuffle around in my scruffs.

One of the hardest things about the last 18 months has been seeing the changes to my body shape, and for two main reasons. Firstly, it has taken me even further away from the ‘body beautiful’ and that goal of fitting the norm, or even being ‘acceptable’ and secondly because it is such a visual, unequivocal representation of how Ill I have been. I’ve always tried to convince myself that looks don’t matter, but they do. People judge. People make snap decisions based on physical appearance. We all do it, we’ve all made assumptions about a person because they tended towards a more extreme body shape.  I read on the BBC site the other day a story about the growth and spread (pardon the choice of words) of ‘fattism’ and of overweight people being subjected to unprovoked physical and verbal attacks. But what is really frightening is when you make such negative judgements about yourself, when you don’t just hate your appearance, but you hate yourself for looking like that.  The most terrifying thing for me, when I was in hospital last year, was not the being diagnosed with cancer, not the having months of horrible treatments ahead of me, not even the pain, but the first time I saw myself naked in a mirror. I had lost 40% of my body weight, dropping from ten stone to just under six. I looked like I had aged 30 years and someone had shrunk-wrapped my skin to my skeleton, in much the same way as you can buy supermarket joints of meat with plastic suctioned to every contour.  Slap a bar-code on my bum and sell me as a Tescos Value Person.  Flabby I was not. The cancer had been so advanced that it was using all my energy, all my fat and muscle reserves and more – my body was taking more than I could give it.  The person looking back at me from that mirror was unrecognisable, an imposter – not me, not the face I had grown up with. The body in the reflection belonged to a third world, emaciated, starving, wretch.  The hobbit had turned into Gollum. And that was more frightening than I can ever describe.   I cried for nearly 12 hours solid. Because I didn’t want to be that person and I didn’t want the people I loved to have to look at him either.

I think that was the turning point for me, the point when I decided that I had better get better. I knew for sure that I didn’t want anyone’s last image of me to be the skeletal wraith I had become.

Getting back out among people I knew before has been really hard, and on more than one occasion I have bottled out, opting for the safety of a more reclusive stance; Gollum back in his cave. Sometimes that has been to try to protect others from seeing me in such a state but more often the motivation has been selfish, born of fear. The really good friends have been fine, supportive and kind. Family will love me regardless of how I look. But that only accounts for a handful of people and the challenge is dealing with the ones who see you and judge. The ones who make assumptions. The ones who whisper and point when they think you are not looking.  I don’t blame them, it is human nature.  I still find myself doing it to others almost without thinking and that is something I need to change.

I suppose we all have an inner desire to stand out from the crowd, but we want to do that on our own terms, based on traits, looks or accomplishments that we feel to be worthwhile and positive. We don’t want to stand out as objects of ridicule, but of praise. There is a fine line between gorgeous and gruesome.  I think of people who have taken things just a bit too far and tipped the balance. That one extra facelift that saw the sea change from classic beauty to grotesque gargoyle, the body builder who went from muscle to monster.

I’m getting better, my body is slowly returning from horror to human, but there’s still a long way to go and I pine for the return of the shape I used to inhabit. And so ‘normal’ seems quite a desirable state to be in. Average would be wonderful. I could buy clothes in a range of styles. I could be unremarkable and un-remarked-upon, ordinary, usual, unostentatious.

When I was at school, one of the poems we studied for O’Level (yes I AM that old) was Philip Larkin’s “Born Yesterday” and it caused me some consternation as I couldn’t get my head around what exactly it meant.  I understand now.

Born Yesterday
for Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love -
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull -
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

Hello. I’m Adrian. It’s been a week since my last blog. (Oh God, I already sound like the start of an AA meeting, and I don’t mean the AA that take 3 hours to tell you they can’t fix your car at the roadside and you can wave goodbye to that little bit of spare cash you’d been saving for a holiday ‘cos this isn’t going to be cheap. There are some circumstances in which you really don’t want your head end blown and covered in oil! I mean, of course, the AA that help people who like a little tipple now and then, which considering I have had one glass of wine in the last year, is probably not an organization I need to join just yet).

