Radiotherapy

Two wonderful new poems by Ann, reflecting the emotional upheaval that hits us all when cancer strikes, and the support given by the few who count.

Radiotherapy

Like an exclusive club
they sit crutching one another,
wishing each other health
drinking water from plastic cups,
no Waterford crystal here,
just disposable kidney bowls
hairless heads
wrapped in flowered bandannas,
or home knitted bobble hats
wrought by loving fingers,
there is gentle charity
in each soft, weak smile
of camaraderie,
sympathy
and huge humanity.

Annie Elliott

Lip Service

They come and go
with fancy words
and Judas' kisses,
touching sorrow
digits never dirtied,
souls never bleeding,
but yet, they touch you
more than the love
or the constant ardency
of the faithful band
who always have your hand.

Annie Elliott

I considered the crudity of radiotherapy (DXT) in previous articles where I likened it to "burning the witch". In some ways, it is just as crude. Lines of people waiting treatment of all ages and backgrounds, rows of old men drinking to fill the bladder for their prostate therapy; women for breast or ovary cancer; younger people with brain cancers; or children with leukaemias. Many in caps to hide their chemotherapy-induced hair loss. All get the crude blasting of the rays. Somehow, it is reminiscent of bygone days of treatment with insulin, or cold douches, or ECT: violent, indiscriminate, yet it is all we have.

I have to strip to my underwear, and pull them down to expose the tattoo marks to line up the lasers. I never pull them enough, so the young girls (radiotherapists always seem to be young girls) end up pulling them down further, exposing yet more of me to their indifferent gaze. They then push their hands under my buttocks to pull me about and line me up accurately. It is fortunate I'm in no state for arousal, or I might get more burnt than the bladder.  One day we will have potent treatments against cancer, perhaps a simple inoculation to stimulate the appropriate white cells to march against the invaders. Then shall we be unshackled form these mighty machines, and they will be no more than a curiosity in some documentary of the past.

Sir Billy Connolly sums it up in an article in The Mail today: "As bits slip off and leave me, talents leave and attributes leave. I don't have the balance I used to have, I don't have the energy I used to have. I can't hear the way I used to hear, I can't see as good as I used to. I can't remember the way I used to remember. And they all came one at a time and they just slipped away, thank you. It is like somebody is in charge of you and they are saying, 'Right, I added all these bits when you were a youth, now it is time to subtract'."

The tormented life of Gingers

Further to Lucy's comment on discrimination against Gingers (see Bad-dreams-and-golden-hopes),  new comment has come from Matthew:

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It's fair to say that I also fall in to the ginger minority and can relate only too well with what Lucy has added. Secondary school for me was four long years of torment and hell as the only ginger lad in a year of 200 pupils! Verbal and physical abuse were an all too common occurrence and little was done by the school to do anything about it.
It wasn't until I grew a good six inches between Easter 1995 and the start of the last year of secondary school in the September that it largely stopped as I went from being one of the shortest in the year to one of the tallest! Poor mum, though, as I grew three shoe sizes in six months and it cost her a fortune!
Nowadays I don't get the abuse, people seem to have better things to do, but I have joined a new minority, that of the geeks! I love my sci-fi, fantasy and video games and I'm proud of it. Tall, ginger, big bushy beard and geeky as hell - be who you want to be and enjoy life :-)

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New Year Spread

Thank you Matthew. He and Rosie did so much to support us over the last month, coming over faithfully, helping to ferry me to hospital, and there for my birthday and New Year. They even did the full spread on New Year's Eve, and great it was, even though I could manage little of it. But today was my last treatment day. So many good people have rallied round to give lifts, or to help in other ways, one soon learns who one's true friends are. Matthew even went up to bring his mother, the Great X, down from Middlesbrough for my birthday, and she too showed kindness or consideration. Rosie is a professional chef, and even prepared a batch of soups for use over the days to come, even with her own mum ill in hospital. 

Matthew, Ann, John, Anne and Rosie

As for Ann, she has been a true saint, having to run the home virtually alone all month while running after me, ferrying me to hospital so many times and sitting among the many very ill patients with so much patience herself. She has suffered more than anyone, seeing me ill, yet having to nurse me and get on with life, and losing her 'holiday of a lifetime' to the Holy Land, a place she has always dreamed of visiting. If I get over all this, and can continue to work, I am determined that we shall visit, for she deserves no less.

Bad dreams and golden hopes

JHM

Without you
there is no me
no New Year
no fresh poetry
just winter frost
cold winds' icy blast
for you are my all,
my present and my past.

Annie Elliott

A warm poem from AE to greet the New Year, shrouded as it is in uncertainty.

A horrid dream last night was of a man crouching to wee, when a small terrier-type dog ran up and bit his exposed part, shaking and biting. I tried to get it off him, thinking I would have to kick the brute, then I woke, and realised the dreadful pain he was suffering was my own. I woke every couple of hours needing to go to the toilet, having to sit each time, and the pain is intense. Accompanied by nausea and pelvic pain, it is not my best week. Nineteen down and nearly done now.

