Aye, it has been a while.
I have posted all these blogs on facebook and now facebook comes up with each posting as a memory, I was much more productive at the end of 2015 than I have been this autumn.
Part of the answer, of course, is deadlines.
I have had two spells as a student. Way back in the seventies as a science undergraduate (well, really an Agric but they eventually gave me a BSc) then again across the millennium as a humanities student (after many years of reasonably successful study I retired without a degree). In both of these spells of study I was unable, or unwilling to write anything until the last possible moment before the deadline, or after if I thought I could get away with it.
And so it is with my blog.
Last winter I was confronted with the ultimate deadline, as looming death stood in front of me (there I go with the inept metaphors again. )
Not only did I have a deadline but I had something to say. Something that may have helped others but certainly helped me to absorb the reality of my situation.
And there was an audience. As a student the average, perhaps the maximum audience for anything I wrote was one. Two if you count myself, although I have never been very committed to rereading and revision.
Suddenly I was writing to an audience of several hundred, over a thousand according to google, but many of those, I suspect are readers coming back looking for the next instalment and rereading the old ones in the hope that they may have changed. Not only reading but providing positive feedback (although who would find fault with a tumour bearer's output. It may not be done well but we are surprised it is done at all, as one of the larger British brains of the last three centuries nearly said).
Anyway to my health. From day to day I feel very fit. I cough a bit, hardly surprising with several lumps of me/notme lurking in my lungs. Side effects are negligible at present; to the extent that I ponder whether the lack of symptoms mean that the benefial effects are also waning.
I have of course had a further scan and a meeting with Dr Lord. The scans showed that almost everything in lungs and brain was stable except that some of the smaller nodules (apparently the medical term for something not quite big enough to be called a tumour) in my lungs have grown a little; from around 3mm to almost 4mm.
In my fevered mind this is almost certainly caused by my uncharacteristic air of optimism in my last posting. To compensate I have adopted a more pessimistic attitude this trimester. My next scan is at the end of January with an oncology meeting in early February. I will wait with my usual mixture of hope and fear.
Purely by coincidence my latest appointment with Dr Lord took place exactly a year after my accident which altered our lives almost as much as it altered Ben's wee Fiesta. Since then anniversaries have rushed by of scans and biopsies, of trips to Kirkcaldy and Dundee and on Christmas Eve of my introduction to Afatinib.
It has been hard to choose which of these echoes of the tsunami of emotion which threatened to overwhelm our lives last winter should I commemorate with a blog?
In the end of course I have chosen 'none of the above'. It is the second of January. For the last 2 weeks the house has been a true family home. The hall has echoed with laughter and tears from grandchildren and nieces and nephews while adults enjoy the delicious meals that have flowed from the kitchen thanks to the efforts of Clare and her helpers. Alcohol has flowed in complete defiance of government recommendations.
But today I am alone in the house with time to reflect on my predicament.
I find myself completely accepting that the little beggars I carry will kill me; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon and... (but there my attempt to shoehorn Casablanca into my oeuvre grinds to a halt). At the same time I am in something very like denial. Like a Schrodingers grandfather I occupy two contradictory states of being at the same time.
Of course New Year is a time to look to the future not really to reflect on the past. So unless or until my rebellious non-small cells force a change I will continue to live life as I always have. I will enjoy the achievements of my children and grandchildren. I will carry on my missionary work on behalf of locally produced free range eggs. It is entirely possible that there will be times when I shall drink to much and laugh almost enough.
I have tried to avoid politics but I can't entirely. It seems highly likely that I will die while in Britain and America the nastiest right wing governments that I have known are in power. Both give strength to xenophobic and racist views and seem to be based on greed and hatred of the other.
