On Being A Public Servant - Part 1

La Mujer Libre writes an interesting Blog.  She has recently been posting on incidents from her time on a Prison Visiting Committee and mentioned Ken Murray.  

I commented that, having been part of The System, I have an enormous respect for those such as Ken Murray who have the courage to buck it when they have the conviction and ability and that one of the reasons that I retired at 50 was that government service had changed so dramatically that I no longer felt in tune with it.  I was one of the fortunate ones.   Having spent a couple of years working on one of the biggest public planning inquiries Scotland had seen (after Dounreay) I decided that I wanted to take early retirement after the Inquiry finished.   The Council was happy to get rid of expensive senior staff and so, soon after it finished, my application was granted and I retired on my full pension.

I was fortunate because my wife and I had a business which I could go into - a manufacturing pottery.  But more than that I wanted to leave a service that bore no relation to the service I had joined all those years previously. 

I joined Liverpool Corporation as a 16 year old junior clerk in the same job and sitting in the same chair at the same desk that Stanley Holmes (subsequently Sir Stanley and Chief Executive of Merseyside) had sat in when he started his career.

On my first day I was shown into the room of the then Principal Administrative Officer of the Town Clerk’s Department in which I was to forge my career.  (The Town Clerk's Department was the legal department and serviced the political machine ie the elected council.)  I can recall his words as if they had been uttered yesterday.  “You have joined The Town Clerk’s Department of Liverpool Corporation.  The Department will train you.  You will be sent to University.  You will receive promotions as befit your ability and application to the job.  You will have a job for life. In return you have to remember one thing and one thing only.  Your job is the same as the job of every one of the thirty thousand employees in the Corporation.   Your job is to serve the public.  Remember that above all else."  And he meant it.  Whatever else most people I worked with thought about their job most truly believed that they were serving the best interests of the public of Liverpool.

When I left local government many new appointments, particularly of senior staff, were being made on short term contracts.  For most staff there was no security of employment with cost cutting exercises taking place every year.  Services kept suffering as fewer people were there to do the jobs expected by the public.  Those that remained spent more and more time gathering statistics for government targets which were becoming harder and harder to achieve in the vicious circle.  The rest of the time they were ensuring that there was sufficient paperwork to protect themselves from the culture of blame and litigation sweeping in from the other side of the Atlantic. In short local government had ceased to be a place where all one had to remember was that one had to serve the public and get on with the job of doing that.  For many it had become a fight for survival.  It had become a place where one's first loyalty was to making sure that one could putting food into the mouths of one's family.

I believed that the public was worse off as a result.  It was not a place I wanted to be.

Why Don't I Have Photos?

A friend, Viv, stayed with me here in Eagleton just after I arrived back from New Zealand a few months ago.  Viv commented that I had no photos of Andrew on show in the house although I had photos of Gaz.  She wondered why.  The answer is actually quite simple.  We have very few contemporary photos of Andy.  The photo I used to have on the wall of him in his graduation robes was not a photo that he liked and was not one that I liked either.  So eventually I removed it.  Of course I have thousands (with no exaggeration) of him and of Gaz from their birth until they left the nest to go off into the big wide world.  Somehow every time I look at those photos I am overcome with a great sadness and I've never been able to  put them on display.  It doesn't stop me looking at them from time to time, though, as I have already scanned 2,500 photos (only another heaven knows how many tens of thousands still to sift through and scan).  

This evening as I sit in the Study watching the effect of the setting sun on the sea it is hard not to feel emotional and it occurs to me that it's about time I got a grip so here are a few photos of Andrew and of Andrew with Gareth.  Andrew is the elder (and taller!) of the two:

Emotional Uncertainty

I've been pondering again.  I'm in that sort of mood this evening.  I'm in need of an outlet for the emotions I feel but can't find a way of expressing.  In fact I have no idea what the emotions are that are churning around inside me.  It's a huge combination of frustration with things unachieved, of the great happiness at the times I've had this week with friends and with Gaz, at not being able to find the words for a friend in Vermont going through a difficult patch and who's family had bad news this week, of a friend (who was once significantly more than that) who is about to re-marry and whom I somehow feel is unhappy,  of a friend also waiting to know if she is to be made redundant, of a friend who's upset by the circumstances of a patient and the unpleasantness of people, of friends in turmoil, of a friend who is not happy.  And so the list goes on.