Ann and John New Year's Eve 2018-9

In the treatment room today, there was an air of camaraderie, for many of us recognise each other, and there were New Year greetings, and general pleasantries. One of the regulars was talking to a new woman who had accompanied her partner for his treatment, and was giving her guidance about the best way to park, and how to obtain the reduced rate weekly parking ticket. This is such a helpful feature of Addenbrooke's where the whole set up seems designed to benefit the patients rather than the administrators.

Tom Utley's column in the Daily Mail reflects a view I've shared on several occasions (see Paulo's Abba Party). We older white folk are definitely an oppressed minority now. We are completely under-represented in film, television, and news broadcasts, except for the wrong reasons (usually as victims of youthful violence). I firmly believe we should see a TV series on 100 people who changed the world later in their lives, to complement those series of success because they were women or people of colour.

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A comment from Lucy: 
I am part of the ginger minority of the world! We are underrepresented in film and screen. It is no longer legally acceptable to verbally abuse people based on their gender, race, sexuality or age and rightly so. Yet ginger people receive hateful abuse every day, especially in schools, and nothing is done! I know so many kids who are tortured at school for having red hair. My friend’s son was kicked and hit at secondary school every day with little or no intervention from the teachers. He was called a ginger c#%! daily. Our hair and skin is so much a part of our identity. Imagine the outrage if this had been abuse targeted towards black skin or any other minority. So yes, I am part of the ginger minority and I am considering setting up a ginger manifesto to protect future school kids with red hair from receiving such horrific abuse that others are now protected from by society and law.

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Please add a comment if you feel part of a neglected community (regret Google can't seem to get their blog comments to work)

Mail comments to: grandad.john@2from.com

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New Year's Day

It is the first day of the year. I sat wondering what to put into the blog, when a fantastic message arrived from my grandson, Luke. He is the first one to respond to me request for comments, and he has sent such a good message, I feel that my blog has been written for me.

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I saw in your blog a request for special memories of 2018 in your blog the other day, and I've been pondering upon it for a few days.

If you were to look at the news across the year, 2018 has been a shockingly atrocious year. It will be remembered for the Brexit shambles going on, worries about the economy, murders and the Royal Family becoming more a media circus. However despite the wider country deciding that this year has been a shambles, there were some positives for me to take from this year. There was the amazing World Cup run England embarked on earlier in the year. I performed in my school talent show this year, which is a standout memory. I really enjoyed my visit to Lanzarote, visiting the volcano on the island and some of it's unique surroundings. And how could I possibly forget my birthday weekend! What a party!

The thing is that a lot of 2018 won't be remembered by large memories. When remembering the good memories of 2018, I'll probably be just having a conversation with someone and suddenly they'll pop up, or I'll just be lying in bed and suddenly a small smile will pop on my face and I'll think "I remember that". And that's the gist I've got from this year. It's been quite a tiring year, because it's been so repetitive. I can't speak for everyone else, these are just my general opinions on the previous 364 days, but for a while now I've just been getting the impression that next year is going to be a better year (not that 2018 has been bad to me), and I hope that I'm right. But can anyone see into the future? And would anyone really want to?

-Luke

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Thank you Luke! We had son Matthew with his partner Rosie and her mum Anne staying to celebrate New Year's Eve, with Matthew first-footing, so we hope for greater things and better news than the past 12 months have brought us. But, Luke is so right. We cannot see into the future, and would we really want to? As always, we can only find strength to face whatever may be thrown at us.

Best wishes and a Joyful New Year to each and everyone of you!!

A New Year – and Peace to All People

First, an apology to Ann: I had flippantly said she was trying to forget the loss of our once-in-a-lifetime holiday in Israel, but I confess, it was really her stress at the possibility of losing me to cancer that drove her to consume an excess of Paulo's excellent sangria (see Paulo's Abba Party). I was reluctant to accept that anyone could be over-concerned for me, and I'm truely sorry to malign Ann so badly. It is the year's end; a difficult year, and at one time, one I thought not to see, but we have made it.

Some recent reports have suggested that we are living in the best of times. Universal education is higher than it has ever been, there is less absolute poverty in the world, and – despite the knife crime in London – fewer people are dying from war or violence. The world is still heating up, not withstanding Trump and others denials, but the problem has been recognised, and many people are pushing hard to get some control over the emissions problem.

Talking with the Macedonian car wash guy yesterday (A History Lesson at the Carwash), reminded me how much of human ills is caused by religious strife, although I still believe that Richard Dawkins is wrong to indite religious belief in itself. We will not eliminate religious faith; it gives comfort and strength to many, and serves as an answer to life's uncertainties for those too lazy to think for themselves. For many, belief in an afterlife is sufficient to justify even eccentric and extreme ideas, rather than contemplate the infinity of nothingness, the blank canvas of a life extinguished. We all long to live for longer, for there is ever more to see and do and feel. I too hold to a spiritual life, a theme I explored in depth in Girders in the Sand. I believe there is something higher than the mere presence of organised cells; thought itself somehow exists on a higher plain, and should be exalted.

