8,097,982

Apparently my blog is ranked the 8,097,982  most viewed in the old US of A, which is nice, but come on you Americans, surely you can do better than that? So get clicking and reading. Oh and I'm worth $782.61. I think that's if I allow Google to put ads on here, which I have no intention of doing, unless times become really hard of course.

Thanks to my good friend John B for this piece of information. John has recently retired and is keeping very busy.

I've had another call from the hospital today and they have now decided that the MRI scan can be done on Monday, once they've checked me into my ward. This could have something to do with me questioning whether or not they could really claim that the original date of 3rd July could be classified as urgent, in any normal sense of that word. I'm very pleased with that. All I need now is a good result from the scan.

This weekend I shall be busy preparing for hospital. They tell me I should be home by next weekend if all goes to plan.

A Flower and Another Phone Call

There I was sitting in Costa Coffee at Holy Corner, drinking my coffee, minding my business and reading J.M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year, not an easy read but worth the effort, slowly of course, its impossible to read him quickly, when Gisela came over and handed me a flower, a lily, and a get well card.

I was so pleased, not to say surprised, to receive that flower, especially as it was the day I'd seen the surgeon and he'd hit me with all his plans for my upkeep. I put it in a vase and it survived for a week, till yesterday in fact.

I've got to know Gisela a little bit over the past few months. She is one of the servers working in the cafe. She is Portuguese, from the Algarve, where her father has a small inshore fishing boat which keeps the family going in these hard times in Portugal. I don't know what he fishes for, must remember to ask her. He has one crew man, his son in law. Must be a nice life being a fisherman in the Algarve.

Gisela has been here for a few months now and lives with her four cousins who have also had to leave Portugal to find work. Thank goodness for Europe I hear you say, we can look after each other, which is so much better than fighting each other. And you're right of course.

So thank you Gisela for helping me forget myself for a bit. You are very kind and thoughtful, Portugal should be proud of you, even though I do say so myself.  You brought a tear to my eye.

I've just had a phone call from my nurse at the hospital. Apparently I've to go in on Monday, for an operation to get me ready for radiotherapy and she gave me date for MRI scan of 3rd July. Doesn't seem to me as all that urgent, so she's going to check to see if it can be brought forward. So happy days...

Things have changed

Things have changed in the past few days and I now face  a more indefinite and complicated few months, probably more like a year than a few months, but with a few hurdles thrown in just to keep me on my toes.

The next step will be an MRI scan on my liver, which hopefully will show no spread to there. They have spotted a couple of lesions which require investigation but I'm hopeful that they will prove to be non cancerous.

Once they give me the all clear on that I will start five or six weeks of radiotherapy, followed by another six weeks of waiting for the radiotherapy to do it's business and reduce the tumour to a size that will allow Douglas to operate safely and successfully.

Unfortunately the tumour is larger and deeper than they first thought, prior to them viewing the MRI scan, although he did warn me that this could be the case. He phoned me the day after their meeting to talk me through all this. Not really talking it through, as I'm left having to go along with whatever he suggests and recommends.

He tells me that the tumour is in a difficult spot and hard to get at. He hopes that the radiotherapy will reduce it sufficiently to give him enough of a margin to remove it successfully and not leave anything behind. He will not be able to give me a prognosis on my cancer until he has operated. He is doing everything to give him the best possible chance of success. I will have to trust him. There was a moment after his call on Friday when I doubted him, but I guess that's normal. I'm back to full trust in him now, in fact I was soon after his call.

So as you can imagine I've not had an easy few days. I've over the initial shock of his call now and getting on with life. I'm back to waiting for news of scans and therapy starting. My life in their hands.

Meantime I feel quite strong and determined, knowing that the next year is going to be the hardest of my life, and there have been a few difficult ones I can tell you. Peru is out now before Xmas but still on for next year.

Part of my therapy will be writing this blog. It's not quite what I had in mind for my blog when I started it back in August 2006. Hard to believe that was seven years ago. But I'm glad of it now as it helps me focus, and maybe helps people I know and love keep up with my progress. I aim to put a post up every day, even if it may only be a few lines some days. I hope I don't bore you all. I will try to keep it interesting and even make it my work of art. Hmmmmmmm............. don't think so Donald.....