I am conscious of the fact that I have absolutely no reason personally to be anything other than exceptionally happy with my life.  So why do I feel as I do?  A rhetorical question, of course but one that I ask myself nonetheless.  

So I am taking advantage of the fact that I live in a relatively isolated detached house with very thick walls and with not much time to go before midnight am searching for that piece of music that might give my emotions relief and am giving thanks for the fact that I have very good and generous hi-fi speakers.  At the moment I'm playing Dame Janet Baker singing Elgar's Sea Pictures - an amazing, full and mellow voice singing songs of almost unparalleled emotion outside opera.  When the silence comes I know that my head will hold the music for what will seem like an age.  It becomes like a drug and it needs feeding in a way I find impossible to explain.

I said to a friend tonight that I envied her ability to play an instrument and discovered that she feels music as a deep emotion and not just an exercise is tonal creation.  There is so much to discover.  So much to explore.  So much to feel.  So much to experience.  And I thought I'd passed that stage.

Why, I wonder, do I feel that I have to explain that I haven't been drinking - unless a glass of red with dinner counts.  In fact I'm in one of my 'don't feel like it' phases which may also go some way to explaining things.

Don't worry, I'll be OK in the morning.  

Pride Cometh Before A Fall

I’ve been trying to work out why my enthusiasm for croquet waned so badly this season.  Ever since I came back to NZ last October I’ve played badly and had a pretty horrid time.  Last year I was looking at a handicap of 1 (in Golf Croquet) and recently I’ve been in danger of falling back to a 4.  I am currently 3.  OK I accept that that’s not a matter of great interest to anyone but me.  However it IS a matter of considerable interest to me.  At the start of this season I had about 8 pieces of silverware attesting to my play from last season together with several other odd tournament wins under my belt. 

Until yesterday I was looking at the possibility of a very lean season indeed.  In fact I still am although Jayne and I have a doubles win in Whakatane to our credit.  The visible reminders of the wins is not, however, what interests me.  Not even winning interests me for it’s own sake.  What interests me is the fact that they are a barometer of how I have performed.  And that matters to me.  With apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson  some would say that “ ‘Tis better to have played and lost than never to have played at all.”  But, in my books, that applies only if I have played well!!!!

So this year since my exceptionally poor performance at New Plymouth when I had just arrived back from Scotland I have been out of sorts with myself over croquet.  Consequently (perhaps?) I have been a bit out of sorts with myself in general.  Leastways I am now assuming that to be the reason.

It occurred to me on Sunday night that perhaps I had become too proud of my achievements over the last couple of years since I have been playing my new-found love.  Perhaps I had to learn that I was not so good after all.  Perhaps that is to be part of my karmic learning in this life.  So I came to terms with myself and accepted that if I was to become a 4 handicap then so be it.  I would cease to feel aggrieved with myself.  After all in the greater scheme of things it is a pretty unimportant matter.

So yesterday when I was asked to play an Association match with someone whom I dislike playing (because of the sort of defensive game she plays) I agreed notwithstanding my lack of preparedness for Association Croquet not having played a game for a while.

I set out to enjoy it whatever happened.  I played a defensive game too (well most of the time) which is alien to my way of playing.  I played well given my level of ability in that discipline.  After the first 20 minutes (the game was timed for three hours) I fell behind and remained behind until the last few minutes when I managed to creep two hoops in front to win the game.  What was significant was not the win but the fact that, instead of my usual feeling of frustration and dissatisfaction with myself as I fell behind, I was calm and accepting.  Perhaps that was why I played as well as I could possibly have wished to play in the circumstances.

Perhaps that is why when I played Golf Croquet this morning I played a relaxed and enjoyable and very good couple of games.  Perhaps that is why I am now looking forward to finishing the many club handicap games that I still have left to play in the 29 days I have left before I return to Scotland.