No, the problem behind violence and prejudice is not religion per se; it is intolerance. Intolerance manifested by prejudice against anything different to oneself, whether of colour, faith, or sexual orientation. People must be allowed to have their faith, faith will not disappear from the world; but they must learn that no one faith is absolute. We must accept that there are other faiths than our own; we must strive not to impose belief, but encourage each other to find their own way, and learn what is right for them. Working together, people can achieve great ends, in prosperity, invention, buildings, and ideas. Working apart, we can only destroy, tear down, and desecrate our inheritance and our world. Each one who raises a knife or a gun to make a statement of violence is killing their own humanity, and hacking away at hope in the world.

So my plea for the coming year is simple: let us strive to welcome diversity, and opinion different to our own. Let us rejoice in the variety of our people, and work to overcome prejudice and fear. Let us accept religions other than our own, and acknowledge that other people too are searching for spiritual enlightenment, each following their own path in freedom and in peace.

A history lesson at the carwash

Taking the car to be cleaned this morning ready for the New Year, and mine being the only car there, I was talking at length to the owner. He came from Macedonia 19 years ago, and has done well by the business. Unusually, he commutes from Cambridge where he owns a house, for prices were low 19 years ago. He employs several people, who pay £400 per month for a single room in Haverhill, but prices have risen so much even in Haverhill that he couldn't afford a house here.

He told me a little of the history of his region, and how the country had been stable under Tito when united with Yugoslavia, before the great Yugoslavian wars of disruption that ended with the country fragmenting along religious lines. He was one of five boys, but his father had earned enough to keep the whole family comfortable. Now, wages are so low each family member has to work. But he loves England, the land of opportunity, and is so well settled in Cambridge he has no desire to leave. In some way I didn't fully follow, Macedonia is not allowed to join the EU (something to do with Greece claiming it, I think).

Serbia/Croatia/Montenegro/Macedonia? The history is impossibly complicated for an outsider to comprehend, but I know from my history of Tesla (a Serb) that the Turks caused their usual mayhem, obliterating the original Serbian peoples and instilling Muslim theology into the region in the battle of Kosovo of 1389, which is still remembered. I remember an Armenian girl who told me a similar tale, of how the Turks had destroyed her people. Now, they are intent on destroying the Kurds also. How hatred perpetuates itself through the world, usually through the instigation of one wild man, unrestrained by his people.

On the domestic front, the cancer continues to make its presence known. The bladder is sore, PU'ing is difficult and painful, and dipstick testing confirms the presence of blood, protein and leucocytes, probably all a result of the vicious inflammation induced by the DXT. I continue to feel nausea, with reduced appetite, and have lost weight. Only three more treatment days, thankfully!

Paulo's ABBA Party

Edwin with friends at the Abba party

Last night was party night at Paulo's. The theme is usually highly classical, with opera singing and professional musicians, but last night was "Abba", in a severe break with tradition. Edwin did a good job of sight reading to lead the singing, supported by Max who is a professional organist in London, and showed how to lead us in on the upbeats. The Abba songs were followed by a traditional hearty rendition of Jerusalem, in memory of the mother of Paulo's partner, John.

John chose it as a hymn at his father's funeral, despite some resistance from the vicar who declared it was not a proper hymn, but he managed to get a friend of his to sing it. John told the vicar to turn the microphones and PA system off, as it would spoil the purity of the vocalist. "But can she fill the church with her voice?" asked the vicar.

"She fills Covent Garden without trouble," John responded, and the vicar gave way after that.

Jerusalem was especially poignant, as Edwin has left for a 10 day vacation in Isreal today. Ann and I should have been going as well, but this was lost when my cancer treatment intervened. Indeed, the whole evening had more the atmosphere of a wake than a party, as the principle harpist who normally performs for us is on extended absence at her majesty's pleasure.

Ann and Grandad-John at the Abba Party

Paulo is Portuguese and Edwin's piano teacher, and makes a fair sangria, mostly containing vodka with a dash of fruit juice. I am saddened to say that Ann drowned her worries about me by consuming this to the point of unsteadiness. She has no recollection of getting in the car to return home, or of falling out of the car to lie with her head in the bush at the gate. We carried her in, but she was certainly a little the worse for wear even 24 hours later.

"Why do people get drunk?" she asked the next day.
"To forget," I said. "If you get drunk at my wake, you'll forget who I was!"

The BBC are running a series of 100 influential women. Everything these days seems to be about women; the BBC are shutting out half their audience. They should aim to be more balanced in their broadcasts: I paid my licence fee as much as everyone else, until they said I was too old to contribute. Why not a series of 100 influential old people of both genders? I'm sure there must be some oldies who've continued to add to the world in meaningful ways, rather than merely being the drain on society that we're painted to be these days.

Please send me a comment if you feel neglected by the BBC

Mail comments to: grandad.john@2from.com