Some of you will know the reason for my absence, and as much as I would like to claim alien abduction or an Agatha Christie-style ‘missing week’ I’m afraid the reality is somewhat less enthralling. Not long after completing my blog last Friday I was hit by the most awful stomach pains which got progressively worse as the day wore on until about 2pm when I ended up having to make my second ever 999 call. (The first was when I came across a road accident – a drunk driver had plowed his car into a telegraph pole and was unconscious at the wheel with a an empty bottle of scotch in his hand and half the steering wheel smashed into his nose!)

So, ambulance on its way, front door unlocked, curled up in agony on sofa and an absolute pig of an ambulance man turns up and gives me a load of abuse for having phoned 999 without first having ‘self medicated pain relief’. I knew what was wrong with me – it was a return of the pancreatitis I had a year ago. That’s not a pain you forget or fail to recognise. It’s a BIG pain, it laughs in the face of paracetamol, it kicks sand in the eyes of ibuprofen, it gives a wedgie to panadol and tweaks the ear of asprin. So I told the pigamedic that I was having an attack of pancreatitis and he gave me a ‘couldn’t care less’ look and hurried me out to the ambulance. When I say ambulance… I’d have been more comfortable in a wheelbarrow! It might have had suspension once, but those days were a dim and distant memory. We have quite a few (too many) speed bumps between our house and the main road, and it seems, ambulances with poorly people in them have to take these bumps as a challenge, seeing if they can actually get either the vehicle or the patient airborne. I begged the paramedpig to let me lie on the bed but he insisted I should remain in the seat, which was the most uncomfortable position for me, but obviously my own fault for not taking a lemsip earlier! I asked again, “Please, each time we go over a bump I’m in agony. Can I lie down, please?” “We’re nearly there now, he said, and I could see out of the window that we were only just down the bottom of our road with about another 5 miles to go! Bastard.

Thankfully they A&E people were a bit more reasonable and pumped me full of morphine. That said, they put a line in my arm to deliver the drugs then whisked me off for an x-ray and in the process managed to knock the needle straight out again, about which I was none too chuffed. I’m not the easiest person to get needles into or blood out of – after a year of being a pin cushion my veins are starting to get wise to the process and like to have a bit of fun with any approaching needle, playing hide-and-seek or dodging out of the way at the last minute. We can play for hours.

So I was admitted to the local hospital. I find it strangely disturbing that anyone would call a hospital ‘Hope’ – it’s one step up from ‘Fingers Crossed’ or ‘If You’re Lucky’. But Hope hospital it was, and thankfully they put me in a room of my own. It was almost a year ago that I had pancreatitis before, which led to the discovery of lymphoma, and indeed it was to Hope that I was admitted that time, but put on an open ward which consisted entirely of old men and wind. Seriously, they had competitions at night to see who could fart the loudest. “Good one Bob, but I’m brewing a tornado”. Belching and farting to the point that was some sort of meld between the sulphurous pits of hell and the Frog Chorus.

On the plus side, I had four days nil-by-mouth which was actually a kind of relief because at least I didn’t feel like vomiting for the first time in about six months! And David, who shall remain depicted as my knight in shining armour, and rightly so, did everything possible to look after me and cheer me up. Everyone should have a David, but he’s mine and I’m not sharing! The pancreas sorted itself out and they granted me parole, on condition that I went to see my consultant at my usual Hospital, North Manchester General, later in the week. Yesterday I did indeed have an appointment with him and we have juggled some of my medication so that hopefully now the sickness will stop and things can start to move forward again. Wish me luck!

Yesterday saw me storming of the Bastille. OK, I admit it, TODAY is the anniversary of the exact date, but I re-enacted my own metaphorical version (or rather tried to). Those of you who tuned in to yesterday’s episode will know the plan. For those of you who (shame on you) missed the instalment, it is available on my newly-activated, high definition, ergonomic user interface tool, called the iScroll bar. Go to www.oberonuk.com on your interweb-enabled computer-me-bob. At this stage you might need to use your iEyes in conjunction with a contemporary iReader such as the much acclaimed iBrain. (That bloke iNewton has a lot to answer for – if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have a world full of Apples, or this predisposition for inserting an ‘i’ into every available orifice. Have you ever tried to get peas out of an iPod? Bloody nightmare!)  So, access reading mode and if you are having trouble with resolution, you may need a special plug-in called iGlasses, which are available from a number of retailers and also double as a handy fashion accessory. If you have any problems, please contact our helpdesk at the address not given anywhere in this document, where your call would have been important to us if we gave a fuck.

