… or was I just unlucky? It is a natural question for anyone to ask when he first discovers that he has cancer. As a scientist, my first inclintion was to look for some data to help me to understand whether anything I did could have contributed to my cancer’s development. It doesn’t take long […]
A while ago, I wrote about my difficulties with taking a shower while keeping my PICC and chemo pump dry. It has taken quite a while, but I think that I now have a very good pair of solutions which combine to make it almost easy to take a shower. The first part of the […]
I found this on Hacker News. She says it so much better than I can. It’s what I want to say. Just watch it, please.
On the whole, another good week. I met the consultant on Wednesday, and we agreed that it was sensible to reduce my painkiller dosage. I’m down to 30 mg of morphine per day, and feeling no pain at all, which makes me very happy. I hope to reduce my intake of painkillers still further, if […]
Imagine the scene. Six men in a ward, so there are no spare beds. Night falls, and the lights are turned out at eleven or so. One by one we all drop off to sleep. By midnight the ward is very peaceful. I can no longer stay awake, and I think I’m the last to […]
Before my cancer I was always the warm one, while Gillian wore extra jumpers to try to stay warm. Even so, her hands were often cold. I would compound the misery by wandering around the house in only short sleeves. The cold weather and cancer have changed all that. We first noticed that I felt […]
Three weeks ago I started my first cycle of chemotherapy. The original plan was that I should have started the second cycle today, but last week my oncologist decided that he would like to assess progress on this cycle, by looking at blood test results before starting the next cycle. This morning I went to […]
This last week has gone extremely well. I have been cooking almost all our meals, and have even been able to cook what I think of as normal food. That includes all the sorts of food that were totally off limits three weeks ago. For example, yesterday we went out to one of our favourite […]
Sally was my mother. Today would have been her 68th birthday, but she died in July 1992 of complications from cancer. She hated the cold, and loved the warmth of Kenya. I was reminded quite how much she liked the heat when my father sent me some snaps he had of the time when we […]
The following is the text of a letter I sent to the editor of the Independent newspaper, responding to a letter in today’s paper in which an oncologist deprecated the use of the word “fight” in relation to a cancer patient’s management of his or her cancer. Sir, Dr Bruce Sizer takes issue with the […]