Perhaps that is why, today, I am happier with myself than I have been for quite a while.  

I Went To Church Today

I decided to have a ‘quiet time’ when I was in Napier this morning.  I have never been in a church in Napier except for a funeral.  Unfortunately one can’t just take refuge from the hectic, noisy world in most churches these days:  they are locked against the vandals.  To be frank the denomination of the church was not a consideration but it occurred to me that The (Anglican) Cathedral would at least be open to the public.  It was.  As I walked in there were some people chatting by the door so I side-stepped them and went down the church and sat down with my thoughts.  After a while the Guide (for that is what one of the three was) came and chatted to me, gave me a pamphlet about the church and said I was welcome to take photos of anything except the paintings of the stations of the cross (which were the last paintings on the face of the earth I would have wanted to photograph – I can understand why the artist refused permission!).  The Guide assumed I was a tourist and carried on in appropriate vein until I told him that I was, in fact, just a person who lived here who wanted to sit quietly.  By then my train of thought was broken so I decided to be a tourist and the results will appear on A Hebridean in New Zealand.

Whether one has faith or not I would certainly suggest that churches generally have a peacefulness which is conducive to thought and I have had some moments in churches which have been exceptionally spiritual and moving.  In fact I’m sure I have blogged about my experience in Rheims Cathedral.  Yes, I did, briefly.  On Eagleton Notes in Death in Victory.

So I never really had my ‘quiet time’.  But, hey, there’ll be more opportunities.

Sadness Strikes Again

It’s happened again.  And very unexpectedly.  This morning I had a very happy time.  Wendy came down early on to say goodbye to their friends who have been sleeping in my spare bedroom. We’d had a great evening yesterday but had all been to bed at a reasonable time!  I went to croquet.  We had a couple of new people and, as the weather was poor, only about 16 turned up to play. I played with each of the new ones as a partner in turn.  I think we will have two good new members.  I was delighted because I played very well and just felt like I did at the end of last season. That’s been rare this last few months.  Then I met Wendy in town for coffee and a chat and a wander round a few shops I would not usually have gone into.  All in all a lovely relaxing morning.

Then as I was driving out of town an old lady was standing at the kerbside.  I would guess that she was in her late 80s.  She was dressed in a way that told me she was comfortably off and well able to take care of herself.  However as I drove past I saw in her face a look that I have still been unable to find the words for.  Unfortunately because of my inability to hold images in my head I cannot actually recall what she looked like.  However I got an overall impression of bewilderment or something which immediately created a huge sadness in my heart.  The feeling she engendered and the sadness have refused to leave me all afternoon and now that it’s evening the memory is still haunting me. 

I re-read my last posting and in this case I did not know the person, nor have I any reason to feel sad for her or on her account.  But I do.  I cannot help it.  I watch the ills of the world on television every day.  I might feel sorry for those affected by disasters and war.  I might give a donation (although I am fully aware that it is but a miniscule drop in the ocean and will have little effect) but I never feel this sadness.  If I did I would be a miserable person.  And I’m not.  I’m generally a very happy person. 

But this one lady who looked so bewildered (was she bewildered?) has made me feel sad in a way that I cannot understand.

As I said last time I feel so totally useless and unable to help.  I still don't like that.

That Sort of a Day

Do you ever get to a point in a day when you just can't decide in which direction to go?  Well this evening is one of those evenings for me.

I played croquet this morning. It was a doubles match with my club partner.  We won the first game easily but lost the next two.  I'm very fortunate that I am playing well at the moment.  I'm on form and I have been having quite a lot of practice.  A far cry from the start of the season.  However my partner seems to be in a reverse situation with other aspects of her life taking over.  She has achieved more than any other player I have known in the time she has been playing and I am sure that she could go on to represent New Zealand if she put her mind to it.    But she seems to have  lost both the will and the form.  And in a month we will be playing in the championship doubles in the Nationals with the top players.  Not a place for being either off form nor lacking in will.  A show of lack of interest in front of the selectors will not do her future any favours.