So, we’ll start today’s chapter with a the briefest recap:

Issue: Idiot stand-in doctor, wrong pills; could kill me
Requirement: Alternative pills
Solution: Call hospital to resolve.
Problem: Hospital like Fort Knox
Assumptions: Kray twins still unavailable to access via spurious means.

Up to speed? Great. So, my mission was simply to speak to the correct consultant and either get a reassurance that the tablets prescribed are not the ones that he took me off before because they were turning my liver into paté or get some alternative ones prescribed. Now, hospitals don’t like you to have direct line phone numbers to anyone, and are very cleverly managed so that no department knows who works in any other department. Phoning the general reception line is fine, as long as you don’t mind the 20 minutes of library music (or in this case 3-minutes of Elvis singing ‘Love me tend – your call is in a queue – me do” repeatedly, ad nauseum and don’t actually want anything doing. As soon as you start to ask for a specific department or person it seems that the Babel fish the receptionist keeps in her ear somehow short circuits. You say, “I need to speak to speak to Doctor Smith in Outpatient’s B” and they hear, “I think I need an x-ray of my knee” and they put you through to Radiology. 20 more minutes of music and the nice lady in Radiology can’t understand why you have been put through to her, but there is a Dr Smith in Maternity, click, “Love me tender…”

So having confirmed that I am not in the midst of a miss-carriage and I need Outpatients B, we now have to establish if this is NEW Outpatients B or OLD Outpatients B because they have moved during the building work and some of the numbers have changed, but not it seems the internal online telephone directory. Click. “Are you lonesome tonight…” No, I don’t want to talk to George, the foreman of works for Balfour Beatty, who are currently erecting a new mental health clinic where Outpatients B used to stand. If this carries on much longer I’ll be their first patient! Perhaps it would be better if they transferred me to main Reception?

Maybe the Community Service girl on the switchboard will have got new batteries for the Babel fish by now and anyway, I’m game for a laugh. Elvis has moved on to “Blue Suede Shoes” and I’m still in a queue. But you know when you are waiting just a second before the call is actually answered you get a little click and your heart fills with joy? Except this time it is the click of the automatic system cutting you off and the husky tones of a BT automated announcement tells you “The other caller has cleared. The other caller has cleared.” Kick a man when he’s down, why don’t you!

Another call then to the main switchboard, this time Elvis seems to be giving advice about swine flu amid selected tracks from his back catalogue and I’m wondering whether “Catch it, bin it, kill it” with a suitable rock beat could become quite a catchy hit.

Well, its one if you catch it,
Two when your blow,
Three when you kill it,
Now go, flu, go.
But don’t you sneeze if you’ve got the flu.
You can do anything but sod off if you’ve got swine flu..

Now, I’m thinking that maybe the problem isn’t a faulty Babel fish – maybe somehow it is me not speaking clearly enough, so this time I make sure I enunciate with absolute care and deliberation – the effect of which is that I sound like a slowed-down record: “Pleeeeeaaassse Caaaan iiiiiii speeeeeeak tooooo…”  It isn’t quite the same as speaking to foreigners which calls for fast and loud with lots of enthusiastic hand gesturing, this is more the way speech would sound if heard through a vat of treacle. But hey, it works and “You want Outpatients B; I’ll put you through now…” Oh the delight, the sheer unadulterated joy. Thank God for Tenna Lady, or I’d have dribbled on the sofa! And I even get a confirmation at the other end of the line: “Hello, you’re through to Outpatients B…” Who needs Ecstasy when you can get a high like this just from a phone call? Bring on the endorphins! Bring on the endorphins! “…The department is currently closed for lunch, our opening hours are…” Oh the downer! Woe, woe and thrice woe! This is addiction and rehab in the space of five seconds! More highs and lows than Altern Towers, more ups and downs than Pamela Anderson’s boobs on the Baywatch titles. I now have rampant serotonin and a craving for chocolate! Book me in at the Priory now!

