Making the Cut...Well almost

Ok...so you try finding a funny radiotherapy photo!

Well, what else do I do with the seventh consecutive night of insomnia, but write my blog. You’d think that 3-4 hours total per day in batches of minutes rather than hours wouldn’t be enough, but I’m still here. zzzzzzzzzzz. It’s the drugs of course but at 4.30 in the morning I should be asleep or at least flying somewhere in a past life. So here I am racking my brain to find a theme to rant about, other than the obvious health issues (pauses and sighs at the computer with writers’ blog block…)


Subjects that spring to mind:
The Wrong Cruise… Radiotherapy for Beginners…University Fees…


There must be something about me that gives the impression I’m either tough or stupid. I must have a sign around my neck to medics that says ‘he’ll be up for it!’ And so it is that I have student nurses constantly practicing their needle skills on my flesh as I feign nonchalance, cracking jokes. Needles are always involved with treatments with the exception of a trial I have just completed which compliments the cancer therapies with either reflexology or holistic massage. I was selected to be massaged for a series of four therapies (such a hard life). Actually, it was more like three since my lady masseur did no more than put her hands on me (with my lack of sleep) and I passed out into a deep and tranquil sleep. Snoring away I had to be woken to turn over, and again at the end. Ahhh!
For those of you who have never experienced a good massage then you must go. Anyone going to the far east…take care! However, true to form I have drifted off subject….


Famously on the front cover of the glossy Royal Marsden Magazine is Dr Koo is grinning with pride and pleasure at having secured a state of the art Radiotherapy machine. Now I always take it for granted that you know what all this technical equipment does. In this case, the radioactivity is shot at you from a choice of angles and can be controlled much more precisely by accounting for any miniscule body movement such as breathing (usually an option taken by patients). Always at this point I think of the laser beam in James Bond’s Goldfinger, edging toward the imminent dicing of limbs, combined with the instruction as ever to lay absolutely still (if not already bolted to the treatment table). Digressing slightly I last heard that statement from the anaesthetist fitting an epidural to a writhing Michelle during her birth to Daniel and then telling me if he missed she could be paralysed. OK, I’m focused! As if birth wasn’t traumatic enough for the husband!!
Oh, and why, when I can swim the 25metre length of a pool holding my breath comfortably, do I feel pressured in a CT Scanner when told to ‘breath in and hold your breath’, for no more than ten seconds…the pressure! Anyhow, having only just had a second blast or two of the fun radioactive stuff a few weeks earlier in my head after my last ‘stupid phase’ (see last blog) I was co-opted into being one of the first few patients to benefit from this new machine and its stereo tactical radiotherapy. The Cyberknife. What the heck I thought why not (visions of Goldfinger return). But alas my turn was to come and go as the machine wasn’t out of the box in time for the therapy and then they suggested I might not want to wait. What was to be a single large dose became ten smaller doses over as many days. No hair loss this time and no unexpected side effects. Oh, I forgot to mention that this is my back we are talking about, lower left lumbar region.


Well, I just had a memory of that last treatment that made me smile, so let me share it with you.


I would become invested in the temporary radioactive club. Every day for ten consecutive days. You would see the same half dozen people as you shared a small but comfortable waiting space often wondering just who is a patient and who is the concerned relative…I still get it wrong.
Before many of these radiotherapy sessions, measures are taken to reduce your mobility. When I first had my head done I was fitted with a Copley facsimile restraining mask which was then marked to coincide with the areas of treatment. So it was then when my back was done, I was to be marked accordingly with three black dot tattoos. The machine does not care which way up to treat you so you are invariably on a horizontal ‘transparent’ radiotherapy table. So, nothing new here, I’m on my back in my underwear answering the inevitable questions of my identity (just in case I swapped with someone…yeah!) which may of course have changed since 30 seconds earlier when they last asked me in my shorts.
The normal interrogation is: ‘Name... Address… Date of Birth?


Genuinely careful not to embarrass the patient by dropping his shorts to an uncomfortable level, paper towels are normally laid over any exposed area. With no weight to these towels you feel naked anyway. On this occasion I was attended by a rather camp therapist and he too began the questionnaire as he dealt with my usual embarrassment , ‘Name… Address…TELEPHONE NUMBER!’. ‘TELEPHONE NUMBER’?! Seeing his obvious deep embarrassment I am so proud of my immediate response ‘shouldn’t you buy me a drink first? With much giggling and apologising he cupped his hands to his face and left to put the plug in the machine and fry a few more of my cells.


The therapy was completed just before we went on holiday…That would be a Virgin Cruises Holiday (watch this space)! My back pain has reduced by some degree thanks.


And the Virgin Cruises thing? Perhaps next time.


