Finding Zillian

Another day, another treatment. Yesterday continued much the same, with Edwin taking me to hospital. This time, they told me my bladder isn't emptying properly, and will have to be sorted out. So yet another hiccup to add to the diarrhoea and nausea. I just hope they don't need to recatheterise me.

There are two treatment rooms through the door I entered, and as I came out of mine to go back to the waiting room, I was pushed back and a crash team came hurtling past, so fast they misjudged the turn into their room and crashed into the door, sending equipment flying! When I finally got back out, poor Edwin had been sure it was being sent in for me, and was thinking how to tell his mum that I wouldn't be coming home with him! Even as we waited, two more teams raced past challenging each other to run faster. Then a trolley bed was rushed in, complete with drip, until there must have been a dozen or more people rushing past in total. Addenbrooke's is certainly the right place to be, if you must have a heart attack.

Me with Zillian the first table-tennis robot

Ann had a ghostly experience, looking for an old picture of me with my robot Zillian. She spent the evening looking through all 78 albums, representing thousands of pictures collecting a lifetime of memories, without finding it. She finally gave up and put the last album away when she saw a picture on the floor that had fallen out of one of them. It was the very same picture she had been searching for. She went cold like there was a creepy spirit in the room. Alas, poor Zillian is no more - only his ghost remains.

In the evening, we went for our annual Christmas Dinner to the Swan in Clare. This has become a tradition over the last few years, and was booked some time ago, before these treatments started, so we didn't want to cancel it. I managed to survive quite well, albeit without alcohol, and dosed up with antiemetics, but it was enlivened by the chatter of our granddaughters, who are a delight. One told us how she loves to cut off the heads of old photos, usually of her mum. When the photo is pulled from the album, the head stays behind, and they just get the shoulders coming out. She says it's fun to mix them up, and she has a bag of heads, like some psychopath. If someone annoys her at school, she can cut the head off their picture, and post it through their locker.

Br-exit blocked at the barrier

Another kindness today, this time from Mary-Anne who took a turn to take me in for treatment. Addenbrooke's car park is expensive; it cost me £6.80 on the first visit, when I was over the two hours. But they do have a valuable concession, with a week's parking ticket for £3.90 when one is on constant treatment like RT. Coming into the car park, the machine took my ticket and returned it, but on the way out, the barrier refused to rise. The ticket had expired! I had to wait at the ticket office to get it renewed, as a queue rapidly built behind Mary-Anne's car. The other drivers glared at her as though it was her fault, and horns sounded, but the only way she could have moved would have been to  reverse into them, until I reappeared with the new ticket. She remained as calm and uncaring as usual.

Only one quarter through, but already I feel like death. The day was bright and sunny, but I was too weak to walk the dogs. The nausea is terrible, and I travel in the car with a towel across my knee and a sickness bowel beneath my chin. My head is bursting, and I dare not even drink a glass of wine, let alone a good malt. The last couple of nights, I can manage no more than toast. Oh the agony of abstinence. But I live in hope that it will be for a good result. I dread the approach of Christmas and New Year, for I fear these side effects can only worsen. Even mid-winter, normally my favourite day, is something I will be unable to celebrate this year. 

Trinken den Wein

Although it sounds a contradiction, Edwin visited a German market in Cambridge last night. He said he intended to "trinken den Wein", so I told him not to "trinken too muchen den Wein!" but he's never paid much attention to advice.

For myself, I haven't "den Wein getrunken"since I started this treatment last week. Not from any reason of virtue, but in case booze of any sort clashes with my stomach and makes me feel even worse than I already do. Matthew and Rosie came over today to take me in, and I carried a towel and sick bowl in case I vomited again. I spread the tablets out over a longer period today, and that seemed to help a bit. Though still nauseous, I avoided embarrassing myself or messing their car.

Radiographers wanted

There were delays for us all on treatments this morning, and the waiting area was full. One small child with no hair was wheeled in by her parents. Several women had scarves to cover their hair loss, and one woman had a large bald area over a depression over her skull, where probably she was being treated for a skin cancer. A man next to me, also with a cap on, told me he had surgery for a brain tumour followed by chemo and now radiotherapy. He was still in his 50's, and said he'd expected to have much longer to live. Now he was going to work through his money and get things he really wanted, starting with a set of Beat headphones, then taking his family on holiday early next year for which he'd rented a holiday home in Norfolk.

We are all at the point in our lives where cancer is the signpost to change, usually degenerate change. It served to point to the variety of people getting radiotherapy treatments, although a poster in the waiting area pointed to another reason for the delays: a shortage of radiographers. My radiographer explained that most people have never heard of therapeutic radiography as a career option, though it is so rewarding a career and full training offered. Anyone interested can contact their nearest hospital training group.

