D-Day minus one

Yet more harbingers of doom as I count down to my surgical fate. Lying in the centre of the road was a dead cat. The Times today carries a pull-out supplement on Modern Cancer Therapies. And  suddenly we have to quit our unit in Clare Antiques Warehouse.

Contemplating what is to go

For many years we have had the unit: just a small modest affair, but it took us to auctions and car boot sales, and was hugely enjoyable. I was amazed to discover a world of Uranium glassware, ancient oak English furniture, or Victorian paintings and Silhouettes. My own favourite subject was the books, researching their dates and authors often unknown (to me) who had produced them, then pricing them. We had some beauties, including one lot of some 300 books from the estate of one elderly spinster, Jane Hunt. She had built the collection over her lifetime, and often visited the literary places described, keeping letters or postcards, or Times reviews or obituaries about the authors, or penciled marginalia, till I was able to build up a full and fascinating biography of her life. Many of her books I read myself, and would never have met them but for her. One collection I bought at auction was a full hardback set of first edition Terry Pratchetts, several of them signed. I kept those, and read some I hadn't seen before. But with all this looming we decided to quit the trade.

First thing this morning, we had a phone call saying someone wanted to take over our unit, so our stuff would be moved into another less favourable space. Then, within a few hours, we were told someone else decided they wanted a unit too, and we would have to get out by the end of next week, as the owner is slowly converting the place into accommodation, so many fewer units are now available. The one bright hope is that, knowing I face doom-day, the wonderful person who manages the place has promised to help move some stock into empty places, and find someone else to shift all the bookcases and books. I wonder if the Macmillan Trust would like to take everything?
Even Ann's new poem carries the melancholy of the days.

Ending

I know I must give you up
yield you to the mother earth
where once you sprang
with such enthused breath
to sing your sweet and merry song.
My heart sinks stone-like
in an everlasting pool
at the sombre, cruel hand
that points to losing you.

by Annie Elliott

D-Day minus two

Doom Day minus two. In Hundon, it is half-term, so MA and her family are away at the seaside, enjoying the last of the late summer. Ann has volunteered to look after her many animals, including the dogs. They are strong and lively, too much so to manage alone, so we walk them in pairs. 

Once things go wrong, they seem to keep going wrong. If I believed in omens, another one was thrown at me today. It took the shape of a paper I submitted to a physics journal about six weeks ago. I hadn't heard from them, so went on the site again today to check its progress. The paper had completely disappeared - no trace of it, and no record of having received it or of its rejection. All I could do was resubmit and hope it makes some progress through the system.

I get very tired now. We go to town, looking for winter jerseys for Ann, but I have to wait for her over a coffee in Waterstones. Visiting a bookshop was always a joy, to browse new titles and choose something unexpected almost at random. Today the excitement is gone, as I drift among the sections. Even Terry Pratchett fails to appeal - usually certain to provide a relaxing read. This cloud is depressing me before I even have the op or the treatments. Not a good omen for what is yet to come.

Ann says I can get some Viagra once I've recovered. I say I'd be embarrased to ask for it in Clare, I'd have to go to somewhere I won't be known. Ann says I can go disguised as a Mexican, with a huge moustache covering my face, and call myself Poncho Villa, but I'd probably forget and say "I'm Aston Villa".

Dreams of death

This is a morbid post. I dreamt last night of space ships, taking us to a room on a distant world. Pipes began to ooze water, and thick Kawasaki-green sludge that filled the room, then the planet and all of space between. The others were struggling to return to Earth, and blaming me for taking them there, then left me to drown in slime, alone and immovable as they returned home.

Today the summons came to attend the urology clinic at Addenbrookes, so on Friday I face Mr William Turner, a specialist in Reconstructive Urology at the Aggressive Bladder Cancer Unit. Their site blurb informs us: "Muscle invasive bladder cancer — because of the high risk that the cancer will spread from the bladder to other organs, the treatment for muscle invasive bladder cancer is often more intensive. It may include chemotherapy, surgery to remove the bladder and other organs, and radiotherapy." Then, to make sure the message gets home, "The outlook for people with muscle-invasive bladder cancer is not good....a complete cure is not often possible. Around half of people diagnosed with muscle-invasive bladder cancer will die within five years."