But I knew the fortress would take some punishment before I got so far as the portcullis, and those arrow slits above A&E are not entirely decorative. Hospital consultants, much like MPs, are blessed with impenetrable moats, and usually a gaggle of ducks in tow too!

So lunch is cooked, eaten (but not enjoyed) and I allow plenty of time for the return to duty before I redial Reception and settle down for some more Elvis – Swine Flu Rock this time:

The Doctor threw a panic, said I looked too pail.
The nursing staff was there and they began to wail.
I sneezed and coughed and turned my head away
Catch it, bin it, kill it, is what I heard them say
Its flu, everybody, its flu.
Everybody in the whole room knew
The early symptoms of the new swine flu

I love being on hold, it gives one quality time to do those jobs that might otherwise be neglected like grow a little more gray, watch some paint dry, waste away precious minutes of life that will never be replaced, contemplate one’s place in the universe and notice that bit of laminate flooring that seems to be lifting…but I also use the on-hold time to come up with a different plan. “Hello, I’m phoning from the General Medical Council and I need urgently to speak to Dr Wilberforce Smith who I believe is holding a surgery in Outpatients B”. Oh, THAT registered with the Bablel Fish and within seconds, “Hello, this is Dr Smith’s secretary. Can I help you?”

“Yes please, I need some advice. I’m one of Dr Smith’s patients.”

“I thought you were from the General Medical Council?”

“No, sorry, the receptionist must have mis-heard, I said I needed a general medical consult.”

“Oh, I see, how can I help…”

So contact at last was made, through fair means or foul. The Trojans had a wooden horse, I had the GMC – all is fair in love and war. Actually, Dr Smith’s secretary was very nice, took my details, understood what I was asking and lulled me into a totally false sense of security with promises that she would not only speak to Dr Smith, but also my proper doctor (who was ill last week thus the reason I was lumbered with the Smith in the first place,) and someone would phone me back.

And I bloody fell for it! I should have known better. I’m kicking myself. It’s the oldest trick in the book and I just jumped in with both feet, eyes open, actually believing her. Oh, she’s good. She’s VERY good. Strap her to the Enterprise and call her a deflector shield.

And now I’m impotent – literally (thanks to the chemo) and metaphorically. I can’t ring back today for fear of being too pushy. I have to wait, to give it time for the various conversations to take place, or more likely the post-it note to fall off her monitor and end up in the hospital incinerator along with a ton of bloody swabs and a couple of artificial arms! But how long to wait? A day? Two? I’m worse off than when I started. And now I have to walk around with my mobile phone super-glued to my thigh in a pointless attempt to thwart the part of Murphy’s Law that guarantees if I DO get a call it will be when I’m on the loo and the phone is downstairs.

So, unlike the French Revolutionaries over 200 years ago, my own particular Bastille remains resolutely un-stormed. And woe betide anyone who mentions anything about eating cake!

I’m having a Boomtown Rats type of Monday already. I don’t like it. Can I have a new one please? This one seems to be broken.

I wrote on Friday about my pointless trip to the Hospital the previous day and the fact that the medication prescribed by the ‘supply’ doctor was something I had been given previously and had been forced to stop taking. This was the tablet that caused mind-altering visual anomalies which, in a night club after several pints, may have been appropriate but for any other situation seem a little too psychedelic! “Hey, wanna score some uppers man? Serious trip guaranteed!” – Except, for me, the serious trip would be a fast track to A&E. It took several chemists, none of whom held stocks of these pills and eventually a next-day order from Boots before I actually got the drugs and further investigation reminded me of another reason why I had been taken off them: they can do nasty things to your liver and at the time of taking them my enzymes were sky high and my liver in an offal [sic] state.