Chasing Dreams

Our conscious hours are so filled with existing and coping with reality that we ignore the underlying patterns of mind. We read, we converse, we cook, or eat, or watch TV.  We distract ourselves from our own being. Only in dreams do the elements combine in diverse ways to give presence to new thoughts. But for most of us, these thoughts vanish again in the bright glare of living.

Triviality

Alone
now as always
fighting new and menacing demons
wearing their black cloaks
and carrying winter scythes,
Alone
while battling petty minds
sweating stuff that is so small
not even a magnifier could find
its worth.

Annie Elliott

The subconscious behaves like an abstract mathematical construct. As in mathematics, where the ordinals are abstract concepts when unspecified until we give them specific form, such as two pens or three oranges, so too are our ideas like life or death or love. We can specify specific instances but in our subconscious being they are complete abstractions that can only present themselves to our conscious selves as concrete representations, such as the image of a broken car, or a pen that will not write, or an empty, dark room. This may be death of a life, or death of a relationship, or leaving a home that is loved.

Like the Fourier representation of a waveform, the components seethe in the brain like separate harmonics that can come together to build something new. Our mental knowledge is fragmented into tiny components joined by some algorithm of mind or memory. The elements are almost like coherent or entangled quantum waveforms. It is the conscious expression of them that 'collapses the waveform'.

The artist may seize these elements and recombine them as a new picture, a poem, an architectural construct, or a new mathematical theorem. But their underlying components are mere abstractions, and conscious striving to grab them leaves us but grasping air.

The ending of a bad year.

The year looks like ending as it's been all through. The company I work for is transferring my project for development in Japan, so I may be redundant before the year's end. And now the main sewerage drain is blocked with a tail back of filthy sludge, so we'll have to call the drain men out.

On only the third day of my radiotherapy treatment, scheduled for 6:30 last night, I was already dreading taking the huge doses of Vitamin B3. Edwin took me to Addenbrooke's, but I was right about the tablets, He had to stop on the way home to let me out, when I was repeatedly sick, and I have spent most of today in bed or shivering in a blanket.

One bright spot was a letter from my grandson, Luke. It is two full pages of beautifully written and interesting items, spelling out his hopes for A-levels and university, and quite unlike what one reads about messaging by today's youth, with their texted emphasis on Emojis and weird abbreviations. The art of letter writing is clearly not dead, and I was hugely moved to get the letter. Now I shall lie back and have another sleep, to gather strength of my next treatment on Monday. Only 17 more to go.

An Unexpected Treat

Edwin called Ann and me into the sitting room this morning, told us to sit down, and presented us with an envelope. It was a plane ticket to Brussels, with a five-star hotel, for a long weekend at the end of January once my treatments are over. After we had lost our special holiday to the Holy Land at New Year, he has treated us to this trip off his own initiative to make up for it, and give us something to look forward to. We are both touched by such a kind and thoughtful thing,

Last night I phoned an old friend in Luxemburg whom I was at college with. Colin has developed Alzheimer's and now has just been released from hospital with Parkinson's. His wife, another Ann, was showing him round the house, trying to revive a memory of the rooms he has lived in for 40 years. He barely remembered me, so although I had been hoping to visit him, I think it would have been more for me than him. 

Day 2 of the radiotherapy. The Vitamen B3 tablets are having a strange effect, with a sensation of facial tightness like draw strings being pulled about me. But compared to Colin, I think all this must be minimal. He was aware of losing his mind several years ago while still teaching, and realised he could no longer remember his students' names - something he had always prided himself on, and something that caused him to retire early. Perhaps I will be able to see him again next spring.

Burn the Witch!

Lining up the lasers

The day began cold, with heavy cloud leaving the sky still dark at 8 o'clock and wet with clinging drizzle. Cancer is like a wicked witch working evil within. And like witches of old, the evil must be burnt out. Let the fire begin!

The first ritual burning began at Addenbrooke's Hospital this morning. I stopped in a lay-by en route, to take the ten vitamin B3 tablets I am instructed to take one hour before the appointed time. Then I am stripped to my underpants to expose my tattoo spots, and laid on a cold steel slab. The oxygen mask is fitted across my face, and the laser guide beams turned on. I am moved and poked to manoeuvre me into position, then everyone leaves and a siren sounds to warn of radiation danger. The machine thuds to life, and cold air from the cooling fans adds to the discomfort. To the sound of loud bleeps, the whole thing begins to turn round me, blasting the bladder from different angles. Opening my eyes is highly disorientating; the optical illusion is so strong that it seems to be me that is rotating, rather than the machine, making me dizzy, certain that the table itself is tilting and will tip me off. So I keep my eyes closed, or stare through the gaps to the ceiling of the room rather than at the machine. Then there is silence, and a voice says "that's all done," and they release me from the straps and let me down.

Many people waiting for this treatment seemed to be alone; it was strange to think we all have cancer in common. But I was so glad that Ann and Edwin had come with me. They steadied me as I left, and gave comfort that I was not alone, and we would get through this together.