Social distancing with style

L'année Dernière à Marienbad ( 1961 )

Save the NHS

Three years ago this week I was finishing my last week of radiotherapy at Cheltenham General Hospital.Today I marched through Cheltenham in support of the NHS in general and junior doctors in particular. The NHS has helped all of us*, has touched all our lives, whether we realise it or not. Don't let the Tory profiteers degrade and dismantle this wonderful British institution. Stand up and be counted!

*Obviously this applies to UK readers of this 'ere blog :-)

Check out the links below for more info on the people who are trying to destroy OUR national health service and the people who are trying to preserve it:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/kepp-nhs-public-not-private
http://cheltenham-gloucesteragainstcuts.org/
http://www.stroudagainstcuts.co.uk/

What he said...

I can't really believe it, but it was two years ago today that I finished my radiotherapy treatment. It was a very short, but very intense period in my life  -  four weeks of intensive, high-dosage treatment to ( hopefully ) destroy a rare kind of blood cancer called plasmacytoma. This all left me feeling far weaker than I'd expected and suffering from some nasty side effects but with time and support from my wonderful family and friends I got through it. The quote and photo above from Ang Lee's fantastic Life Of Pi really resonated with me at the time  -  above all, don't lose hope...
Peace.

Happy New Year!

Here's wishing a happy and healthy 2014 for all you lovely people out there in Blogland. I'd just like to thank everyone who's stopped by at The Glass Walking-Stick over the last year, however briefly. I do wonder occasionally if I'm just talking to myself here but I do appreciate everybody who takes the time to leave a comment.

As some of you may remember I had quite a tough time earlier in the year with health issues and blogging has certainly helped distract me from some of the more unpleasant aspects of the last 12 months. ( Even though I didn't post half of the stuff I meant to... ) The support I received from fellow bloggers on here was also much appreciated. The majority of you cool dudes I only know from this 'ere blog ( you could all be axe murderers for all I know ) but I like to think of you as good friends, if only of the virtual kind :-)

 ( Jasper and Hero also say Hi! )

And so does James...
( I worry about that boy sometimes. Where does he get it from? )

Sarah's here too ( with that handsome Hero )...

And here are James and Sophie ( with James' best friend, Matt ) on James' birthday last September...

Happy New Year to all of you from all of us!

Above all, don't lose hope

 Just finished my radiotherapy treatment today! Phew!

Time now to rest, recover and look ahead...

The man in the ( iron ) mask

Masks seem to be everywhere at the moment... for me, anyway. I'm currently half way through my four-week radiotherapy treatment, which goes some way to explaining the serious lack of blogging here in the last couple of weeks.

During these last two weeks I've been driving over to Cheltenham Oncology every weekday for my treatment. This involves lying on a not-all-that-comfortable table, underneath a Linac ( linear particle accelerator ) machine, with a mask strapped to my head.

The mask has been fitted exactly to the contours of my face and has markers placed on it which, with the aid of lasers, ensure that my head is in the exact same position every time I receive a dose of radiation, and only the specific area is targeted. It's a very strange and claustrophobic experience, not painful, but certainly stressful. Another patient I've been talking to has said he gets so claustrophobic he has to be sedated for every session. Luckily, I don't feel that bad... but trying to juggle this schedule and trying to work as well has proved to be too much for me. I've given up work for the next three weeks at least, so fortunately that added stress has gone. For now.

Yesterday morning, after my treatment, I called in to a nearby Asda to get some breakfast, only to be confronted by the latest installment in David Bowie's Lazarus-like comeback... namely, the above NME cover. It did make me chuckle. ( I actually just typed the word "maske" then, instead of "make"  -  this is getting a bit obsessive now... )

I've been very lucky all through this process that I've had wonderful support from my friends and family, without whom etc. etc. Sarah and the kids have naturally been worried by all of this, and things have been quite stressful on occasion, but their love and support is what keeps me going. And a big shout out for my very good mates, Glenn and Kevin ( neither of whom will probably read this... ) who have been, and continue to be, the most loyal and understanding friends anyone could possibly have. Cheers, guys!

Hopefully, with all this free time I'm going to have now, I might even get back to regular blogging. I've still got all those movies from 2012 that I never got round to reviewing, and the second part of my
Death Planet Commandos origin story to post here. But then, dear reader, you've heard all this before :-)

Master Of Magnetism

OK, I'm not actually Magneto but I have been in contact with some serious magnetism recently.

I went for my second MRI scan at Gloucester Hospital today, this time of my whole spine. ( The last time was just of my neck. ) Previous results had been clear and apparently this second scan was a standard procedure, which isn't expected to find anything nasty...
Fingers crossed...

MRI, of course, stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging and is a technique for building up a picture of the body's structure which goes further than X-rays in its examination of soft tissue. The link above gives the full, jargon-heavy explanation of how it all works but I like the version I was given at my first scan a couple of weeks back. Magnetic waves pass through you, turning every atom in your body by 45 degrees, then flipping them back again; the changes to the regular patterns this causes are measured and that builds up the picture. That may be an over-simplification but it sounds cool to me...