For now I’ll leave you with the Cruise/Orlando photos:


https://picasaweb.google.com/Copleyphotos

Richard




N.B. I have recently sorted my Skype out with a separate phone. This means that I don’t miss calls by having either a headset connected or the computer volume being turned down. Would anyone who uses the system like to send me an invite on Skype to: richard.copley UK, Southend on Sea.
Just occasionally you won’t get the video though…so vain!!! R

Fun Being Dumb

 


                             Looking into the Void?


As if to endorse my most recent medical problem, I have ‘lost’ my blog. Well not really ‘lost’ more like misplaced it in this electronic labyrinth tucked into a file no doubt about house insurance or face painting! It has to be somewhere but no amount of searching has brought it out. So this is effort number 2 of blog 32.

It is official, I can now be forgiven for forgetting what may have just happened, or been said... for being FORGETFUL! My defence, is as good as any husband could wish for “I’m sorry I don’t remember you telling me to ********”. No, it’s not the onset of dementia having turned fifty!

Let me fill you in on the last month or so.

I made an unscheduled visit to my local hospital A&E about a month ago…you guessed it, I couldn’t remember why I went and now rely on Michelle’s account of events and how dozy I had become.

 Not surprisingly I can feel a little off colour with my drugs so I am always on the lookout for new side effects. A favourite is however tiredness, with just about every drug conspiring to bring it to prominence, the combined effect from the chemotherapy, thyroxin replacement and radiotherapy treatments do conspire to bring you down… they sometimes succeed. It can be a gradual process of increased lethargy, or simply a lack of involvement in a conversation. You can become vacant. Yes I know, how did anyone spot the difference from the real me? Well evidently on this one particular Saturday Michelle had had enough of the ‘dopey’ Richard and sought advice from the Royal Marsden Hospital. I guess when Michelle was told to go to my local A&E and to expect an MRI or CT scan of my head on the grounds that I had trouble concentrating and ‘choosing’ words, the Marsden had already second guessed the diagnosis.


Initial assessment by the A&E team had them only a little concerned, until that is when they thought to give me an anti nausea injection to compensate for another drug that I’ve never had nausea from, but hey ho! Wham! My brain just went on holiday and instantly I became unresponsive and catatonic. I was a blank sheet of paper for a short while with no recollection of anything from my date of birth, to what day it was. I found out that I was away with the fairies and for some reason found this situation far less worrying than Michelle and the Doctors. The standard finger tip to the end of the nose co-ordination was not quite as it should have been either, with my finger firmly poking myself in the forehead. Actually all I remember, rather than being told afterwards, is the lady Doctor's face staring into my eyes from close range for some sign of life. An image rather resembling a wide angle lens Alfred Hitchcock’ish’ scene and probably the closest any pretty woman has come to my face without being embraced in a kiss…now that would have been interesting, perhaps I did…na, I’d still bare the bruises from Michelle if I had!

 This was all a bit much for the Doctor who had seen me arrive at A&E being just a bit ‘slow’, to being a vegetable in front of her eyes. It was only then that they agreed to CT scan me as the Marsden had requested.


Now those of you who have ever been on a pain relief such as morphine will empathise with the fact that I had no real knowledge that anything in my world was wrong, the effect being the same. I was content, even happy to be pulled around and was eventually admitted ‘unaware’ that anything was really that wrong. Dumb is fun, I really had no idea of the possible damage this new tumour could have caused.


This is fast becoming a medical blog with no laughs or gripes so let me cut to the chase.


The CT scan showed a new area of concern and one that the Marsden would need to see me about as soon as possible, but never the less not urgent. The scans would have to be hard copy viewed at the Marsden because the electronic images were not compatible. The scans from Southend Hospital however never did make it to London so I repeated both CT and MRI scans when they could fit me in. Evidently the fine quality of the Marsden MRI scanner identified two suspicious masses in my brain. One of these masses was thought to be ‘dead’, courtesy of the last Radiotherapy some eighteen months ago. (I’m happy to point out that all of the other tumours dealt with 18 months ago had disappeared to everyone’s delight). The latest new mass was only the size of a Malteser but was sat close to my speech centre in the brain and causing all sorts of mischief. This was the cause of my problems but the swelling around it exacerbated the pressure and caused the effects. But it had also triggered a happy button and I just didn’t have a care in the world. So Dumbo here finally gets his marbles returned to him after a few days, thanks to the decreased swelling in my head courtesy of steroids. I love to hate steroids!

 The chosen medical option of treatment was at first a full blown knives out brain surgery to remove the new tumour but that later changed to a Stereotactic Radiosurgery solution. As I understand it the radiosurgery targets the mass and ‘zaps’ it with quite a large and precise dose of radiation. Naturally I was to glow in the dark a little bit more having been recharged, and was to watch out for the hair loss!


