What life lives beneath our gaze

Dawn over Hundon

Dawn over Hundon. The sun is skulking below the horizon and will not rise for more than half an hour yet, and well to the right of our neighbour's house. It's incredible how much in life escapes our notice. At this time on a Sunday morning, Ann and Edwin, along with most people in Britain not actually working, still lie abed, yet it's the best bit of the day, and I have it to myself.

Reminded of light, I distract myself by going over old lessons in quantum mechanics. I recorded them some five years ago from a course by David Miller of Stanford, and I've just spotted a typo that no one on the course spotted at the time, including me. Professors of quantum mechanics tell us just to shut up and calculate, because the maths gives us the answers. Yet we can't help but speculate, what lies beneath those equations of Schrődinger? It remains the fundamental mystery of our age: perfect answers with imperfect understanding. Somehow, it is like religion's claims to have perfect answers with imperfect understanding, but unlike religion, it is debated. Is the answer many-worlds, or hidden and unknowable variables, or 'just the way it is' to be accepted without further question like the wave-particle duality of light.

It may lead to lively argument, but – unlike religion – it doesn't lead to cults where one has to accept everything or nothing, or death threats if you deface an image of Bohr. Give me the peace of uncertain science any day, rather than the wars of religious argument.

Finality – Buddhism vs. Jehovah's Witnesses

Finality

We will not speak of parting,
for I will be where you are
as you will ever be with me,
I will carry every day
with the haunting memory
of every thing you said and did
every dream we ever held
and every moment lived.

by Annie Elliott

Today, Edwin is at a Buddhist meditation day in Cambridge contemplating eternity, while we were visited by two Jehovah's Witnesses. Bible Ann, as we call her, is in a sad way with advanced Parkinsonism, to the point where she can barely walk. She prefers bare feet to feel the ground, even in this cold, damp weather, to help coordinate her movements. She stands for some moments before her legs suddenly begin to move, and has great difficulty with the small steps to our house. We have known her for many years, and she comes as a friend, but still displays her literature, and her mind remains clear as ever. "They say there are two types of cancer," she tells me. "Lion or pussy cat. Which is yours?"

"I think mine is more like a panther," I suggest, "it sneaked up unseen in the night."

Even at this late stage of existence, she argues her case that the believers will be segregated before God to rule earth from her heaven, whilst we will be left cursed below. "Only a few people are rulers. Since Jesus resurrects people to heavenly life so that they can rule over the earth, we would expect those chosen to be few." She is even able to count the exact number entering her heaven – 144,000. Their site suggests there are already 137,000 witnesses living in the UK, so I guess they must be filling up.

Returning from his day of meditation, Edwin attempts to enlighten us in the way of Buddhism, and the Four Nobel Truths. He describes it as very cultish, with cold people who wear it like a cloak. unlike Japanese Buddhism whose practitioners are born into it as a natural skin. There is no such thing as truth, just mindfulness, meditation, and reduction of suffering, so Cambridge Buddhists completely different from London, or Tibetan. The Buddhist must always ask questions, but without hope. There is no after life, one can only achieve enlightenment.

In dealing with suffering, he quoted the example of being shot by an arrow. To ease suffering, one must deal with consequences such as by removing the arrow; contemplating why one was struck just adds to this suffering.

Countdown to Blasting

The letter with my timetable for radiotherapy arrived this morning. It doesn't carry a radiation warning symbol, or glow green with smoke seeping out, but looks quite plain for the message it conveys. The X-rays are produced by linear accelerators working at voltages of up to 25 million volts, enough to blast deep into the bladder. The intention is to destroy the tumour cells without destoying me. The therapy will start early December and run through into January, at times that vary each day up to early evening. But they respected my request to start after 10 a.m. to miss the worst of the Cambridge rush hour.

I was right to cancel our holiday to the Holy Land – the treatments run right across what would have been the start date. I asked my GP to complete the insurance claim form, which was £32. It used to be free for colleagues, but those days are well gone;. I remain tired, and no doubt it will get worse yet, but hopefully there will be improvement again once the treatment is finished.

I will need to wear a mask during the therapy, so the team at Addenbrookes gave me a practice run. I will have my own mask throughout, with my name on it, and breathe almost pure oxygen. This makes cancer cells more vulnerable to radiation. They have warned me not to use any petroleum-based creams on the face, as they might spontaneously explode. Also, the oxygen is absorbed into the skin and clothing, so I mustn't go near a naked light for half an hour afterwards, or I could ignite. They reassured me they hadn't lost anyone yet, and don't want me to be the first. I also have to take ten large niacinamide tablets exactly one hour before treatment, to maximise blood flow to the tumour cells prior to blasting them.

This adjunct treatment augments the outcome of radiotherapy. It was developed in Mount Vernon Hospital, and brought to the UK by the treatment specialist at Addenbrookes who is now the national authority, and trying to get it adopted by other hospitals. He told me of a former patient who'd been an RAF pilot; he said the mask reminded him of flying at 50,000 feet!

The Fight of Two Cancers — Icing on the Cake

Two cancers, alike in power, fight for supremacy within my body. The bladder cancer  I have detailed in depth. It has been excised, and awaits radiation blasting. But the first cancer, equal in malicious intent, was the malignant melanoma of the ear. It has lain dormant since last year when this blog series started (see The Black Spot, The Spot Returns, and Watch this Spot). Now a couple of soft glands have reappeared in my neck, so the oncologist is returning me to the dermatologists for review at West Suffolk Hospital next Monday. It would be ironic if, after all the fuss and anxiety about the BC, it is the silent malignant melanoma that turns out to be the more deadly.