So today I embark upon a quest to speak to someone at the hospital who can sort this out. My hopes are about as high as a daschund’s scrotum, but I shall soldier on. You see, speaking to a consultant without an appointment is on a par with Frodo’s quest over the Misty Mountains, through the Mines of Moria, across the Dead Marshes, over the Mountains of Mordor and to the summit of Mount Doom; nigh on impossible and usually needing three books/films to tell the tale. Oh, so I probably fit the Hobbit size requirements, but I’m NOT about to celebrate my eleven-first birthday and I have no intention of ever fingering Gandalf’s ring! But a quest is a quest is a quest I suppose and I spit in the face of adversity.

Consultants have an impenetrable barrier around them, arranged in rings of ever increasing strength, starting with the reception staff that fends the majority of invasions with a few well-placed “approach at your peril” signs, totems and shrunken heads on sticks to ward off casual enquiries. Next there are the senior receptionists, amour-clad, wielding bows and arrows in case you got through the first defense. Should you have the cunning, agility and stamina to beat your way through this phalanx, next comes the consultant’s secretary. She’s the one who holds the keys to the drawbridge and has soldiers staged all along the fortifications with catapults, Trebuchets and casks of molten tar. Now, if she is particularly good at her job, she will know that to have come this far you must be a pretty strong opponent and she will call upon her reserve team, the gaggle of inferior and expendable student doctors currently being trained up by the consultant. She’ll try to deflect your attack onto one or more of these individuals, knowing them to be cannon-fodder with but three purposes in life:

1. To follow consultant with notepad so he doesn’t have to take any notes.
2. To be there so that if ever consultant does not know the answer to a question he can throw it at one of his ‘team’, thus either making them look stupid instead of him, or finding the information he wanted in a way that makes it look like he hadn’t forgotten it himself.
3. To be there to deflect annoying patients who want contact without following the 6-week appointment cycle.

You know, instead of using the main deflector shields, Captain Kirk would have been far better advised to “deploy medical fortification measures”, and thus protect the Enterprise with an impenetrable barrier of red tape.

I’ll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a little ditty I wrote while shackled to a hospital bed with a choice between Loose Women and Cash In The Attic on the TV and the threat of more hospital food on the not too distant horizon. It’s just a bit of fun, but I needed to try to keep my mind off of being ill. The rhythm, I suspect, reflects the pattern of noises made by the controlled IV infusion machine which clicked away at a steady pace, 24/7!

Veronica Johnson kissed me (Part 1)

Veronica Johnson kissed me
I had no choice at all
It was over by the bike sheds
Where she pinned me to the wall

Veronica Johnson’s a big girl
Stocky and strong and mean
When Veronica Johnson kissed me
It was really quite a scene!

Veronica wasn’t so pretty
Her face all freckles and spots
On the end of her nose, a bogie
And her hair was all tangled with knots

Veronica Johnson wore braces
Which I’d not really noticed before
But when she leant even closer
I saw the horror of what was in store

She opened her mouth even wider
Not a smile, or a grin or a pout
My heart was beating double
As I tried to squirm my way out

Veronica’s lips were enormous
They had a life of their own
Saliva drooled from the corners
On her top lip some stubble had grown

Veronica Johnson Kissed me
Squarely on my face
But as I tried to pull away
My lip caught in her brace

Veronica didn’t much notice
And started in with her tongue
It prodded and probed for my tonsils
And filled up my mouth like a bung

To breathe it was getting much harder
But Veronica didn’t much care
Her concern was her ‘skill’ at French Kissing
And not that I might need some air!

My whole life flashed before me
Everything turned dark and cold
I didn’t want to die like that
I was only six years old!

My lip was getting quite swollen
Trapped between brace and tooth
So I tried with my tongue to free it
But I couldn’t get it to move

Veronica thought that my actions
Meant I was kissing her back
So she doubled her efforts at snogging
Then suddenly something went ‘crack’

The sprung-loaded brace became looser
As one of the hinges had popped
Veronica Johnson let out a scream
But at least the kissing had stopped

Veronica Johnson then hit me
“Bloody ‘ell, do you know what you’ve done?
Those things cost a small fortune
And you’ll pay if I need a new one!”

