So, in case you were under the impression my blogs were just a tissue of lies, check out these bad boys. Pork loin, marinated in teriyaki and chilli for seven hours, served with fresh Algarvian salad and a cheeky bottle of Alentejo. Wish you could have been there 😋
I’m the first one to admit that my housekeeping skills are about as impressive as my DIY skills – fairly non-existent. I barely know one end of a screwdriver from the other, and I’ve got more chance of flying to the moon than putting up a set of shelves.
I’m not entirely useless around the house though. I have managed to work out the mechanics of an ironing board, have successfully pressed the odd shirt in my time, and I’m not a complete stranger to the hoover either, although I do sometimes miss out the corners.
I’ve also been known to do a bit of cooking back in the day and managed to successfully fend for myself during my bachelor years. I had to really as this was before the internet and Deliveroo etc and our local chippy was all that was on offer as far as takeaways were concerned. But as we have a pristine white kitchen at our apartment in Brighton I’m persona non grata when there’s meals to be prepared nowadays, as I’d manage to use every pot, pan and utensil even if preparing something as mundane as cheese on toast, and guaranteed to leave a hell of a mess over the cooker, walls and floor.
We are at our place in Portugal at the moment though, where it is a slightly different story, as unlike our flat in Brighton, here we have a BBQ, so I am in my element. I’m using it virtually every day while I can as it’s our penultimate trip; we have found a buyer for the house, exchanged contracts and the sale will be completed in the middle of June.
So it’s almost the end of an era. Like most blokes I consider myself to be a brilliant driver and outdoor cook, and in my case of course it’s all true…. although I’m not allowed to drive anymore since Bastard Cancer showed up in my brain again and you can’t BBQ in a 4th floor flat with no balcony, so I’m currently BBQing as much as I can.
Naturally the two usual ground rules are being vigorously observed.
Firstly, no bloke, whether he be Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal or whoever can ever interfere with another blokes’s barbie. That includes, touching, turning, seasoning, even advising or commenting on the job in hand. In fact any man encroaching within 3 metres of my range is liable to get stabbed with a fork. A distanced positive remark like “smells good” is welcome, but never, ever, offer help in any manner, shape or form.
Secondly, it’s my domain. Man’s work. It brings out the hunter gatherer caveman in me; women are also not welcome. Saying that, I will concede that the Blonde does go out to the shop to buy the meat. She does lay out all the appropriate utensils, keep me supplied with cold beers during the cooking, prepare the salad, provide nibbles, lay the table, entertain our guests, bring the plates out, set out the sauces and condiments, chill and serve the wine, heap praise on me for providing such a lavish feast, offer and provide dessert, clear up afterwards, do the washing up and put everything away.
Yes, she does all that, but it’s me that puts the meat on the grill, turns it, and puts it on the plates that she’s provided. Makes me proud that I can give her a night off…
On Wednesday afternoon this week (17th) I was sitting back in my big chair, staring out of the window, in quiet contemplation and reflection. My mind drifted back to last Saturday morning, and my participation in a golf tournament at my home club, East Brighton GC. It had been a perfect morning, weatherwise, none of the driving rain or gale-force winds that had been battering the south coast for weeks on end. It was dry, sunny, with a fairly gentle southerly breeze, hardly tee-shirt weather but ideal for golf. I’d been drawn to play with three very nice chaps, one of whom was a former club champion and a good friend, and I was feeling fit and well.
I took up golf too late in life, my late forties, to ever be any good, so I know my limitations, but just like when I played football as a younger man, I try to make up for lack of talent with effort and enthusiasm. Of late my game has been pretty good by my standards, I’d found a bit of form, and as I stood on the first tee I was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about my chances, especially when I nailed my first drive and it flew up the middle of the fairway.
That, as it turned out, proved to be my first and last good shot of the day. My next was a shank that flew wildly to the right, and so did the next. The next four hours was a succession of more shanks, hooks, slices, duffs, thins, tops, three-putts – the only thing missing was an air shot, which to the uninitiated is an attempt to hit the ball and you fail to connect with it at all. To use a football parlance, I had a total mare. I ended up coming third last in the competition – how bad must the other two blokes have been? – and as I walked home from the course I was feeling rather disappointed and pretty despondent.
Saying that, by the time I got home, it’s a fifteen-minute walk, downhill all the way, I’d got over myself and was already looking forward to my next game.
So why did my mind drift back to Saturday morning’s debacle some four days later, on Wednesday afternoon, sitting in my big chair?