So I left croquet this morning feeling very dispirited.  Not for me.  I'm happy where I am.  But for my partner.  to lose such an opportunity would be such a waste of talent.

I had lunch with Wendy and the children in the sun at the Café Ahuriri.  That was really good.

But this evening I am really in the doldrums and I have no particular idea why.  I suspect that it may be a combination of events.

Yesterday late afternoon I met, for the first time for well over a year, a friend of Wendy's who is just recovering from very severe and invasive chemotherapy.  She was radiant.  Having spent so much time in a cancer hospital I am used to chemo-caused hair loss.  So I wasn't phased by her lack of hair.  But the cruelty of the loss of a fabulous and abundant head of glorious red hair must have hit hard.  It brought home to me the  seen consequence of the illness.  For we rarely see the nausea and horrendous feelings cancer causes.

So when I woke in the middle of the night because my UK mobile phone had sounded an incoming text I was expecting the worst news of a friend in Scotland who has just had an operation (his third) to remove a brain tumor.  In actual fact the phone had not gone off.  It was a dream.  As I was returning to sleep it went off - for real this time - and the news wasn't good.  He has meningitis and has lost his hearing.

And so this evening as I try and work out what to eat I cannot even get my mind to concentrate on that.

Later.  I ate bread, cheese, tomato and banana.  Somehow it just arrived on the plate and I ate it.

And now I shall try and pull myself together.  In circumstances like this feeling sorrow does no good either to me or to those for whom I feel that sorrow.  I have a dear friend for whom I think positive thoughts every day.  I promised I would and I do.  I know that she has the genuine faith that those thoughts help.   But a devout friend said to me recently that she knew I didn't believe but she had to go to a particular Mass for the sick (the name of which I do not know).  She felt that it may not do any good but it helped her.

I know how I feel.  It's just come to me.  I feel so totally useless and unable to help those whom I love.  I don't like that.

An Attitude To Life

As I mentioned a few days ago I have received Good News about my cancer. I don't fool myself that it's gone. I've been here before and cancer never actually goes completely. But it looks as though I'll be blogging for a year or two yet. If I don't do something silly like get hit by a bus or fall out of a plane at 30,000 feet or .... well, you get the picture.

So how do I feel? I feel strange, is the answer.  I had come to terms some years ago with the cancer and its seemingly relentless decision to inhabit my body.  The fact that I've never ever been able to feel it nor been affected by it (apart, of course, when I had the operation and the radiotherapy) has made the fact of its existence rather unreal.  But mentally I had completely come to terms with it and, having seen Andy die such a horrible death, had taken the decision not to go for quantity over quality of life.  I had come to terms with the likelyhood of death coming rather earlier than the family norm of the nineties.  I accepted it as a probablilty.  After all I'd been told that the implants had limited efficacy and when it returned more vigorously last year I'd been told that radiotherapy wasn't an option.  But things change.  And nowhere more rapidly than in the field of cancer treatment.  Five months ago I was told I could have radiotherapy but that it only had a 20% chance of targetting the right area. And bingo!  They hit the 20% and I got the jackpot.

So, I ask myself again, "How do I feel?".  What is 'strange'?  The answer is that I don't feel the joy and elation that I might have expected.  I feel pretty much as I did before I had the news.  However there is a big BUT in all this.  And that is how did I really feel before I got the latest good news?  What effect has the knowledge of a life-threatening disease really had?

As I said in the last posting it has been an incredibly positive experience.  It still is an incredibly positive experience.  I have learned more though this than ever I could have hope to learn through any other experience. I shall not go into too much detail 'cos that would be boring but I can say that I am sure that my outlook on life has altered for the better.

When I first went to New Zealand it was for a long holiday.  The cancer was becomming troublesome again.  I decided that I was going to do everything and anything that I wanted to do.  Carpe diem was my motto.  I was determined to seize the day.  I decided that I might, realistically, not have another such wonderful opportunity to do the things I had never tried before for a myriad of reasons.  I paraglided off a hilltop and soared above the birds. I white-water rafted over the highest commercially run drop in the Southern hemisphere. I helehiked up a glacier.  I did lots of things.  For the record I did not bungee jump and have no intention of so doing!