I very quickly retreated
To where the other boys play
‘Cos if that’s what kissing girls is like
I’d rather be a gay!

Veronica Johnson kissed me (Part 2)

Veronica Johnson kissed me
That was many years ago
But the memory still haunts me
I just cannot let it go

She left school before she was meant to
Something about having a kid
I never saw her with her baby
I guess her social worker did

She was given a flat near McDonalds
On a street that was really a slum
But nobody paid much attention
To the men who started to come

Veronica took any client
Regardless of age, looks or weight
But one day she landed a good one
The local magistrate

Veronica started the blackmail
She said she had plenty of proof
Some uncompromising photos
From a camera in the roof

She’d take them to the papers
Or show them to his wife
Unless he paid her money
For the rest of his natural life

Veronica used his money
To better herself by far
She moved to a nicer location
And bought herself a new car

Often I would see her
As she drove by our front door
Dressed in the latest fashion
In her brand new four-by-four

The next I heard she had married;
The man three times her age
A broker in the city
With a very large family estate

She wanted to be an ‘it girl’
To be known around the town
But her features, not pretty, more macho
Were what really let her down

The surgery took forever
But no expense was spared
And when the dressings came off her
Well, everybody stared

Veronica Johnson was gorgeous
A wonder to behold
The talk of the top social circles
Dull rock turned to pure gold

She was there at every big party
And every gala review
She brought out her own brand of makeup
And an exclusive perfume too

But still she wasn’t happy
And became a complete recluse
Searching for some answers
Looking for some truths

After many months of torment
The solution one day hit her
And with yet more operations
Veronica turned into Victor

I met him in a club in town
Where gay men go to meet
Eyes across the dance floor
He swept me off my feet

We’ve been together three years now
And the rest is history
I thank the stars and luck and love
That Veronica Johnson kissed me.

Life is a rollercoaster (either that or I just turned into Ronan Keating), as I pick my way through the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune along the rocky, up-hill, road of life, trying to spot the potholes, but more often than not ending tit-deep in a bottomless puddle, Dawn French style.

Yesterday was just one of those days. Didn’t sleep well – I think I clocked up about 30 minutes (taken in 5-minute chunks), so the day started with major league grumpiness and a general hatred for anything that slept better than me. Not aided of course by two cats of differing temperaments – one lying fast asleep on the sofa, legs open and brandishing his pussy bits (now THAT is a contradiction in terms) and actually snoring. The sort of snoring that says to a knackered person, “ha, bloody ha! You didn’t sleep last night and now I’m going to make you suffer”. The second cat I think had been secretly snorting lines of Iams and was hyper, demanding attention in the way cats do best – giving you the saddest look possible then sticking their bum in your face!  He just wouldn’t leave me alone. We’re talking here about demented prancing on keyboard, sitting on hand that uses mouse, jostling arm whilst typing and head-banging the monitor. “Pick him up and put him on the floor” becomes a game – to see how many times he could make me do it. After about 20 repetitions and with no energy left to play Mr Nice Guy I resorted to the only guaranteed method of ensuring cats give me a good 10 yard exclusion zone – reach for the wormer SpotOn!  Usually a drop of that on their necks and I’m excommunicated for at least a few hours. I think this bought about 20 minutes respite. Oh well!  Some days exist only to take the piss out of you and you know you should have stayed in bed!  But Struggled on and at least the day started bright and Sunny  – good washing day.  Several loads in overflowing basket and a chance to bash on with them. Pegged out second lot of clothes. Forecast said hot; sky said “Ohhh fresh washing, let’s have some fun”. So, ups and downs of the day became ins and outs – same shit, different gearing!

On the plus side, there was a sparkle of good in the morning as David escaped unscathed from the Dentists following a checkup plus a clean and polish, so he came home with a Colgate ring of confidence glowing like a fallen halo.