Well, to explain, this was no ordinary big chair. This one was purple, one of twenty or more in the room, with a comfy footrest and a bleeping machine set up beside it and a translucent tube running from a little pouch of clear liquid suspended above my shoulder through a cannula into the back of my left hand.
I was of course in the Chemo Suite of the Cancer Ward of the Royal Sussex County Hospital receiving my ninetieth (yes, 90th) cycle of JJ, aka Jungle Juice, aka Pembrolizumab. It was now over eight and a half years since I’d received a Stage IV terminal diagnosis, as mentioned above I am feeling as well as I have in years, my last scan results were good, and I reflected, with a wry smile, how lucky I am that currently all I have to worry about is my golfswing….
As a rule I don’t watch daytime TV. However if we are at home at around 5pm on a weekday I’m no stranger to sitting down with a nice cuppa or something stronger and enjoying an episode of The Chase, the very popular quiz show hosted by the chirpy cheeky Cockney chappy by the name of Bradley Walsh. I’m a big fan. I was formerly a bigger fan of Bradley himself as when he starred in a TV cops and robbers series a few years ago he regularly had a coffee mug on his desk that suggested he was a Hammer, but I subsequently discovered he was in fact a supporter of the Arsenal. Shame about that.
Anyway, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the format of the programme. Four members of the public try to “outrun” the chaser by correctly answering various general knowledge questions, including a multichoice round where the contestants have a two-to-one chance of guessing the right answer.
I caught an episode earlier this week, and it followed the familiar format. The four competitors couldn’t have been more diverse. There’s generally one really brainy person, who is a secret pub-quizer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a plethora of subjects, plus an old boy who is clever but very slow and thinks the world stopped in 1950, and two random others.
The first of the “others” this time was a sixty-five-year-old retired teaching assistant and grandmother from Shrewsbury. That instantly rang alarm bells. She’d spent around forty years in employment and the best she could do was find a job that involved nothing more stimulating than tidying up pencils. It was no shock that she was quickly caught and eliminated.
Then there was the fourth and final contestant. I’m sure Bradley picks them personally just for the giggles. Revelling in the non-binary name of River and sporting bright red hair, that he/she/it cuts themself, and charity shop clobber, was our student from Wolverhampton. He/she/they was most tetchy about his/her/their preferred pronouns and proudly announced that if he/she/they won any money he/she/they would spend it on a trip to India to seek spiritual enlightenment.
Some bleedin’ chance. Being a typical student, our River was as thick as a Boxing Day turd. He/she/it hadn’t the faintest idea about anything in particular, whether it be literature, geography, current affairs, sport, especially sport, or anything else for that matter. “They” managed to win one thousand pounds in the “cashbuilder” round, predictably took the minus offer in the chase itself and got eliminated very quickly.
Bradley offered some words of consolation, with all the sincerity he could muster, but as River sloped off the stage you couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him/her/it.
After all, he/she/they were about halfway through a life that was mapped out and had till then consisted of the following:
Achieve moderate “A” Level results
Gain entry to a second rate Yunee
Pick a daft course like Eskimo folk dance
Accumulate vast debt
Graduate with a useless BA and no life skills
Pretend to be a victim
Become vegan
Get a sleeve tattoo
Live in pokey bedsit
Blame it all on climate change / Covid / Brexit
Vote Labour
Block the M25
Support Queers for Palestine
Get a crap job in the Snivel Service
Hate the job
Go back to Yunee to get a Masters
And so on….
All that, and still thought that Venice was the capital of Austria.
I hope it pours down on Sunday. I know that sounds a bit selfish, or a line from a famous hit by the Temptations, but you see I’ll be going nowhere, as basically I can’t, so it might as well rain.
Just to explain, Easter in Brighton was bad enough, but this Sunday sees the arrival of the annual Brighton Marathon, which is worse. That brings with it traffic chaos, multiple road closures and massive congestion. So we won’t be able to drive anywhere, or walk very far for that matter either as the walkways along the seafront will be largely off-limits.
We can’t even have a long lie-in, as the marathon route follows its way along Marine Parade and there is always a group of spectators that gather under our bedroom window, encouraging the participants by whooping loudly and shouting things like “Way to go” or ‘Yah, you got this” like a bunch of demented Americans. Get over yourselves girls, you’re from Worthing, not Wisconsin, do shut up, I’m trying to read the paper.