And I've lived my life like that ever since. 

That's just one aspect of how I feel and how I've been affected.  It was a very positive experience.

I've learned not to sweat the small stuff.  And it's almost all small stuff!

Oh.  I could go on.  I've learned so much.  But I will confine myself to one more thing.  Possibly the most important thing I've learned:  to play The Glad Game.  The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation. It originated in an incident one Christmas when the fictional character Pollyanna, who was hoping for a doll in the missionary barrel, found only a pair of crutches inside. Making the game up on the spot, Pollyanna's father taught her to look at the good side of things—in this case, to be glad about the crutches because "we don't need 'em!".  Sometimes it's a bit hard but I've yet to find a situation where I've not been able to play the game  for myself.  Having said that it's sometimes very hard to play it for others; very hard.

There is one more feeling and that is Guilt.  I'll blog about it separately. 

A Good Day And Some

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was going to the Beatson Centre during the summer for radiotherapy treatment for the recurring cancer resulting from the escape of cancerous cells after my operation for prostate cancer in 1998. Well I had the treatment and I met some wonderful people whilst I was having the treatment.  See The Last Day at Eagleton Notes.  Since then life's been pretty hectic.

A few weeks ago I had my bloods done for my PSA reading.  PSA is an indicator of the prostate specific antigens in the body which in turn are a general indicator of prostate cancer.  My reading was 0.03.  That is almost as low as it's been since I was operated on but still indicates the presence of potentially cancerous cells, however minute in quantity.

On Friday morning I was due to have my follow-up consultation with the oncologist to review the treatment's effect.  So on Friday I was in Ayr.

Friday was a Really Good Day. In the morning I rang my Doc's and the receptionist gave me my latest PSA results which were down to 0.01. So when I got in to see the oncologist the consultation took 30 seconds. He asked if I had any lasting ill effects from the radiotherapy (I have not) and then said "Well the PSA count is about as good as it gets. I'll see you in 6 months when you get back from New Zealand." All this way for 30 seconds! I had a longer chat with the nurses afterwards because one of their number (who was at lunch) is shortly off to live in New Zealand. The others didn't know where though. By coincidence I have a theatre nurse and her husband living in The Cottage at the moment. They love it so much they don't want to leave! I can see me ending up in my own spare bedroom when I get back!

All the travelling on Friday (from 1015 until 1630) enabled me to do some reading and I managed the Times 2 Crossword (not cryptic!), the Codeword and the Polygon. I only failed on 1 clue in the crossword: Picasso painting inspired by a bombed town. Even with half the letters I just didn't know. Otherwise I was quite proud of myself.

So I bought a bottle of Champagne on the way back to Anna's (the friend with whom I was staying as Gaz had gone off on Thursday to kite surf in Egypt).

All in all it was, as I said, a Very Good Day.

It's made me think too and it's also been tinged with the sadness that at least one of the Three Musketeers has not so far had such good news.  I'm just hoping that all my positive thoughts will help him through the devastation he's feeling at this moment.

A newly found friend in Blogland made the point that she didn't know how she would cope living with the presence of cancer hanging over her.  It's funny but I've never consciously seen it like that.  To me cancer has been the worst things in my life - particularly watching Andy die such a horrible death through cancer - and one of the best.  My own cancer has taught me so much.  It has been, and continues to be, a completely positive experience.

And that is where I will leave it tonight.  But I will continue my thoughts on it soon.