Icing the cake

Meanwhile, as Christmas approaches, Ann has made the cakes – a gluten-free one for herself and Edwin, and 'normal' ones for me, MA and the girls, and Robin and Yvonne, Sam's parents. They are heavy with fruit and brandy, and I am given the task of icing. Partly, because I used to ice my mother's cakes, but mostly because Ann's grip is still weak where she fractured her hand, and is unable to get great force to open bottles or wield the rolling pin.

The Madness of King Brexit

Answering an emergency call, a fireman in Cambridgeshire took a roundabout too fast and his engine toppled over, killing a pedestrian. Unbelievably, he told the court he would drive the same way again if he had to do it again. No, Mr Fireman! If you had to do it again, I hope you would have learnt to approach the roundabout a little slower, and not topple your machine and kill someone.

The new Air Boeing 737 is fitted with a new "safety device" that causes the plane to dive if it detects a stall condition. Unfortunately, it cannot be over-ridden by the pilot even when they're flying the plane manually. Last month, a malfunctioning sensor on an Indonesian Boeing 737 caused the plane to dive into the ground killing all 189 people on board. Surprisingly, Boeing neglected to tell pilots about this new system, or how to switch it off. Please Boeing, teach your pilots how to take over manual control again if there is a system problem; I actually trust them to cope better than a failing robot.

In Britain, we have our own madness of King Brexit. Theresa May, having squandered her majority, is floundering under the weight of a situation of her own making, and impossible to resolve. In Brussels, the ambassadors of 27 nations assembled to read the new Brexit agreement, only to be told it hadn't been agreed by the British Cabinet yet, let alone Parliament, so they all went home again. Once, as in so much else, we led the world in diplomacy. Now we lead the world in dopelunacy. May is like the Grand Old Duke of York - she keeps leading everyone up the hill, then down again, until no one knows which way they're going. Never in the field of human affairs have so many owed so much trouble to so few.

Ring Tones and radiotherapy

Many years ago, as soon as such things became possible, I composed my own ring tone called JohN. It was a simple MIDI file, no masterpiece certainly, but a distinctive and compelling tune that I owned and could identify as my phone ringing. It has followed me all my mobile life, being converted to MP3 or other formats for transfer to each new phone.

Then I got the iphone. Apple insist on their own format for music, so I had to convert all my libraries to suit them. Ring tones require yet another format, m4r, so this I did. But I could not move it into the ringtone folder. Despite all the advice I could find on YouTube or in blogs, it would not load. I was stuck with a hideous alien tune for months. Finally I read that Apple had removed the RingTone folder from view! Last night, I finally managed to hack into the folders and save it there. I whooped round the house, getting everyone to keep ringing me to show off my tune, though Ann said, "it's a horrible tune, anyway."  I disagreed - it is a catchy number, and "a small thing but mine own".

Today, I went for radiotherapy planning. I had a scan to find my bladder, before being marked with three permanent tattoo spots so they can set the machine up exactly the same each time. The treatments will be intensive, but won't start for two to three weeks, so will run right across Christmas and into New Year. I asked if they stop for the holidays, but unlike outpatients and routine admissions, they don't. They have to carry on regardless, otherwise they would lose too many treatment slots. Dr Martin promised to write a letter for the insurance company, but our holiday to the Holy Land is definitely lost.

Don't retire - and have plenty of sex!

Due to rising costs and unmeetable needs, the government's new goal is to prevent illness rather than treating it. Like the old Soviet Union and its targets for wheat and steel, they always insist on targets rather than aims or aspirations, and their target for healthcare is now five more healthy years of life, rather than a reduction in waiting times, or improvement in cancer mortality. This might be depressing, except for the wonderful way in which they hope to achieve this.

Besides the obvious ones of a balanced diet, exercising regularly and drinking only moderately that we all know about, it appears that our emotional state and how much sex we have plays a more vital role in a longer life span than our genes! But analysing the government recommendations, I find a hidden agenda. We are encouraged to:

1) Avoid early retirement and continue working. Clearly a way to reduce pension costs and benefits. I'm OK on this one - I'm still working more than 10 years after retirement age.

2) Don't act your age. This ties in with furthering liberal attitudes. People may already identify as whatever gender they wish, irrespective of what their anatomy is telling them and the distress it causes others, or what anybody else thinks. A 65 year old man in the Netherlands is insisting he is inside a 45 year old body, and wants his birth certificate altered to reflect this so he can legally lie to young women. Several columnists have argued that they wish to be considered Muslim, or Jewish as may suit them for their columns. In the USA, a 'white' woman has identified as black and claimed black arts grants. Ancestry analysis of my genetic pool shows 1-2% Polynesian. Does this mean I have the right to declare I am really from Maori stock and have a right to live in New Zealand?

3) Become a parent. Clearly a hidden agenda here, to overcome the falling birthrates in Europe (see my blog Birth-rates and coffee mornings), but I'm OK on this one too.

4) Have an active love life. Well, I used to once, and I it is true I was then very healthy. Now I don't have much sex, and I'm very unhealthy. But which came first – ill health or a declining love life? Clearly there is an area here for further research.