I don’t know, or care, where the marathon starts or finishes, but I know the runners will all be there, at the start line, checking their left wrists every ten seconds, doing that funny little running-on-the-spot warm up exercise and chatting with their rival competitors, trying to look cool and unfazed in their matching vest and bandanna, but really bursting with adrenalin, exchanging awkward pleasantries in their own unintelligible language:
“Oh, Hi Justin, not seen you since the Half.”
“Yah, Rupert, PB’d with a one fifty-five six”
“Doin’ London May?”
“No, Tri in ‘Dam 20th.”
“Awesome.”
Then off they set. Amazing isn’t it, how many marathon runners are ginger. What is it they are running away from, I wonder. They’re unsmiling, miserable looking and all have skinny pale legs too; vegan naturally, you can tell by their pasty complexions. They might survive on a plant-based diet and vote green, but they clearly have no problem littering the streets of Brighton with many thousands of empty plastic water bottles for someone else to pick up…
And when they triumphantly cross the finish line, check their left wrist for the thousandth and last time and pick up their free Jim’ll Fix It badge and a Snickers bar, do they go straight home? Do they bugger, they hang around for ages in their Bacofoil blankets or worse still Dryrobe camouflage coats, strutting around like they have just won a war or something. Tossers.
As you can tell, I’m not a runner; never have been. Even when I played football I didn’t run much, I just kicked anything in range that moved. Also, I’d never pay £300 for a pair of plimsolls, or wear a vest as they really don’t suit me – I look like the sort of bloke who would go to Seaworld Orlando just to inappropriately touch a dolphin.
No, I’m more a “sturry” kind of guy. Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, particularly as I made it up, it’s that weird blend of running, jogging and walking that men of a certain age and demographic learn to perfect over their twilight years, and I certainly meet all the criteria. If you’ve never “sturried” I can highly recommend it. It’s a way to look like you’re hurrying when you physically can’t. I did it several times the other day. Started when a speeding car braked sharply to let me cross at a pedestrian crossing, then when a nice young lady held a shop door open for me, when helping a bunch of lads retrieve an errant football that was bouncing down the prom and finally when the bus home was about to close its doors at the bus stop as I was approaching it. It’s a fine art, is sturrying, especially handy if you’re ever caught in an unexpected rain shower, generally accompanied by a little wave, a self-depreciating smile and an ironic raise of the eyebrows. Try it please, you might enjoy it, a lot more than those miserable marathon runners, that’s for sure.
Happy Good Friday everyone! Today’s the day we commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus H Christ, if you believe in that particular fairytale. Got to hand it the geezer though, he did singlehandedly make open-toe sandals cool, as well as inventing hot cross buns which are bloody delicious, nice and toasted with lashings of full fat English butter. None of that slimy anaemic unsalted Lurpak rubbish.
Not forgetting overpriced hollow chocolate eggs, he dreamt them up too, apparently – although we are not allowed to call them “Easter Eggs” nowadays, it might upset believers in other fairytales who get very angry if we promote our own particular Anglican favourite. No, we have to call them “gesture eggs” like those nice people at Cadburys do. Good innit, most of Central London is festooned with Happy Ramadan lights, as decreed by Mayor Sadiq Kaahnt, but we don’t dare utter the word “Easter” in case it causes offence to those of a nervous religious disposition. Yet another indication, if ever we needed one, of the ridiculous woke times in which we now live.
Saying that though, I do have a problem with Easter (sorry, Gesture)-related greetings cards What kind of psycho sends Easter cards, especially with pictures of fluffy chicks on the front? What’s that all about? Nobody I know that’s for sure. It’s definitely a bit odd, like sending birthday cards to your dog. Proper weird.
Anyway, we are back in Blighty now of course, not much planned over the Bank Holiday, but the Blonde suggested we could go out for the day. The problem is, living on Brighton seafront, as we do, we can hardly step outside over Easter without being assaulted by the noise of a few thousand geriatric Mods & Rockers racing up and down Marine Parade. Don’t know which is worse, the roar of the “hogs” ridden by fat Meatloaf lookalike blokes in leather or the thoroughly annoying whine of revving Vespas and Lambrettas, and the beep beep beep of their silly little hooters, ridden by blokes in two-tone suits and dodgy haircuts who think they are Paul Weller. At least the two aging factions no longer throw deckchairs about or knock nine kinds of shit out of each other; they all congregate together in perfect harmony, eat chips, drink tea and reminisce about the good old days. Bless ‘em.