A Beguilling Service

I went to a funeral yesterday. Actually it was billed as "A Celebration of the Life of Audrey Clare". Audrey lived in the township (village). I first met her many years ago (probably about 35 when I came to Lewis). I went to the same Church as she did: St Peter's Episcopal Church in Stornoway. I was, for a while, an active member of that Church. In fact when I came to Lewis I went to the Episcopal Church on a Sunday morning and the Church of Scotland in the evening. After all I'd been a churchgoer from the age of 4 until I fell out with organised religion when I was 16. I returned to the Church when I was about 25 until some years after I came to Lewis when the behaviour of the Minister at the time became intolerable. Although I have never professed loyalty to any particular Church I had always called myself a Christian. It was only in 2006 that I lost my faith and became atheist.

St Peter's Church in Stornoway brought back many memories and the ambiance, the fellowship and the beauty of the service were beguiling. I can see how I believed in God; just as many before me have believed in many Gods. But for the time being reason provides a different answer.

Anniversaries

I am writing this before the 4 June because I know that, on that day, I may not find the words.

On this day back in the mists of time I was born. I'm not sure how I felt about it at the time but I'm pretty pleased now because it's been an ok life and I'm at a stage in my life when so many things could not be better. I count my blessings every day: I have food, shelter and friends and that's just the important things. I have a lifestyle many would wish for. I have a life relatively free of illness and pain.

For those things I give thanks every day. But whom do I thank? At one time the answer would have been obvious.

But.

On this day in 2006 at 10.30 in the morning our first son, Andrew (who preferred to be called Andy) died of cancer in the Royal Marsden Hospital; London's premier cancer hospital.

My phone rang around 0930. It was Andy's number. I greeted him with the usual happiness that a Dad greets a Son on a Birthday. But it wasn't Andy. It was his Mum, Carol. She was staying in the flat all the time by then and I was just going down week on/week off when Andy was in hospital. Andy had been taken into hospital late the previous night. Carol had just had a call from the hospital to suggest she went in. I booked a flight (thank goodness there were Sunday flights from Stornoway in 2006) and made arrangements to meet our other Son, Gaz, in Glasgow. We would both then fly to London. I rang the hospital to ask them to tell Andy we'd be down by mid afternoon. Ten minutes after the call Andy died.

This year I have felt his death more acutely than I did at the time. This year the 4th of June will be hard.

For just over a year before his death Andy kept a Blog. I didn't know about it until after he had died. I think I'm glad. I read parts of it not long after his death. I am just getting the courage to read it again. It makes harrowing reading. His cancer was more unpleasant than some but reading his words makes me aware of what so many people suffer. It makes me desperately sad.

I miss Andy. And I know I'm not alone in that.

Which brings me back to whom I should thank for the life I have and Andy doesn't. When Andy died I lost my faith in God. Faith is not something one can convince onesself of. You either have it or you don't. I'd had faith all my life. Now I do not.

So every morning when I wake I am grateful that I do wake. And every morning I am thankful that my Doctor at the time (who now lives in New Zealand!) ignored the rules and took my concerns seriously and that the Consultant (who still looks after me) did the same. Without them my life would probably have ended before 1997 became 1998.

As Andy always said 'It's a funny old world, Dad.'.

Where The Sun Don't Shine

I start radiotherapy (in case you didn't know that!) in a couple of weeks' time. Am I apprehensive? I would have said absolutely not. But who knows what goes on in the human mind? Certainly the actual process doesn't concern me in the least. However I have been warned that there can be side effects. These seem to be classified as possible and more possible. Most of the side effects that I could have were side effects of the original operation and I've dealt with those. But there is one that could be a whole new experience. Now if you embarrass easily or are squeamish. Stop now. Not that's it's you who should be embarrassed. It's me. The fact that I'm telling you this demonstrates that my embarassment threshold is very high.

The likely side effect? A burnt rectal passage. Now you'd think that would be exceptionally unpleasant wouldn't you? But the oncologist assured me that it would just be like a baddish dose of sunburn. Now I don't know about you but the one place so far as I am concerned that the sun don't shine is up my bum!

Gives a whole new slant on a word I use rather a lot: bummer.

I've Been Tattood

I've never really been one for tattoos. OK, so other people have tattoos. Of course in New Zealand it's the norm and I just accept it but it's taken me a while to get used to just how many girls and ladies in the UK now have tattoos: more than men it seems. But I never thought that I'd get to this age and have tatoos myself. Well today I went to Glasgow and came home with three. And guess where they are? One on each thigh and one in a place where very few people outside the medical profession are ever going to see it!