I spent about 35 minutes inside the scanner today. After removing all metal items ( and debit cards, which can be wiped by the magnetic field ) I laid down on the bed and was trundled into the machine on a conveyor belt, like an oversized oven-ready turkey going through a checkout. It's a strange experience, once inside. You're given earplugs before going in because the process is incredibly loud. The scanner gives off a few clicks to start with as it sounds like it's being aligned, then begins a barrage of sounds, alternately like a pneumatic drill or an automatic rifle. The sounds seemingly randomly slow down, speed up, change pitch... and then stop. After a long gap it all starts again. Over and over. Coupled with the claustrophobia of being in such a confined space the whole process is quite disorientating.
My way of dealing with it is to play a load of songs in my head while I lie there. I got through all of Born To Run during my first session, and most of London Calling today... which isn't easy with all those competing rhythms in your skull. Strangely enough, even with all this racket going on I still managed to drift into a kind of half-sleep, with scraps of dreams and images coming and going. But then, I'm like that: Sarah always says I could sleep on a washing-line. ( Whatever that means. )
I finally emerged, bleary-eyed, and must have seemed suspiciously out-of-it to the nurse :-)

And it's not over yet. Tomorrow I'm going to the Oncology department at Cheltenham to discuss my forthcoming radio therapy and to have a CT Scan. ( Oh yeah, I also had a dodgy wisdom tooth taken out yesterday because radio therapy can have adverse effects on your teeth and jaw if there's any existing problem there. ) It's all go round these 'ere parts :-)

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you out there in the Blogworld and beyond are having a fantastic start to the year I'm contractually obliged to refer to as Twenny-thir'een ( that's 2013 in old money )
Above are perennial favourites around these parts, Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes, embarking on another adventure, full of youth and optimism, ready for the future and whatever it holds.

To be frank I'm struggling myself to feel that positive about the future at the moment, veering between optimism and pessimism on a daily basis. I'm waiting for test results at the moment, resulting from the operation I had back in November, and it's casting quite a shadow over the year to come. In the last week I've had a bone marrow sample taken ( ouch! and on Christmas Eve, too... ) and had a full body X-ray, then next week I'm going for an MRI, to be followed at some point by radiotherapy. Although I feel like a mad scientist's plaything at the moment this is all obviously for my benefit and, hopefully, a case of my specialist being over-cautious and covering all bases. That's the best-case scenario, anyway...

But, as I said ( and not wanting to depress you all... too much... ), I hope everyone reading this has a Happy and healthy New Year. And, in that spirit, here are some of the things that make me happy, family and friends:

Medication time...

I've been lucky enough to have avoided hospitals for most of my 45 years, apart from visiting other people who haven't been so lucky. In fact, I've only been in hospital twice before  -  once to have a birthmark removed when I was four, and once because I'd swallowed some poisonous seeds when I was about eight or so. ( More grey hairs for my parents... )

So, it came as a bit of a culture shock when I was admitted into Gloucester Royal Hospital last Thursday. I'd noticed a couple of months ago that there was something at the back of my mouth, near the tonsils, that shouldn't be there. I thought that maybe I was growing a new eye in there like those geriatric aliens in the Doctor Who episode, Amy's Choice. But it wasn't anything so interesting. To tell the truth it was quite worrying. I had an appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who used words like "polyp", "lesion" and "papilloma" and booked me in for surgery.

Time ticked away slowly, as it always does when you're worried about something. Luckily, the pressures of work and a few gigs and trips away kept me distracted from thinking about it too much. Sarah was, if anything, more stressed out about it than I was.

The day finally arrived and Sarah drove me to Gloucester Royal for 07:30am and we waited... and waited...
After hours of boredom I was finally wheeled down to Theatre ( in one of those flattering gowns with the arse hanging out ) and went in at 15:10pm or so. I have to admit I wasn't as scared as I'd expected to be ( I'm notoriously bad with needles and suchlike ) and found it all very interesting. I had a chat with a very cute nurse ( there's an upside to everything... ) while the anaesthetist did her thing... and, the next thing I knew, I was coming round in the recovery room. Job done. I've always heard about how quickly you go under when you have a general anaesthetic but I was amazed at just how sudden it was. It was definitely a relief to have this horrible growth removed at last and well worth the discomfort. After a few more hours of boredom I was finally discharged and Sarah got me home for about 21:30pm. What a looooong day!

I've got nothing but praise for the staff at GRH. You hear so many horror stories about the NHS but everybody who dealt with me on Thursday from the receptionist up to the surgeon was kind, friendly and helpful. And, of course, my lovely wife was amazing  -  I couldn't have done it without her.
I've now been signed off work for a week so, hopefully, with all this spare time I'll be able to catch up with some blogging. Like I said, there's an upside to everything :-)

Men's Walk 2011

Here's my mate Kev ( no. 319 ) and me ( no. 317 ) having just finished the Men's Walk 2011, a 10km sponsored walk in aid of Cotswold Care Hospice. I'd been saying for some time that there ought to be a men's version of the Race For Life or Midnight Walk - two all-female charity races / walks - and now here was my chance to do my bit for the wonderful people at Cotswold Care.

700 blokes started out at 9am on a grey, gloomy Sunday morning at Gloucester's Kingsholm rugby stadium...

...passed Gloucester Cathedral...

...on through the historic docks...

...and around the outskirts of the City.

By the time we were about half way round the sky cleared and the sun came out. Well, they say the sun shines on the righteous :-)

After two hours of good exercise and good company Kev and I arrived back at Kingsholm for a pie and a pint and a lap of honour around the stadium.

Why is this man smiling? Is it because he's proud to have walked and raised money for a worthy cause...

or because he's just seen the following lovely ladies?

I am not a number I am a free man...

OK, I'm a number today.

I even got to watch my first rugby match, which was far more enjoyable than this strictly non-sports fan had expected. And Gloucester hammered Newport...

Cheers Kev! Same time next year?

Update: whilst I was otherwise occupied, Sophie hacked into my blog and added the tag "Hot Girls" to this post. The little minx. Luckily she didn't add the tag "Middle-aged men with beer-bellies".

Update 2: it turns out that James did the hacking, not Sophie. Little bugger etc. etc.