For Still There Are So Many Things
Today marked the halfway point in my planned radiotherapy. As ever it was quick and easy and the radiology team at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre were a cheerful, professional delight. Significantly, it also marks the point at which I no longer have to self-administer an enema to ensure the bowel is empty before the daily dose of radiation. That may not sound like much but it is.
At my preliminary meeting with the oncologist in September he said that there would be side effects but no one can predict in advance what those side effects will be or how severe. In my case I have had weight gain from the hormones (because testosterone production is effectively shut down) and I am now beginning to experience regular fatigue caused at least in part by my body’s defences trying to repair the impact of the radiation. Less obvious is that both the radiation and the daily enemas disrupt the normal daily digestive process, and that is why the end of that particular routine is a relief in more ways than one.
On the subject of enemas two cautions:
- enemas and white underwear make a dubious combination, though I got through it largely unscathed and unstained, and
- as my neighbour Sandy who has also been through this said, ‘never trust a fart.’
The trick is to keep as active as possible. I try to walk my 10,000 steps every couple of days (I know the target is arbitrary but it is a decent rule of thumb, and also includes Kaimes Road as a touch of cardio.) and I have some dumbbells here, mainly used for bicep curls.
It occurred to me earlier this evening that, although I have tried to be as open as sensible here there is one topic I have hinted at but have not written about at any length, and that is the long nights of the soul that followed the original suggestion that I might have cancer. It is a big subject and one that I do want to write about because it is foundational to how we as individuals react to a potential diagnosis and intimations of mortality, but haven’t yet found the words. A year on from the original discovery is quite some time to wait before finding the words, but I have private journals and notes to remind me. What I remember very clearly, though, is that there was a distinct ‘before’ and ‘after’ sensation when I got the ‘phone call from my doctor.
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The road goes ever on
In amongst all this stuff I have managed the occasional paragraph or two of the novel-in-progress and have also compiled an expanding set of notes on to work on once I feel more focused. I do not for a moment compare myself to JRRT but I find this extract from a letter to Auden reassuring as a first draft slowly reveals itself to me.
I’ve mentioned JRRT a few times recently. I am not an uncritical admirer: I enjoyed The Hobbit, and LotR astonishes every time I dip into it. I never got on with The Silmarillion. I enjoyed his translation of Gawain and the Green Knight and am currently working through his unfinished The Fall of Arthur which is fine but was abandoned and is thus neither finished nor polished. Even so, I think he has a stature that goes well beyond the confines of the genre he inspired but of which he was not himself a part.
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