Consultant visit - winding my neck in a bit
On Tuesday we went along for my first visit in six months to my lovely straight-talking consultant up at Addenbrookes in Cambridge. My approach to cancer since getting it has really been Carpe Diem, on the basis that the only day I can ever affect is today, not tomorrow. You may see this as positivity or realistic fatalism, but it works for me, and I have no intention of changing it.
Since being diagnosed nearly two and a half years ago I have had about a year of very tolerable treatment, punctuated by three months being beaten up by the Stem Cell Transplant, but since May last year I have really been in 'complete fraud' territory, as it has been very difficult to convince anyone, even myself, that I am ill, even though I know I am. And if in a crowded room you said "pick the person with incurable cancer", very few would point at me. But I hope to be, following Cro's example, a realist, as that is more effective, less silly, and more useful.
For the last six weeks I have been trying to recover from a cold that went to my lungs and which has woken me up hacking up sputum on most nights since (hope you weren't eating. Soz). The same thing happened last summer and went on for about six weeks. Both have been very annoying episodes and intensely boring (as, I fear, is the retailing of them). But when I asked our lovely consultant C about it she said it is in fact a really common problem with the treatment, one of its few downsides. And I am probably going to have to just suck it up, as well as filling myself with every vaccine they can offer me. I certainly have no intention of living in a bubble, and I consider this annoyance a price worth paying for having a fairly normal life. To be truthful, the lung infection does take away some of my normal life, as things like circuit classes and cycling are just not possible. But I can play the flute, and if not that, the whistle. I can read, watch films, talk to friends, cook. It's not bad.
But I cannot tell myself now that I am a complete fraud, as I do have something that reminds me (and anyone within earshot). I am still not going to avoid going to interesting places, but I will not be stupid about it. I had already cancelled one trip on doctor's advice. But if I can, I will. It is maybe even useful because it stops me getting complacent about the great enjoyment that I get from life and travel and friends and love. I am really a happy little sandbag and am not asking for my money back. But the well-known phrase in the title of this blog - Wind your neck in (OK, I suppose it's better known if you have Irish relatives) , that well known phrase reminds you not to presume or to be too bullish, about anything: Your abilities, your importance, your opinions, or even your future. Stay humble.
And while I was having my three-hour immunoglobulin infusion the ward doctor came round to tell me the results of the chest X-ray that they did, to rule out anything malign. It did rule out malign but as radiographers are irritatingly competent and complete, they will tell you anything else that they spot, and they did tell me that there were plenty of lesions in my ribs and collarbones (I knew this, as that's what the myeloma did before it was treated). What I didn't know is that it looks like I did actually fracture my collarbone when I had that crash on the bike ride to Paris, as they can see a slightly misaligned fracture near the shoulder. It probably wouldn't have cracked without the lesions, so it does make you feel a little bit more fragile (which you literally are).
But as I said, this health news will not change my plans or anything else. And in matters of planning, Tennyson's Ulysses has always been my travel adviser, dickhead though he may have been painted. The whole lovely poem is here ( Tennyson's Ulysses )but I can do no better than to end with some of his words:
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