onion ring

Rick stein sure makes a fine onion ring

pasty

forget walking on the moon and splitting the atom, in the history of human achievement I pissed on them. For today, dear friends, I ate a pasty. Thank you.

profound

Actor Timothy Spall said on telly last night that after he was diagnosed with leukaemia a few years ago he found it easy to be profound. Now that he is fully recovered he can't be arsed!

I identify totally with this sentiment.

In my darkest hours profundities dripped from my virtual pen like honey from a bee (?) Now I am well on the road to recovery all that tree hugging nonsense that I blogged, quite genuinely, a couple of months ago, seems like a load of old tosh. This is is a sure sign that I am back to my 50 year old righteous and grumpy self. Hurrah!

With this in mind I have decided that after my 6 weekly visit to my consultant a week on Monday, I will draw a veil over this blog and hopefully come up with a few conclusions and try and force some final profoundness out.

Watch this space blogettes.*

*see the post'apology', for a follow up to this post.

card

Keeley's aunties, Jacky & Angie, have sent me a card pretty much every week this year. Small gestures like this are a consistent reminder to me of how lucky I am to have such fantastic family around me. This is today's card.

Alongside the support from my family I have received amazing support from friends and even total strangers. My great friend Sarah has constantly supported me through my ups and downs and her positivity  has been such a big help. I also received a message this morning from a friend of Karl's, Jeannie, who I have never even met, but who had followed my blog. Her words were so thoughtful and kind and put a big smile on my face.

A few words, a card, a phone call, a text, 

simple gestures that mean a great deal.

bath

this morning I had a proper deep bath, without Keeley having to help me in and out, for the first time since February! Glorious. I should say that I have showered in the meantime, but not without having to tape over my feeding tube. Simple pleasures.

plea

watched the stand up to Cancer show on telly last night. Brought home how lucky we have been. There is always someone worse off is a bit of a throw away comment, but I have seen first hand this year that, no matter how bad things were for me, when you see kids suffering and succumbing to the terrible disease, I have been very, very fortunate.

From what I have learned, and what was said last night, the thing standing between us and a cure for all cancers is time and money. With this in mind I think we all owe it to ourselves to give a few quid to Macmillan or Cancer Research and do our bit.

I have first hand evidence that this works. When dad passed away 22 years ago from non Hodgkins Lymphoma, it was untreatable. Now, thanks to stem cell treatment funded and developed thanks to Cancer Research, the condition is eminently treatable.

I started giving £10 a month to Cancer Research back then which in the big picture is absolutely nothing and a small enough amount for me not to 

miss it. I've certainly had my money's worth out of it this year. Whether it's through guilt, grief or the kindness of our hearts, a couple of quid a month is nothing to most of us but added together could make such a big difference.

cancerresearchuk.org

list

as a demonstration of how positive I am that all of the bad stuff is now behind us, I am going to wind this blog up over the next few days. Hopefully this will help to make a full stop on the last few months and a good starting point for the next chapter.

Here we go then. This year has been a series of firsts and landmarks for me. Here are a few:

• I have been bald

• I spent a night (11 of them) in hospital 

• I had a tonsil out

• I had 76 injections

• I wrote a blog

• I cried a lot

• I didn't eat anything for 4 months

• I realised how lucky I am to have a fantastic wife, fantastic children, fantastic family and fantastic friends

• I was depressed

• I had an operation (3) 

• I had a feeding tube

• I watched a lot of telly

• I missed the school run for the first time in 10 years

• I went in an ambulance

• I was treated in a&e

• I feinted a few times

• I had chemotherapy

• I had 18 blood tests

• I had 30 radiotherapy sessions in 44 days

• I wore jogging bottoms in public

• I didn't do much (any) work

• I missed consecutive Stoke home games for the first time since 1979

• I wore slippers

more soon.

bath?

the hole in my tummy is now pretty much healed up. Bit early to go swimming or have a bath yet but we're not far off.

Eating continues to improve. Went to our favourite burger place (Byrons) in Manchester yesterday and enjoyed the veggie option ( a mushroom smothered in goats cheese) without the bun, some courgette fries and onion rings. Yum yum. Bread is still difficult but most other things are now fine. I continue to have small portions, and the main thing holding me back now is my lack of saliva. This should return to normal in time.

When they told us at the beginning of the treatment that it could be 18 months to 2 years before I'm back to normal we didn't really take it in. 5 months post treatment and 9 months since we started we are still a comparatively short time into the recovery process.we started

gone

it's gone.And what's more I did it myself. The feeding tube co-ordinator from the hospital rang and suggested it was so simple that I could take it out myself. So with her talking me through it on the phone I did it.

Bloody ace. Just can't have a drink for 4 hours or I'll leak.

tube

visit to dietician today which went very well and then very badly. I was expecting that, if I had maintained my weight since the last appointment, which I had, that I could have my feeding tube out. No go.

She was delighted with my progress in the last month ( I haven't used the tube for 4 weeks) but wasn't able to organise the removal without a referral to the right person, which could take a month.

It won't be a month because I am now going to use my insider knowledge of how these things work (built up over the last 9 months) to bypass the protocol and get it sorted, hopefully in the next week or so. We shall see.

elevenses

mid morning snack of champions. Ensure super high calorie drink (banana flavour, 400 calories), and a chocolate eclair. Only recommended, if like me, you are trying to pile on the pounds with a view to having your feeding tube removed next week.

tea

fish on Friday. Went down a treat.

stir fry

saw Lynn my speech therapist yesterday at UHNS. Delighted by my progress and doesn't need to see me again. Marvellous.

Swallowing and eating is going fine. Bread, and as I discovered yesterday, the good old doughnut, is still a problem. As long as everything is fairly moist I can eat it, albeit not too much. 

Had a stir fry last night with Keeley, Chris & the kids and it went down pretty well. Bit of a sore throat afterwards. This is probably due to the 'newness' of the skin in my throat which is sensitive to the seasoning in the food, and is also being effected by the coughing that I have to employ to regularly clear my throat.

Progress in the last month has been remarkable, but we are still only a short 4 months past the end of my treatment, so my throat, taste buds, saliva glands, tongue and neck are still traumatised by the radiotherapy and it will probably be a good few months yet until things return properly to normal.