He was a Skater Boy ...

Today's cassette change went without a hitch again, and Dr.Hall has increased the morphine level by another 50mg to 250mg in the cocktail, with the aim of easing some of the pain that had been breaking through. He's also devised a method of hopefully increasing the pain relief without adding to my immobility! Apparently, if he adds a drug called cholonodine to the solution, it will work with both the morphine and bipuvicaine to increase their effectiveness, but, somehow, not increase the tendency of the local anaesthetic to turn my legs numb and leave me with the mobility of an upturned tortoise.


In the hospital, Sarah and I bumped into the surgeon who'd done my original operation in November '06: the one I said to Sarah at the time looks more like a Skater Boy than a consultant surgeon, he seemed so young to me. His concern and interest today was so genuine, I was reminded to put onto the record books the fact I have been so impressed by all the clinical staff I have encountered in the NHS. They have all been genuinely motivated and interested at every step of the way, and their concern has always been apparent. With Nick Woodcock (Skater Boy) especially, as in one of our meetings last year, he was actually moved to tears.

The walking frame arrives today, too, so when I do reach the point (on about the third or fourth boost of the day) where I cannot walk easily even with the stick, I'll at least be able to gingerly get about without feeling I am going to topple over - a danger made ever more plausible by the presence of our beloved Hermione, who has taken to walking around my feet at the most inconvenient of times, seemingly determined to bring me to the floor in order to have something soft to sit on, or to berate me for not filling her food dish quickly enough.


The fact I may not need further increases to the concentration of the bipuvicaine has been an oasis of good news in a seemingly endless vista of declining functionality for me. It even softens the arrival of the walking frame, knowing I will not necessarily get to the point where I have to be using the frame or chair all the time. Now the frame is just a useful piece of equipment, and not another step on a slippery slope towards the time when I might be bed ridden and permanently sedated.

I find thinking about "declining" quite difficult, because it seems to go against my belief in me being possibly cured, as I know for some people the mere thinking of something as a possibility is akin to bringing it on oneself (I know a few positive thinkers will be reading this blog, and, for some of them, thinking one negative thought about my illness is tantamount to suicide!!!). I can see it differently, though, because the small amount of time I devote to the planning for the possibility of my death and the steps towards it is much smaller than the amount of time I devote to the visualisation of my future: like watching Emma's graduation from university, or my 73 rd birthday (why 73rd, I don't know; it's just one that struck me as a good one to concentrate on).

Apart from anything else, behaving in a manner which doesn't admit the possibility of my death would have people looking at me most oddly (and even now, the fact I can still stand for being well again has a few people a bit baffled - especially anyone who has seen me in the grip of a bout of pain from the tumours!). It would just deny the reality of my situation now, and put me well and truly into cloud cuckoo land.



I say I can still stand for being cured, but at the same time, I have no idea about how the miracle of my cure would happen. I think my being open and available to its possibililty is a very important element of it, but the method of its occurrence? Well, I am entirely clueless. I love some stories about similar occurrences, though. One of our friends told me of a guy who'd watched Tom and Jerry videos for a few weeks after he'd found out he had cancer, and it disappeared. I tell you this much, if laughter is part of the cure, I am already quids in! Then there was a guy whose story was reported on a website Sarah visited called Beating Cancer Gently.com. This site was set up by a man who witnessed his wife's death from breast cancer and, determined not to let her death be meaningless, he researched all the methods of cancer treatment (both "normal" and complementary methods) which seemed to have some curative results, and he put them all on this website. He is clear and up front about his not being a medical person, but the information he has put together is phenomenal. Anyway, there was this story on there of a man who had even gone into a coma, he was so far gone with his cancer, and he reports seeing his body lying there and, as in a lot of those Near Death Experience reports, he saw the light at the end of a long tunnel accompanied by an overwhelming sensation of love. He says he was told it didn't have to be his time, and the next thing he knew, he was out of his coma, and all his cancer was gone. I know "miracles" are not everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps some scepticism is a healthy thing to bring to a situation like mine, where people can become so desperate to find a cure they can become susceptible to any charlatan or shaman out to make a fast buck from their desperation. And, at the same time, I know there are people reading this blog who believe in miracles 100%, and have seen them happen. I know for a fact, Sarah has gone through so many web pages her head began to spin with the number of "miracle" cures, and the variations of approaches, all of which are reported to have produced verifiable results. Many of these "cures" are contradictory - one saying do one thing whilst another says you must never do the same thing. And of course, all the people peddling their answer want to tell you theirs is the right answer!



The whole thing is so baffling, and the number of variations so great, that no one can be certain which to trust. That having been said, the Beating Cancer Gently site has distilled a number of approaches, and offers a very objective and unbiased assessment of the "treatments" including assessments by the scientific community where available, so a cancer patient can assess and attempt to intuit what approach may be the one for them. One I have seriously considered is the grape diet: it should be immediately counter intuitive, because cancers love sugar! That's because a cancer is nothing more than a rapidly dividing and growing set of cells requiring a great deal of energy to continue to grow (hence people with cancer being very tired a lot of the time). Red grapes, however, also contain a chemical toxic to cancer cells. Hence, the sugars in the grapes get to the cancer rapidly by virtue of their energy consuming nature, and then the additional chemicals kill the cancer off. It's reportedly had some success. The biggest downside for me is, being a colostomy wearer, and grapes being an emetic ... well, let's just say it would be a potentially very messy and smelly way to survive. I'd also not get much sleep, as the effects would be twenty four hourly, and you have to keep this diet up for at least six weeks! Still, it may come to that one day (though I tell you, I earnestly hope not!).

I know this much for certain: if prayer works, or makes a difference to the outcome in my case, I am definitely going to get the miracle - there are so many people praying for me, of nearly every major religion, I must be very near top of God's "to do" list by now. If love makes a difference, then I'm also onto a winner, because Sarah and I are getting so much of that given to us that I can feel it around me day and night!

So, who the hell knows? If anything is possible, then so is my small miracle. It's not that I am scared of dying (I've mentioned that in the bit on attitude on one of the earliet posts): that's not the reason for beleiving in the miracle. I simply believe in the miracle of surviving, at any time - although, as Sarah says, I wish you wouldn't take so long to have the miracle happen! If it's to happen, it will do so in its own sweet time, and will not be rushed.

In the meantime, I'll just sit back, and as much as possible, enjoy the ride.