The afternoon though heralded my second hospital excursion of the week and because David was already off work it was an ideal chance to turn it into a family outing, so that at least he could ask the doctor any questions he has from a carers point of view. I know that following the chemo and because of all the damage that has been done to my body, I still have a few things that need sorting.  Many of these things are on hold until my blood returns to normal. In simple terms, the lymphoma was also widely spread in my bone marrow. It is the marrow which produces blood cells. The chemo killed off not only the cancer but also a lot of the bone marrow’s ability to produce more blood. Of greatest importance are the white cells, which form part of the immune system. So with each chemo session my immune system was destroyed and then had to re-grow in a process similar to burning moorland – raze everything to the ground, and allow the healthy shoots to grow back. (Of course in the ‘dips’ of the treatment you go through periods where you are extremely susceptible to infection and feel very ill, but then things start to grow again and you get a bit of immunity back.) All this means that I am now being monitored to check the proportions of white cells in my blood as the system kicks back in and grows in strength. These are steadily rising, but it will be a while before I’m fit enough to tackle some of the residue problems.

As you’ll know, I’ve been having problems with nausea and the ultrasounds and gastroscopy a few weeks ago gave us some clues – no signs of any ulcers etc but evidence of slow digestion probably caused by some of the pills I’m taking. What is happening is that food is staying in my stomach longer than expected, so when I come to eat a meal I’m already partially full and reach a point where there is no room, so a vomit reaction is triggered.  Change the pills, speed the digestion, stop the nausea, save the cheerleader, save the world – or something like that.

So I was actually really excited yesterday about finally moving this forward and starting to be able to enjoy food again, instead of having to have a bucket or barf-bag close at hand all the time which isn’t a good look if you have guests round or want to eat out anywhere.  Maybe I should live on an aeroplane where barf bags are always provided anyway! Just to be able to eat a meal without fear of an encore would be such a huge thing for me. And simple to resolve if it just needs a tweak to my medication – and that’s better than anything that may need surgery, no nasty lumps or ulcers or tumours or even men called Jonah, stuck in my tummy, left over from the days when I wasn’t the streamlined person you see today. I like to say I’m feeling summary – not Summery, in the context of shorts, shades and sunscreen, but summary, meaning “a small, succinct version”.

We got parked, eventually, and made it to the ward in good time. They took my weight, as they do, which was slightly increased from last time and is a good sign. So things looking up, positive vibes. It’s going to be a good day! Let’s put the past behind us, sort these pills out and start feeling human again! These milestone days are few and far between!

People keep telling me to be optimistic, and that really infuriates me. For me you see, optimism is just a blind faith that everything will be alright. That sort of thinking does not prepare you for the fact that some things DON’T go according to plan. My way of dealing with things is to try to understand what is happening to me and what the various outcomes may be. If I know a treatment will make me feel nauseous then I can prepare myself for it. An example: When I was in hospital one night my vision went very weird. I started to get a point directly in front where I couldn’t focus, like someone had inserted a contact lens with a smudge in the middle. Then I started to not be able to pull the images from my two eyes together, so I saw double of everything. Now this happened on a night when the ward was under a lot of pressure with an emergency admission of someone who was very poorly and quite rightly the nurses needed to give that patient the lion’s share of their attention, and when I called a nurse I was told they would get to me as soon as possible – I was non-critical in terms of my care at the time, so clearly and rightly a lower priority. BUT I was lying in bed scared beyond belief that I was going blind. Bright lights were agony, everything started to spin (like I’d downed three bottles of Scotch and sat up too fast) and I was terrified. I remember it well enough – I’d been watching “Muriel’s Wedding” and deciding that adding a couple of ABBA songs is just simply not enough to turn a turd into a tiara! I’ll not rush to watch it again – that was in fact my second time because I convinced myself that I must have missed something on my first viewing! It was the best part of three hours before I got to speak to someone properly and I defy even the most balanced mind to not start working up worst-case scenarios when left with so much time in such a situation. When I WAS seen I was told in a very off-hand way that. “oh yes, that’s a side effect of the steroids. It is only temporary and you’ll be fine in the morning. Just sleep it off.” If I had know that I’d have been prepared and nowhere nearly as scared. When I asked the consultant the next day why I hadn’t been told about this he said that it was a side effect that not everyone experienced and they tend to not tell people because they don’t want to scare them!