And if we do get to cross the road it’s near on impossible to walk along the prom, gridlocked as it is by utterly loathsome extended families down for the day, five abreast with double buggies, bedecked in vests and Reebok shorts despite the arctic conditions, ambling along at a snail’s pace, chomping on ice-creams with their uncontrollable dogs and kids, all of whom should be muzzled. Trying to get past these chubsters leads me to reflect, not for the first time since we moved down here, that it is probably just as well I’m not allowed to carry a gun.
I guess we could go off for a drive somewhere, but we’d just then become somebody else’s unwanted tourist, and we’d never get a parking space when we got back. Or go to the pub, but it’ll be mobbed with saddos who want to sample every type of real ale on offer before plumping for a half of Fosters…
No, we’ll just have to take it on the chin, say home and have a nice traditional roast leg of lamb for lunch. Hang on, make that a joint of pork, and a few bottles of wine, hopefully it’ll offend someone. Happy Gesture!
Flicking through the internet the other day I stumbled upon an article from Business Insider magazine that quoted the findings of a recent global survey which ranked the UK as the second most miserable place on earth in which to live. Yep, it seems the citizens of such countries as Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and even war-torn Ukraine are more content than your average Brit. We have come second as every true gentleman should… Only Uzbekistan was found to be more miserable than the UK – well done to them I say, at least you came first in something, we can’t even win a “how pissed off are you” competition, that’s how crap we are at everything.
Is it any wonder though that, as a nation, us Brits go about our business as if we have a dark black cloud permanently over our heads?
Well, talking of black clouds, there is the weather of course. This winter appears to have been endless with the same wet, grey, windy conditions with us for anything up to ten months of the year. Global warming has clearly passed us by – it’s the middle of March and it’s still bloody freezing.
And apart from the weather, we have the highest rates of taxation in living memory, an ineffective and pathetic government, uncontrolled immigration, roads full of potholes, a health service that hoovers up £150 billion of public money but on the verge of collapse with a third of the population on a waiting list, and a media that peddles incessant lies and only seems to concern itself with a narrow strip of land 2000 miles away and the whereabouts of a member of the royal family.
Then there are the councils and public service bodies that have lost all sense of their proper purpose and prefer to pour all their efforts and your cash into virtue-signalling vanity projects, with particular reference to diversity, equity and inclusion; the fallout from Brexit, 20mph speed limits, the erosion of law and order, and Jeremy Bloody Vine (aka BikeNonce).
Let’s also not forget the High Street in just about every major town and city, once the hub and centre of the community, now a sorry line of boarded-up shops, fried chicken outlets and Turkish barbers that never seem to have any customers but somehow afford the owners a brand new BMW every year and a big house on the edge of town. Wonder how they could possibly afford such luxuries…. But who wants to visit the High Street anyway, when it involves picking your way through urine-drenched sleeping bags, piles of rubbish and violent drug addicts?
So that’s it, that’s why we got silver medal in the global misery stakes and our national default setting is one of hangdog miserable dissatisfaction where anyone who appears perky or happy is treated with general mistrust and assumed to be a little mentally unstable or one of the aforementioned junkies.
Ah, but not me though. I’m not miserable at all, well certainly not currently anyway – I’m still wallowing in the phone call last week from Dr Westwell and the positive results from my latest scans. And I’m in Portugal…Happy days.
Cast your mind back a couple of weeks, if you would. You might recall that my Macmillan CNS Claire called to say the scans I’d had in January still hadn’t been reported on. My case was to be discussed at an oncologists’ meeting on 5th March, and I’d be informed of the outcome. I didn’t hear anything that day, although Claire did come and find me in the chemo ward the following afternoon, while I was hooked up to the drip and receiving my 89th infusion of Pembrolizumab (JJ to me and you), to reassure me that they would definitely have a comprehensive report and full results by the 20th March, almost two months after the scans, and she would call me then. I wasn’t convinced.
This was turning out to be by far the longest period of scanxiety I’d experienced in the last eight and a half years. As anyone in my situation will tell you, it’s the “not knowing” that’s the worst. You tell yourself not to worry, put it all to the back of your mind, but you just can’t. It’s constantly there, nagging away, keeping you awake at night, a proper mindf*ck…
So, I was resigned to waiting another week at least for some definitive news when my mobile phone rang on Wednesday afternoon (13th). The screen showed “No Caller ID” and as I wasn’t expecting to hear from any of the medical team, I presumed it must be Bombay Bobby telling me he was from “Bitty” or “Were-gin Meeja” or “Microsoft technical department” trying to scam me out of my hard-earned cash.