Calum's Road

To the Traverse Theatre last night to see Calum's Road, a play based on the book of the same name by Roger Hutchinson, which is the story of one man's twenty year road building effort. It's a brilliant  piece of theatre. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Is that a permissible word? If not you know what I mean.

Calum Macleod lived on the Isle of Raasay, between Skye and the Scottish mainland, also famous as the birthplace of Sorley Maclean, great Gaelic poet, whom I had the pleasure of meeting one time many tears ago. Calum lived on the north of the Island and along with his neighbours fought with the local authority to build them a road, but to no avail. Calum decided that he could no longer wait for a road to be built by the authorities and in the 1960s begun to build the road himself, all on his own. I say the 1960s as the exact year is in doubt as Calum gave three different start dates, ranging from 1963 to 1969.

When he began to build the road there were one hundred people living on the north of the Island; by the time he finished twenty years later there were two, Calum and his wife Lexie. These are the basic details as I remember them from the play and reading the book some years ago. But of course the play is so much more. It's about land, clearances, love, survival against the odds, leaving and returning, determination, bravery, defiance, hard work, beautiful scenery, art, music and all that's best about man. An absolute delight, one of the best plays I've seen for some time. Go see it if it comes near you.

It was maybe not the best of times for me to see it. There was some bits of Gaelic songs and lots of great music. The whole cast at one stage sang a Gaelic psalm and it was just heartstopping. I don't know if you have ever had the pleasure of hearing Gaelic psalm singing? I was moved to tears. Very embarrassing but I think I got away with it. I just sat there and was back in Tong Free Church listening to Angus Bhragair and my mother and the rest of them belting out whatever psalm it was. I was so caught up and moved by it that I forgot to remember which one it was.

Probably more tearful because I'd had another phone call from Douglas Speake, now calling himself Doug, and telling me things are more complicated than they first thought and the whole process is going to be longer and the operation more difficult and no promises or prognosis until after the operation. More on this in later post.

A Consultation and a Phone Call

My consultant, Douglas Speake, seems like a fine young doctor. And I mean young, maybe early to mid thirties, long uncombed hair and fashionable unshaven look. A bit like my nephew Iain, for those of you who know that youngish man, except darker.

By the time I got to my appointment I had convinced myself that I was just one mass of cancer and the end approaching fast. I was seen on time which was just as well as I had run out of miseries to heap on myself. Douglas, and I'm sure he won't mind me calling him Douglas, as we were on first name terms by the time we parted, after an hour, put me at me ease very quickly. And as soon as I realised that he was not telling me of cancer in my lungs and everywhere else I was so relieved I could have kissed him.

The good news is that the cancer is confined to my bowel, though the CT scan has shown up a couple of lesions on my liver which will require further investigation by way of another MRI scan. But the tumour in my colon is just as Dr Sami said it was when I saw him four weeks ago. So good for him.

Douglas will go ahead and operate but I may require some radiotherapy before the operation to reduce the size of the tumour and make it easier to extirpate the nasty little so and so. I was planning to give it a name but I think that would be tempting fate, especially as I expect to be rid of it soon, and hope to have no further dealings with it or any mates it may have. So sorry little tumour but your life is going to be too short to warrant a name.

As I write I await a call from the hospital to let me know exactly what they decide is the best way forward. Apparently the team are getting together this morning to discuss my case. Though not, of course just my case. The team being made up of surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, specialist nurses and anyone else who feels the need to be present. It's weird thinking of them looking at my scans and photos of my intimate parts. Let's hope they like what they see. 

I've just had the phone call from the hospital and things are not quite what we thought yesterday. It's now been decided that I will need the MRI scan on my liver first so that they can clarify what these spots are. Hopefully not cancerous, but if they are we are in a whole new game.

If I get the all clear on the liver front they reckon I will need five weeks of daily radiotherapy on the tumour in my colon before they operate. Douglas will call me tomorrow morning to talk to me about it all. So if you have any questions, now's the time to speak up.

This morning I felt relieved and confident that all will be well, but now I seem to be back where I began, waiting for scans and another appointment. I think my plans for South America by year end will have to go on hold. But lets keep it open.