Back to the hospital for a new face mask (to give me a matching pair for the kids) and there I am once again, bolted unceremoniously by the head to the treatment couch. The second ‘dead’ tumour shown on the scan was considered too good a target not to blast again…just in case! I wish I could offer some anecdotal and in depth account of the 45 minutes spent in cranial bondage but …I was snoring like a horse for most of the time. For some reason I find being restrained a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, I have no idea why (answers on a postcard to…). They may have messed my hair up but, to this day (day 12) I still have a white crop.

 I mentioned earlier how I love to hate steroids. It is unjustified, as they cause all manner of good medical stuff i.e. to keep you alive, but I find one of the secondary effects of blowing you up like a balloon and peeing for England through the night, highly irritating. My normal chiselled good looks have become bloated and dumpy, and I am heavier due to an insatiable appetite. Clothes sizing has become a problem. Some of my shirts were small in size two months ago but now I find I am more comfortable in an XL. Thankfully I have stored my fat gear in the loft and the fashion police have cleared most of them for a public decency airing…quite literally! You don’t put on 20 pounds and expect to get away with your skinny jeans. So I now have clothes ranging in 4 sizes.

 So that’s where we are today. All of my other tumours are stable, a small point which was dropped into the conversation the other day at the Marsden having done a sneaky torso CT scan to check whilst my head was being looked at. I think daily about starting training for my annual 60 mile bike ride but to date have done nothing of note in the way of training. Two months to go.


Thanks for all the concern and prayers, over the last few weeks especially. Many thought it was the start of an irreversible decline but, what the heck, when I started being the same stereotypical grumpy, sarcastic and intransigent old man… they knew I had recovered!


Richard

Dead Calm





The secret of health for both mind and body
is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future,
or anticipate troubles, but to
live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

tedium(ti’-) n. tiresomely long, tediousness, wearisome, irksome.




I have no right to be bored and tired of my daily grind. Only this morning I woke and, despite the gloom of the early hour, I managed to express my thanks for yet another day. But not everyday can be filled with wonder and awe with me bouncing around like a spring lamb. Don’t worry, I’m not clinically depressed… just a little kitchen ‘stressed’.

The weeks now seem to fly through with very little to excite, amuse or downright frighten me! For the first time in my life I have experienced the feeling of personal detachment caused by you lot all going out working during the daylight hours! No extra breakfasts at a greasy spoon down the seafront, no one to play snooker or golf with because you all have demanding and stressful jobs…so thoughtless! Don’t get me wrong, I love my freedom to potter around at my discretion and to be honest I wouldn’t change 95% of it, but I can get really bored with my own company. Now, don’t all ring up and send thousands of emails to keep me busy!

The radio in the kitchen harks to the ever-cheerful Chris Evans trying to keep the Nation in good spirits and providing in my case that all important outside connection during the day. I’m not bored, I have loads of things I could be doing from painting and decorating to playing with my toys and I know that no one will complain about my slovenliness, the house is clean and the washing done, but occasionally I miss the hassle and pain of a trying day, as most were when working with the airlines. The flying itself was of course a huge adrenaline boost to the day, the ever present mechanical and administrative problems to manage and of course the responsibility of passengers and crew safety. Now my skills are re-balanced and honed to more domestic tasks such as deciding whether the washing goes on a 40 degrees long cycle or short wash? Most days I don’t mind it, and there is a curious satisfaction in completing tasks no matter how mundane. I’m sorry to admit that I have a notebook in which I list all the days’ duties, and tasks. I like to believe it is because I am so organised but, in truth I am just forgetful. In fact I have been so sad as to add an unscheduled task I had just completed to the list, just to have the satisfaction of drawing a line through it to prove completion! How sad is that? Job Done!

…and how curious life is. I had no sooner finished the rant above than a friend turns up and we go for lunch! (Just lost the sympathy vote I think).

“GET A JOB” I hear you all cry together but, I cannot commit to serious work due to the concoction of side effects which at the very least would render me unconscious by mid afternoon. I can fight the need to close my eyes, but sleep invariably wins and I pass out soundly for an indeterminate length of time if I am not too careful. Even now at 1355 I am deep yawning, perhaps that was the surprise lunch. Does eating make you tired? Good job no alcohol was involved… I wouldn’t be here at all!

I’m a little early on the medical reporting. I have my three month scan next week and the report the week after, but as far as I know there is nothing to be concerned about.

Richard

N.B. For the airline peoples that get this blog, I was going to offer my services direct to the only airline that will fly a scheduled service into Southend, as their Company dispatcher/agent. Personal attention for one flight a day…part-time. I’m sure it would work. If I could sell it…if I want to sell it.