How wrong I was. I immediately recognised the dulcet and cultured tones on the other end of the line. It was the fragrant Dr Sarah Westwell, calling totally out of the blue.
“Tell me Bill, what exotic part of the world are you in?” she asked.
“Errr, the sunny Algarve” I replied almost guiltily.
“Well, I thought I’d give you a ring to tell you that the reports from your last scans have finally arrived.”
Now it’s at this point that I would normally have started sweating profusely and panicking like Stevie Wonder in a darts final. I know how busy Sarah is on a Wednesday, for her to call me unexpectedly like this would normally lead me to fear the worst and set off very loud alarm bells in my head.
Fortunately though, we’d just returned from a sumptuous lunch of a whole barbecued robalo, about the size of a small whale, with all the trimmings, washed down with a bottle of Vinho Verde and a large complimentary brandy at our favourite restaurant in Ferragudo so I was feeling fairly relaxed.
“So, Bill” she continued, “looking at the reports, I can confirm that the lesion on the left side of your brain does indeed indicate a “partial response” and a resultant slight decrease in size. Also, the tumour in your lung remains stable in size with decreased activity compared to earlier results. There are no new sites. We’re heading in the right direction, let’s press on, get you scanned again at the beginning of May and go from there. Enjoy the rest of your time in Portugal; it’s bloody wet and cold here in Brighton.”
I didn’t want to take any more of her time than absolutely necessary but thanked her profusely for taking the trouble to call me, unscheduled, with this promising news. As she bid me farewell, I reflected on what she’d said – partial response – good medical term that, and one that I was extremely happy to hear.
Goodness me, didn’t we have some rain in February? I’m sure if I could be bothered to watch the smarmy twat weatherman in the suit made by Rishi’s tailor who does the weather report on the ITV evening news, he’d tell me it was the wettest month since the dawn of time and all down to climate change and fossil fuels. Maybe we should all pay more green taxes or sumfink; that’d sort it surely?
Anyway, it was bucketing it down again earlier this week, so I was confined to barracks. I took the opportunity to tidy up my sock drawer, I finished reading a fascinating book about the Plantagenet kings of England and polished my golf shoes to within an inch of their life. With little or nothing else to do I eventually succumbed, broke one of my own golden rules, and turned on daytime TV.
Oh my days, what a treat lay in store for me there in the shape of a programme called “Escaping To The Country” or something similar. Have you ever seen it? Basically a presenter who looks bored out of his brains has to show a selection of rural properties to a bunch of vile wealthy Londoners looking to relocate to the Shires. The episode I watched was an absolute belter.
There they were, Rufus and Sian, both in the media, with their three non-binary ginger kids – Milo, Ulysses and Xe. Both Rufus and Sian work from home – Cooooevid was a godsend for them so they have decided to sell the terraced house that they bought in Stoke Newington for four shillings and sixpence fifteen years ago, now worth £2.5million, and look for a “project” in the Shires.
As well as being loathsomely smug about the obscene profit they’ve made on their house in London, they are of course extremely demanding in their brief and requirements for their new dream home.
In terms of location, it must of course lie within a 90 minute drive of the centre of London, so that they can attend the theatre twice a month, with easy access to a Motorway and close to local amenities but without any trace of traffic noise or within ten miles of a flightpath. There must be a gastropub, satisfying their strict vegan dietary requirements, within a short drive and a private school which isn’t too fussy about taking in gingers.
The property itself must be carbon neutral, “sustainable” (whatever that means), nothing more recent than 18th century, but with planning permission to extend so that they can design and build their own zen area and yoga studio. There has to be an Aga, which they will never use, a wood-burning stove (sod the environment, these are rich people) and a dining room that can comfortably house a table for eight people, just for when friends drive down from London for the weekend (they won’t).
They will want to put their own “stamp” on the property, and as well as the yoga studio they will need an art studio as Sian is very creative, especially with road-kill, and a gymnasium that can house Rufus’s fixed weights, vintage porno collection and Peloton. Also the kids will need a cinema room so they can be locked away watching shit on Nickelodeon all day. Oh, a cellar of course as well, which can double up as somewhere to house the wine stock and the Filipino nanny.
The presenter then shows them three properties in and around the Cotswolds, which he’s confident will fit the bill. The first, in a picturesque hamlet called Cocks In the Water, is rejected as it has neighbours who drive a Honda, the second, in Swelling In The Buttocks, gets a thumbs down as the village pub isn’t gastro at all – the women there all have beards and smoke pipes – and the third, in Stubble On The Legg, didn’t have a garden big enough for the llamas (oh, sorry, forgot to mention them).