So back to my point – being realistic. What is better: “You’ll be fine, everything will be ok”, or “It isn’t an easy ride and you’ll have some difficulties along the way, but if you know about them you can be prepared for them and face them head-on”? I know my body by now. I know when things are not right. I knew I was very ill a year before I was diagnosed with cancer but all my idiot GP managed to come up with was that I was suffering from stress and sitting badly at work!  Now I think that my approach IS optimistic. I acknowledge that there are still things not right, I tell the doctors about them, I go for tests to understand what is happening with the intention of resolving the cause of the problem. Is that not entirely optimistic? Is that not all about wanting to be better? Surely that is more positive than sticking my head in the sand and hoping things will just sort themselves out in time?

So I went to my appointment yesterday with this optimism, knowing that I’d had a plethora of tests and that the gastrologer had a clear understanding of what was causing my nausea. Except MY doctor, the nice one, the helpful one, the one who gets things done, wasn’t there. He’s off ill. So I was landed with a supply teacher – the medical equivalent of a Hobby Bobby. I knew more about my tests and their results than he did. I’m convinced that he was briefed to just keep things in a holding pattern, don’t make any radical changes, don’t do anything clever. You see, MY doctor would have said, “your tests came back clear, so here are the next things to try…” Whereas the stooge pretty much said, “your tests came back fine so I’m not going to do anything…”  Do you see the difference? So I asked if there was anything I could do in terms of diet to speed up digestion.  His answer was to increase my fibre intake, and at that point a shiver went down my spine because he clearly had not understood the problem at all! I need the food in my stomach to digest more quickly. Fibre is slow to digest, produces roughage, which helps the passage of waste out of the body when it has left the stomach. It is exactly OPPOSITE of what I need. He’s prescribed me some anti nausea pills though which I suppose is something, although I kinda feel this is paining over the crack and not fixing the problem.

Simple analogy: Think of my stomach as a swimming pool. Adults (or food) swim in the pool and it all functions perfectly. Introduce some children (pills) who have a tendency to wee in the water, and things become unbalanced.  So you have three options to restore the balance:

1. Remove the children (pills) entirely. We tried this for 5 days and at the end of that period I was feeling much less sick. The day I started the pills again I felt poorly! But this is not a long-term solution – I need the pills like the pool needs the revenue the kids generate.
2. Add chlorine to the water to mask the effects of the children’s pee. (Or in this case, give me anti-sickness pills)
3. Get some better children who have been taught to not piss in the pool.

I was hoping for option 3, but came away with option 2. Although, knowing the lack of understanding the guy had for my actual system and where the problem lies I suspect that rather than giving me chlorine he’s probably misdiagnosed completely and has given me a note to get the dressing rooms redecorated, thus attracting more pissing kids and turning me into a toxic cess pit! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…!

Addendum to the above:

Forgot to say, Dr Quack wasn’t able to prescribe the new pills from the hospital pharmacy so we had to run a note from him down to my idiot GP’s practice yesterday so that Dr Diabolical could prescribe the pills. Dr Quack made big mutterings about these tablets and how they were expensive (have some guilt along with your pills), so I guess the truth is that he wanted the GP to foot the bill and not the hospital.

Turned up at the GPs today and was told they are only giving me 5 days of the pills in case I get side effects! Oh THIS bodes well! I ALWAYS get side effects! What they mean is they are expensive pills so they HOPE I get side effects and then they don’t have to foot the bill!  But my position between rock and hard place is firmly established and I poodled off the the attached pharmacy to pick up pills. “Sorry, we don’t have these in”! Joy! Drive to other pharmacy in reasonable distance: Closed for lunch.

When I checked the prescription though something clicked. Dr Quack had called the pills by a technical name, not the trade name, Ondaznetron. Had them before, during the Chemo. Little yellow tablets, taste of banana. Didn’t help my sickness. I have some upstairs still – let me check the patient information sheet… Oh yes, those are the ones that fucked up my vision that time in hospital. Well, I should have known!