Actually it's been a very odd sort of a day. I've mentioned how it all panned out on Eagleton Notes. But I didn't mention why I was in Glasgow. I was at The Beatson which is Scotland's centre of excellence for cancer treatment. It is there that I will be having my radiotherapy and it is there I went today for my positioning scans ie to determine exactly where they are going to point the guns which fire whatever it is they fire at one's innards to kill off the cancer cells. Well they'll hopefully kill them if they are where they think that they might be. After all they are only talking about a 20% chance of them being around the site of the original operation which is where the guns will aim. But, hey, 20% is better than 0%.

But although I've had a really Good Day one thing struck home. How very lucky I am. When I saw just how many patients at The Beatson were at Outpatients and how many were wandering round and obviously in-patients (why does one have a hyphen and the other not?) and how ill they looked I realised just how lucky I am. I'm not ill! I was by far the fittest person I saw who wasn't wearing an identity badge. Yes. I'm lucky. I'm very lucky. I don't have to play the Glad Game because I ain't got nothing to be not glad about.

Reality Kicks In

Blogging is just so therapeutic. Yesterday when I received the appointments schedule for the six weeks of radiotherapy (I've realised that it's one word not two) the reality of the whole situation hit me. Hard. But yesterday was such a wonderful day in other ways I didn't really have time to think about it after the initial shock. I have no idea why it should have had the effect that it did. Having lived with the cancer for 11 years since the original operation I thought that I'd grown immune to any feelings about it because I've never felt it or been ill as a result of it. As I've said before it's as though I'm looking at it in my body but that I'm detached from my body. OK I know that sounds weird but, hey, that how I feel.

Anyway I was brought back down to earth by the comments on my last posting. I'd read Heather's and Scriptor's comments before the appointments came and taken comfort from them. I read those of L'Archiduchesse and shabby girll afterwards. Yes. Zap the buggers and get on with things. Good advice. I'll let you know in 5 years how I got on! Watch this space.

A Mixed Message

Having spent 6 days trying to adjust to being back in Scotland I set off for Glasgow on Monday 11th.   On Tuesday I went to Ayr hospital and had scans.  On Friday I went back to get the results.  The scan showed nothing.  I was told that this meant that there was nothing that could be seen not that there is nothing to see.  The cancer cells are basically too small to be detected and may, in addition, be too dispersed. So the cancer's there but nowhere to be seen.  Cunning little buggers these cancer cells.  

A year ago radio therapy was ruled out on the grounds that my PSA count was too high for likely success.  Apparently now that the treatment has reduced the count they can at least give radio therapy a go.  There is a 20% chance the cancer cells are around the site of the original operation. They can have a bash (so to speak) in that area with radio therapy and, assuming that there is a 100% chance that any cells there are killed that would give me a 20% chance of having the cancer removed. The side effects are liveable with. And in a maximum of 18 weeks from now it should all be over.

So I feel happy that it's not too far advanced and that there is a chance of the cancer being destroyed.  Having said that I've lived with it for so long now its destruction seems an unlikely scenario.

But wotthehellarchiewotthehell.  It could be worse.  I might have missed the start of the croquet season!  

What is Normal?

I commented  to a friend earlier on today that if she could define 'normal' (in relation to what doesn't matter for this purpose) she was a better man than I am Gunga Din (with apologies to Kipling).  After all one man's normal can be another man's bizarre.

Heather's comment on the last posting made me think.  When I started this blog it was with the intention of keeping my thoughts on my cancer completely separate from the everyday life of my other blogs: Eagleton Notes and A Hebridean in New Zealand.  After all at the moment I am exceptionally lucky.  My life goes on as though nothing had happened and therefore I can call it normal.  

