Death comes In dreams

Clare lights with The Bell and Annie

Clare always had pretty Christmas lights, which are still up. Ann says this will bring bad luck to Clare as it's well past 12th Night. It was certainly nearly bad luck for me. I went to The Bell for a coffee, but had to dash for the loo before I could order. Though a large hotel, there is only one cubicle in the Gentleman's and that was occupied. I stood in the corridor with rapidly increasing anxiety until I could wait no longer, so dashed into the Ladies' in desperation. I streaked past the washbasins almost in a state of exposure, but just made it. The cubicle there is tiny and almost impossible to turn round in or adjust one's clothing. To avoid further embarrassment, I left rapidly and washed in the Gents'.

Moving On

I do not spend time idly wishing
for things that are now lost:
the love that I've been missing
now belongs locked in the past.

The bird upon the swaying tree
sings a sweet, soft melody,
but it does not keep on tweeting
of things that will never be.

You can never make good cider,
with life's worm-eaten fruit;
wait for the warm glow of summer
and pick from the tree anew.

The stream will keep on flowing,
the waters fast move on;
I will not keep on dreaming
of a life that is clearly gone.

Annie Elliott

My body is at a low ebb. Only two hours sleep last night before I awoke to wee, and then only dribbles despite the urgency. I do not know if it is the after-effects of irradiation, or some manifestation of the cancer. I smell like a sewer – it is always bad when one can smell oneself coming. I do not think it is the smell of cancer (see "The smell of death"), but I suspect it arises from a permeability of the inflamed bowel wall. It is a strange battle, not an angry fight of open warfare, but more like a fifth column undermining the integrity of the whole, working undercover to bring disruption and sew doubt.

I awoke with memories of uneasy dreams. I was accompanied by a band of my children, attempting to reach the edge of a deep valley. I had been there before many times in previous dreams, but had always approached from the far end, usually having emerged from some tunnel. Now the track took us past a nest of tiny cobras, each erect with flared hood and menacing, and before us was a conveyor belt feeding a furnace that we had to cross. Though silent now, I knew a great lump of coal would soon drop from the chute, and the thing would start up. One of the children started to play with the conveyor belt, and I had to warn him to keep away, least he be caught up in it when it started up.

Ann's new poem too is about moving on. It is as though she read my dreams through that union of mysterious synchronicity that has been with us since we met. She too can smell the smell of decay. The time to move on comes closer now and I must prepare the way.

Companionship

Companionship

Through everything I have been,

wished for, or dared to dream,

You are a constant at my side,

my dearest friend, my one true love,

my steady ship upon a sucking tide.

And always I have loved you,

so proudly watched you,

felt your strength guiding me,

living life alongside me.

When dark storms came,

sad memories, distant dreams,

We battened down together;

faced the warlike weather.

How could our story be

that two souls so lost at sea,

would find such gentle harmony

within each other's company?

Annie Elliott

Ann's new poem is about companionship, a reminder of how valuable and supportive our friends and some relatives have been. She particularly had been my one true companion, there through each turbulent day to cheer and sooth the troubled brow.

I enjoyed a visit from Chris today, the husband of Bible Ann. She was too ill to come with him, but we played some good chess. Though born in England, his parents moved him to Zimbabwe as a small child. Then it was still Rhodesia, and they worked on the farms until the coming of independence in 2000 forced them to flee leaving everything behind.

British colonialism is generally frowned upon these days, but Rhodes united a number of territories and waring tribespeople, all with diverse languages, cultures and leaders, and brought peace and prosperity to the region with the emergence of a new country. This coexistance collapsed with idependence, and many millions of people fled the country, with a majority of the remaining Zimbabweans living in total poverty. Chris's father could have chosen Australia to emigrate to; they'd still be there if he had, such are the vagaries of fate.

Addenbrooke's had warned me that the two weeks post treatment might be the worst, and they were right. Though getting stronger and eating better, down below is hell. I am going every two hours, with very disturbed sleep, it burns like fury, and seems to take for ever to wee. The other side is also painful, and for the first time in my life, I've developed haemorrhoids. The pain eases with painkillers: regular doses of ibuprofen and paracetamol. I don't generally advise anyone to waste their pennies on proprietary brands, for the generics are identical and a fraction of the price, but I do recommend Anusol - the relief is well worth the money!

Road ahead closed

We visited Haverhill yesterday. Haverhill is not somewhere we talk about much, but our good friends Rae and Malcolm live there and we were invited for coffee and chat. Their road is closed for sewer repairs, so we had weave through the shoppers by approaching via the High Street. Driving towards their entrance, we passed the "Road Ahead Closed" sign, and inched up through parked workpeople's cars towards the barrier where a large glaring yellow excavator was dredging up the road. The man driving looked more and more surprised, then apprehensive as we approached, thinking I was about to take him on in a daring challenge, and looked most relieved when I suddenly swung into the gate, just missing his little barrier.

Yesterday too, Edwin landed at Heathrow on his return from Israel. The airport was closed for an hour due to another drone sighting, but he missed the delays. He drank a good quantity of champagne before landing and stayed in a hotel overnight. I picked him up today from Cambridge station. They have done away with the 20 minute (or even 5 minute) stopping places; there is drop-down only there now, or pay over the odds for 10 minutes in their main carpark. I joined several other cars, cruising round, until Edwin rang to ask, "where are you?" and I could finally dash into the queue of cars, and urge him to sling his case in quickly. I had the dogs with me, thinking they'd be delighted to see their master back, but they were somewhat aloof as though sulking that he'd left them. They came round once we were back home and were all over him.