I suppose, on the optimistic side, this means my odds of being here in five years are 50:50, which is better than zero, but at what cost? Having seen it close to from the surgeon's side of the OR table, I dread the idea of radical cystectomy. Now I do wish there were people I could talk to who've been through it, and learn about it from the patient's side of the table.

Once, to dream of space ships was to dream of adventure and excitement. But then I was young, and those dreams, like the patients, are long gone. Despite the care and love of a supportive family, I feel quite alone as I wallow in these dark thoughts.

Ancient apples

The Nuttery is a mysterious ancient woodland above Clare, beyond the Swan. It's a wonderful place to walk the dogs. Once, in days when rectors had vast houses, servants and land to support them, it was private ground providing walnuts and hazelnuts, and fish from its pond for the rectory. Now it is overgrown common woodland, part of the network of public walks here. For Edwin, it is a gentle stroll up through the fields, but for me a breathless climb and I am glad to pause in the silence. It is cold out of the sun, and glades with log seats beckon. Strange figures carved in dead tree trunks lurk in the undergrowth. 

The Nuttery

A huge old apple tree, hidden from bygone days, hangs with glistening fruit beyond reach, but I pick a glowing red ember from among the recent windfalls, one fit to tempt Snow White. It is the sweetest, most succulent apple I ever tasted, veined with thin red streaks I’ve never seen before in any variety. It is cold from the overnight air, sweet and soft as candyfloss, quite unlike brands that boast "hard, crisp and crunchy". Even the skin was soft and could be eaten without wedging in the teeth. Perhaps it is one of those long-lost varieties that supermarkets reject. Back at the Swan, ripe walnuts have fallen on the car, remnants perhaps of that ancient wood.

Beneath the tranquility lie thoughts of what is to come. I have received a copy of the medical summary. There is little that was not discussed, but confirmation of a G3 pT2 TCC, i.e. an aggresive Grade 3 transitional cell carcinoma that has spread into the muscular wall of the bladder, grotesque and unnatural as terrible carvings in the deadwood. A large pelvic lymph node may indicate wider dissemination. Today is the Specialist Multi Disciplinary Team, or SMDT, meeting at Addenbrookes to determine management, and my fate. I await their call.

The downsides of being a man?

Catlin Moran, a well-known feminist writer, has devoted her life to women's causes. In The Times Magazine today, she argues for equality in popular terms for yearning and sexuality, listing a whole thesaurus for men's arousal, and comparing it with the only word she could muster for women's desires: moist. She describes "moist" as the worst word in the lexicon, although I have always considered "damp" or "wet" to be worse words - I'd rather be moist than damp or wet. She concludes by calling for new terms for female arousal, to redress the balance in the name of equality.

Now she asks on her Twitter feed, "What are the downsides of being a man?" I feel compelled to answer, but can think of no great problems I suffered in youth from my gender, so perhaps the question was rhetorical, or ironic. If I suffered at all, the problems were from my class – an old-fashioned word, but one meaning a working class background with basic education, low in expectation or encouragement. Most in my school left at 16 to work in factories, with no thought of university or even career jobs. A good apprenticeship was an aspiration. The sixth form was a runt class, and the few of us who left for higher education knew that Oxbridge was closed to comprehensive school boys with Midlands accents. I was fortunate indeed to be selected into St Thomas' Hospital.

St Thomas' medical school was filled with the public-school sons of consultants (but was considered less exclusive than Barts, which was rumoured to only select the sons of Barts consultants). There was a quota of women, but only to fill the legal minimum, and they from Roedean, Cheltenham Ladies College, and their ilk. I was the first and only working class entrant, possibly selected to fill another political quota. The teaching was world class, but I felt an outcast.

That early prejudice is well past. Now I feel the prejudice of the young against the old. TV programmes show active, virile people, chasing adventure, or idly flirting. Even the adverts aimed at we oldies – for funeral plans, care homes, stair lifts, or equity release – have actors in their 50's who look a fit generation away from me. In shops, people are annoyed with geriatrics who fumble for their money or can't work the card readers, and assistants look at me pityingly, thinking I should be in a care home, and turn to talk past me to someone more interesting even as they scan my items.