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 1997 I was fortunate enough to have been operated on successfully - up to a point.  I was told that it was more than likely that cells had escaped from the site of the original cancer.  Every now and then they have started to increase but treatment has pushed the count down again with very little in the way of serious side effects for me.  So to me 'normal' is the absence of pain and an ability to do the things I could do before the cancer was operated upon.  After all many people without cancer (including my treasured brother) suffer pain and physical difficulties every day of their lives.

However I cannot pretend that on occasion (and no doubt this feeling will increase with time) I do not feel normal when I am told that the cancer has returned.  Hence this blog.

The Spectre Looms Again

Just under twelve months ago I wrote of the day that I received the news that my cancer was making an attempt to re-colonise this edifice that I call my body. Subsequently, after bone and MRI scans I was put back on implants as a 'last line of defence under current knowledge'.

I knew from past experience that the efficacy of the implants was limited. I was, however, rather disappointed to find out last Friday that the period of efficacy was so short lived. My PSA count has more than doubled in the last 12 weeks (a doubling in 6 months is regarded as serious).

When I received the news at the Doc's last Friday I was rather stunned. I had mentally prepared myself last year for a few years' respite and this sudden reversal came as a bit of a surprise. But there we are. These things are sent to confound us. Anyway had a drop more wine than usual that evening and spent Saturday on the lawns and in the evening Wendy and I and a friend of Wendy went to the ballet. It was absolutely awesome.

What happens next I'm not sure. My Consultant in the UK has said more bone and MRI scans whilst I am here in New Zealand but I may just wait until I get back to Scotland. I only have 21 more sleeps here until I return. And I have so much to do.

A Rather Peculiar Sort of Day: Follow Up

On 18 May last year I wrote my first post on this blog. One of the elements was me driving my car backwards into a young lady's VW Polo. I never did a follow up to the posting. I should have done. I duly sent the young lady a cheque for the repairs with a small addition and a card making the point that it'd been a bad hair day.

(See Two Blind Mice Cards for some of the best cards around: http://www.twobadmice.com/index.asp?a=Anita%20Jeram&c=Cards)

I suggested that the additional sum included in the cheque should be used 'to buy a box of chocolates for the trouble that I'd caused her'. I received a thank you letter by return enclosing some chocolates. There are some lovely people in the world.

In The Meantime

Life in what passes for my mind has returned to normal and most of the time I don't even think of what is happening or what is to come. There is so much 'nothing' to get on with.

For the most part it's been quite a quiet week and CJ and I just pottered around like an old married couple doing the shopping and take photographs, going for coffee and the crossword and take photographs, deciding to go for a car ride and take photographs or a walk to take photographs. In fact we take a lot of photographs. I did a some gardening and outside work and lots of cooking (so that's what it's like being a housewife) but not, I have to say, much housework. We had friends for dinner on last Sunday and Monday (Sue Marshall stayed) and callers who 'just happened to be passing' (as if you can just pass this house - well actually you can if you are walking down to the shore). We spent hours on the computers sorting photos, writing blogs and I've started sorting and scanning in my old photos. I shall have to live to 100 just to do that! Actually it was a very busy week - we just didn't do very much - if you see what I mean.

Faith Restored

I decided last Thursday afternoon to email Mr Hollins and tell him that Mr Bramwell had referred me and that he wouldn't be getting the letter for a while. Within hours he'd emailed the radiologist and oncologist and sorted everything. On Friday afternoon I got an email from the oncologist saying that if I hadn't heard with a scan appointment by Tuesday I was to get in touch with him directly. It's restored my faith. Well in the NHS anyway!

I'll probably have my appointment before Mr Hollins knows officially that I've been referred to him.

For Want of a Nail

I started off the last posting by saying that my praise for the NHS continues. What a shame that I can't say the same 8 days later.

I rang Mr Bramwell's secretary in Raigmore yesterday afternoon to ask for a copy of the letter to Mr Hollins as promised by Mr Bramwell so that I could see my GP with it. Apparantly letters from the Western Isles Clinic are typed in the Western Isles to expedite matters. To quote one of my favourite lines from a film "Big mistake!". The letters from that clinic haven't been typed yet because there's been no one to type them.