Ann had to see the glaucoma clinic in Bury early today, and is on the waiting list for cataract removal. She has already been waiting for two years, and is considering going privately. Coming home, a neighbour came up to intercept us with news of our next-door neighbour who spends every winter in India. He has had a massive stroke out there, and is currently in hospital and unable to return home. He is the third man in our road to have had a massive stroke, and the road only has four houses! I am the fourth man - not a nice prospect. Given a choice, I think I'll stick with the cancer: at least I can still think and act for myself.

More bad news

The new year is continuing as 2018 left off. We've just heard that Tony, Lucy's partner's father, formerly a leading nuclear physicist now with Alzheimer's, has been admitted to hospital with what sounds like a septicaemia. He is having IV antibiotics, and sounds to be very weak. His son is distraught and spent the whole night with his mother at the hospital.

I often liken life to being put in a long line, walking slowly up towards the pit of extinction. We start off at the back of the queue, but by my age I am among the group at the very front, waiting to drop over. Occasionally, young people are rushed up to the front, and jump in front of us. It is hard, but there is no escape. I will continue with this blog of my journey, but regret I will be unable to send back messages. It must be like falling into a black hole; death is the horizon beyond which nothing ever returns. One regret is that I shall not be able to report back from that dark pit; but I shall continue with this blog for as long as I can, and relate as much as I may.

It is recommended that one should take up an intellectual hobby to slow deterioration of the brain. I continue to do a crossword each day (really half a crossword, as Ann usually gives me half the answers!), and I am learning a language. The language is VBA - a programming language for manipulating data in Excel. Probably not much use for the holiday in Portugal, but it keeps the brain ticking over.

Bible Ann suggested yesterday that I must have got job satisfaction as a doctor. 'Tis strange, but I used to think of my life as a GP as a job rather than a vocation. It was something one 'got on with'; a long waiting list 'to be got through'. But struggling to wee at 4 o'clock in the morning, I remembered my work on the genitourinary (GU) wards; the many men coming in with retention writhing in pain; and the blissful smile when I passed a catheter to relieve them. Of course, like all pleasures, it didn't last long: we generally then had to tell them they had an enlarged prostate, and were being fast- tracked for prostatectomy.

Edwin has just phoned us from Israel. He's had a brilliant time, and after witnessing a Bar' Mitzvah in Jerusalem today, he told us he wants one. He was put off though when Ann mentioned that he would have to be circumcised first.

Bible Ann

Being a man does have its disadvantages. When I pee now, it dribbles out slowly, with an occasional  tendency to squirt sideways onto my boot. I dare not go to a live theatre show, for I might not make the interval; and if I did, I would probably miss the second half, for there is no admittance to late comers.

I am definitely getting more absent minded too. Ann tells me so many things, but I'm blowed if I can remember half of them the next day. I have resurrected my old camera with the idea of taking it for some good shots of Clare when I walk the dogs, but I forgot to take it. Coming in from walking the dogs this morning, I took my old shoes off, but forgot what I was doing and put them on again.

Bible Ann and her husband Chris called this afternoon. She is called Bible Ann to distinguish her from all the other Anns we know, and because she always produces her bible to quote to us to promote her faith. She has severe Parkinsonism, so walks in bare feet to feel the ground. Today she was too ill even to carry her bible, and had to borrow one of ours to quote from, but she objected to it because it talks of God and the Lord, rather than Jehovah. I always try to be gentle with her, for she is old and frail, even by my standard, but I can never accept that there is only one way to know the world of the spirit. Each of us must come to it in our own way, and life's whole meaning can be seen as an exploratory expedition to find that way. But in no way is mine the 'right' or only way, anymore than is any other person's.

We can share our experiences, and the ways through which we have found a truth, but our inspirations are no more than the flashes of a glow-worm compared to the bright arc-light of uncomprehended reality. For I am certain that there exists a level of which we remain unaware, lying beyond consciousness just as consciousness itself lies beyond the cells of the brain, and they beyond the constituent atoms, and they too beyond the energy that chrystallised into their being. We get hints of this throughout our lives, too easily dismissed as 'coincidences' or chance, yet these flashes occur too often to be blindly dismissed. We should learn to recognise them, to accept them, to work with them, and thereby to grow as the spiritual beings we are.

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Feel free to add a comment if you would like to share a spiritual experience

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

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Post DXT

Diarrhoea bad

It was cold after walking the dogs through the field, with an air temperature that didn't pass 2͒ C all day. Waiting for Ann in The Swan, I succumbed and ordered a double brandy, to keep the cold at bay. Only later did Ann tell me that alcohol, along with spicy food, was verboten for the next couple of weeks. It certainly can inflame the bladder/colon. I deteriorated again after my lapse, with pain from both exits. At least Ann keeps us well provisioned against need.

Listening to another episode of Billy Connolly, I was moved in a different way when a reporter asked him, "What does it feel like to get a knighthood when you've come from nothing?"

Sir Billy bridled at this. "I did not come from nothing! I came from something - something special!" It set me thinking of my own roots, not a Glasgow tenement, but a tiny upstairs flat above a bakery in Leicester, during the bombing and the blackouts. Unlike Connolly, I have no affection for the city of Leicester, nor for Coventry. I could not wait to leave, and have no desire to go back to either place. But it did remind me that my parents too were not "nothing", but were equally special. Too easily have I thought of what they could have done or should not have done; but they gave me freedom to choose, and that is of huge value. I may have made some bad choices, but they were my choices: no one forced me down a road I did not want to travel. My lessons have been learnt the hard way, but they were my lessons, and forged the man I am become.

I do not know the cause of my bladder cancer; probably it will never be known. But I did know, as we all do deep down, that certain food stuffs, or excess alcohol cause harm. No one made me eat unhealthily, nor booze until the cells suffer. My life is my own.

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'."