So that was it. The presenter failed. The programme finished with them all sitting in a olde-worlde café drinking green tea commiserating that they didn’t quite find their dream home. Rufus and Sian returned to Stoke Newington to attend an urgent Labour Party Councillors’ meeting to show solidarity with Hamas, while the presenter no doubt went straight off to another part of London to get off his nut on Jack Daniels and marching powder, vowing to murder his agent for getting him such a god awful fucking gig. I truly felt his pain.
As we left the office of the fragrant Dr Sarah Westwell on 24th January our plan of action was quite clear. I was to have another full body PET/CT scan as soon as possible and report back to her for a follow up appointment for the results of that scan on 28th February (this Wednesday).
How hard could that be? Well, exceedingly so, as it turns out. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that it took a total of 27 calls to get a booking for the scan, but I assumed the appointment with Sarah would be reasonably straightforward. They normally come through within a few days, but when three weeks had elapsed and I hadn’t heard anything alarm bells started to ring. That led me to making yet more unanswered calls, leaving messages, sending emails that bounced back as mailboxes were full, and generally getting fairly stressed. However it was a great relief to finally get through to someone on the booking team last Friday (23rd) who confirmed that I had finally been allocated an appointment for this Wednesday 28th.
Incredibly I received a letter in the post the very next day by way of confirmation, but I was most disappointed to read that it was not face-to-face with Sarah; it was a telephone call with “a member of the oncology team”. Haven’t had one of them since Cooooevid. Strange. I could only assume that Sarah’s list for that day was by then totally full and this was the only available option.
Wednesday came, my call was booked for 1230 but being British and paranoid I made sure I was home and ready to receive it from about 1100. That was the start of four hours sat staring at two phones, waiting for one of them to ring. Just to clarify, I’ve not developed a sideline as a drug dealer or anything else to explain the two phones; I’ve got my mobile and we still have a landline. I’m a bloke so I never use it of course, although the Blonde does. If it was up to me it would have been chucked out long ago with the Betamax video, the Teasmade and the hostess trolley, but I suppose it is still handy to have as a back up if the hospital need to get in touch.
It’s the waiting around that’s the worst. It was nearer 1500 than 1230 when my (mobile) phone finally rang, with the unmistakeable “No Caller ID” notification on the screen. I answered it before the second ring; there was a familiar voice on the other end of the line, but it wasn’t Dr Westwell or any of her oncology team – it was Claire, my Macmillans CNS.
Don’t get me wrong, Claire is lovely, she’s a specialist nurse and she’s been with me since day one, but I really had hoped it would be one of the doctors who could take me through the results of the scan, interpret the radiologist’s findings and explain everything to me. She confirmed that she had the reports of both my brain MRI and the full body PET scans in front of her and proceeded to read certain extracts out to me:
“…..blah, blah, restaging, partial response left solitary posterior frontal peripheral lesion, no toxicities, something, something, further infusions, neuro-oncolgy MDM, no visible oedema, recent SRS, no undetected new sites, without evidence of progression, minor reduction in activity lower left lobe lung lesion blah, blah……..”
“OK Claire, that all sounds pretty promising to me, if I’m interpreting you correctly?”
“Yes, Bill, I’d say it appears that way. Looks to me like things are relatively stable and we carry on with treatment. However, I will speak to Dr Westwell and ensure the oncology team include your case in their review meeting next Tuesday (5th March).
“Oh, OK, but it all looks like we are heading the right way to you though, doesn’t it Claire?”
“Yes, I think so, but obviously Dr Westwell will make the final call on this. Try not to worry.”
So that’s where I am, trying not to worry, as the lady said. I think the scan results were positive, but the bloody merry-go-round carries on. I’m sure if there was anything untoward or sinister to address urgently it would have been clearly highlighted in the radiologist’s report. Wouldn’t it? It would be nice to know for sure though….
Not that I’m complaining. I’m well over eight years down the line now since diagnosis, I currently feel really well, and if the feeling of continuous stress and anxiety is one of the prices I have to pay, along with the surrendering of my driving licence, again, then so be it. I’ve got my next cycle of JJ scheduled for next Wednesday – at least that is set in stone, as long as my “bloods” the day before don’t throw up any anomalies – and then it will be back into battle with the NHS bookings departments as the next round of scans will be due before you know it. The merry-go-round keeps on spinning around.
BILL'S BLOG 