Only now am I aware of even mild prejudice against males. I am still working, but only in a consultant role, and most of the people I work amongst are young women, and the bosses are all women, and there is no danger that they are ever going to proposition me. There is, though, a sense that the selection process is unconsciously biased, and women will be given preferential treatment – but that is more likely to be my own opinion than fact. Also, as a man, I am aware that I tend to push my opinions with a strident voice, so make myself hold back, a repressed role that is forced upon me. There is an awareness that to be a white male, and especially an oldie white male, is to be placed behind the line of women, minorities, the disadvantaged, the LGBT community and people of colour.

I hope I have these terms right - they seem to change every few years, and all the other downsides of being a man will be as empty air compared to the wrath of these groups if I mislabel them. For that is the greatest downside of all: the virulence of complaint if we men step beyond the narrow lines they prescribe for us.

A lesson in cosmology

In cosmology, it is usual to talk of three types of universe. They are hard to envisage, because they are all three-dimensional and change with time, so it is is generally easier to hold a two-dimensional picture in one's mind, and leave the third and time dimensions to the mathematicians. The three are: ones that are flat, like a sheet of paper; ones with positive curvature, like a globe; and these with negative curvature, often likened to a saddle shape, curving in two opposite directions. Time is then "pictured" by thinking of the shapes as elastic, then being pulled equally in all directions so that if we draw little galaxies on them they will begin to move apart.

Visualizing the mysterious open Universe

What force pulls them apart? I said it was hard to imagine – indeed the force that started it all is itself described as "unimaginable" in all its attributes; vanishing smallness, infinite temperature, infinite density, and a time so small it is thought that no other time can ever be shorter. Cosmologists sum it up as the Big-Bang, though only the Universe itself could have heard it. Now imagine all that going on in three-dimensions, and the mind's eye fails. It really is easier to think of it as a great saucer carried by elephants. And how many people even handle saddles these days?

Not dead yet

We have walked the graveyard,
touched the tombstones
felt the putrid air of death
wept at the nameless wreath.
Today, we have rejoined life,
drank the sweet red wine,
eaten of the forbidden fruit
breathed the spring like autumn air,
it is our world
and we are still here.

by Annie Elliott

We may as well describe the open universe as the contrary curves of a woman's waist, usually hidden from view, everywhere quite mysterious, yet smooth and continuous. Ann is my Universe. Just don't describe the galaxies as wrinkles on the surface of time, moving apart as the curves expand, or you'll get into serious trouble!

The analysis of emotions

I am a scientist first, and a poor poet and writer second, though many reviewers rejecting my papers might say I'm a poor scientist first. Be that as it may, I do try to analyse my emotions.

The main one is rage. Rage at having life torn from me, and feeling weak and tired. Rage at thinking of the time I will loose from all the nasty treatments yet to come. I have always bottled up emotions, as trained to do. My background was the "stiff upper lip". Don't show your feelings. Put on a brave face. Face the world with head high, chin out, back straight, stomach in, chest out, shoulders back, look the person straight in the eye, give a firm handshake, and remember "you're British". Now I find myself swearing, raging against fate and the world, angry with my stupid body that's slowly falling apart. But thus far, it is bottled in, and I rage silently, in the darkness of my own mind.

A second one is resentment and envy. I see young people, and envy them their healthy skin, their strong limbs, their tireless energy. I yearn to be young again - and fully understand writers – such as Shaw with Back to Methusala – who imagine an elixir of eternal youth. I remember in youth I could run and climb, swim a mile, and had breath for two lengths underwater. Now I get tired walking the dog.

Pity or depression have not come, and Ann – bravely strong and wanting to keep busy to block her mind – only cried briefly on first hearing the news.  But today came a memory of the forlorn look and despair on my father's face when my mother died, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with a thought of Ann, and the grief and despair to come.  For the first time I wept today. I know her so well, I feel already her suffering and the pain she has yet to bear, and I wept for her future sorrow. But the tears were silent, and came when I was alone.

I do not write poetry now. Ann and Edwin's poetry far eclipses mine. Edwin's are introspective, exploring his own rages and frustrations. Ann's sum up the universal humanity we share in suffering or joy. She writes everyday. Here, a couple of new ones:

marriage

We are a couple,

two people sharing

a caring

simple life

which others join a while

then disappear from sight,

while we, the two who strive

to live and to survive

must face our world together

through the bleak and  cruel weather

side by precious side.

biopsy

Tummy turning 

like a wheel 

hit by a whirlwind, 

rushing, screeching 

twisting over and over, 

just waiting, 

tick tick tock, 

then the clock 

is silent.