Tomorrow is a long time

It will be four weeks tomorrow since Dr Sami at the Western General Hospital told me that my colon was misbehaving and had grown some cancerous cells just for the hell of it. It's been a long four weeks and I'm glad it's behind me now, though I would be lying if I were to say that I was not a little apprehensive about my trip to see the expert tomorrow. Been hard keeping positive and optimistic and I can't say that I've not been a little bit worried at times, but got through with a few dodgy moments and here we are at last.

I'm back at the Western General Hospital tomorrow to see the (my) consultant, Douglas Speake. I've resisted looking him up on the old interweb thing, so I'm picturing what he looks like and how he speaks. I hope he realises that he's been on my mind these past few days and hoping that he has a good night's sleep, followed by a good day tomorrow and that he delivers me some good news, that the cancer is confined to my colon. I'm quietly confident but prepared for difficulties.

Meantime I've kept myself entertained with lots of trips to Edinburgh cafes, going to see a few plays, some cinema, reading good books, and talking to friends. I've finished reading the second Cromwell book from Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, which was a terrific read, better even than Wolf Hall. Looking forward to final volume, even though we all know what becomes of him. Also read Colm Toibin's book The Master, which is a novel/portrait of Henry James, and a splendid read, which gives me the urge to read some James. I read The Untouchable, by John Banville, a novel loosely based on the lives of some of the Cambridge spy ring, but definitely a novel and not a history, and worth reading. Banville is one of my favourite authors, for now anyway, but this is not his best piece of work. Read a few other things too, and a few poems.

Had lunch with Keiran in new cafe down Fountainbridge, called Loudons. Keiran is being very supportive, as I knew he would. Thanks K. I stopped of in Costa Coffee on my way home and young guy behind the counter said good luck and I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, which was kind of unexpected and all the better for that.

That's all for now, I'm going for a drive, seeing as I can't walk very far.

Dorian Gray, St Peter's, Fr Gray and MRI

Just in case anybody is anxious to know, I can now confirm that the story about St Peter's Church and the priest, as per my last post is quite true. The only small mistake was in the priest's name, he is John Gray and not Edward. Thank you to John L. who gave me a copy of the authorised history of St Peter's by a chap called Michael TRB Turnbull, published in 2007, the centenary of the church, and thank you to George, who knows Michael Turnbull, for the same information online. Small world.

John Gray was working as a civil servant in the Foreign Office in London in 1888, and writing poetry in his spare time. According to Turnbull he "began to associate with so-called decadent writers and painters, many of them with links to Paris and the French symbolist poets." Among these were Oscar Wilde and a millionaire Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism called Andre Sebastian Raffalovich, himself a published French poet and novelist. His own story is equally fascinating but for another time.

It was this fellow Raffalovich who would become Gray's benefactor. Gray went to Scots College in Rome and was ordained as a priest in 1901, when he came to Edinburgh and started work as a priest in the Cowgate area, one of the most impoverished and notorious districts in the city. Mostly made up of migrant Irish, about 10,000 folk. Now next door to our lovely parliament where King Salmond reigns over us. Unfortunately Gray could not cope with the sheer poverty and misery of the place and suffered a breakdown and developed pneumonia.  He was told by his doctor that he should go to London, where he moved in with his friend Raffalovich, and from thence the pair moved together to Rome, Gray to go back to the Scots College and Raffalovich to stay in the Hotel d'Italie, across the street.

From here things moved on quickly and Raffalovich proposed his plan to finance the building of a church especially for Gray, to be located in the Morningside area of Edinburgh. According to Turnbull he himself wanted away from the "increasingly xenophobic and incestuous life of literary London". He wrote to Archbishop Smith of Edinburgh making his proposal and offering colossal sums of money to pay for the building of the church and a house for Gray and to pay for the upkeep of the church and of Gray, so to speak. Turnbull reproduces the letter in his book and it's shall we say quite interesting if not astonishing.

Raffalovich explains his motivation for his generosity in the conclusion of his letter: " It has been evolved because of my deep and lasting interest in Fr Gray and from a wish to do something for Edinburgh and at the same time my high regard for Your Grace's person." So that was nice of him.

Morningside got it's church, and John Gray his parish, which he served from 1905 until his death on 16th June 1934, just a few months after his friend Raffalovich who had died in his home at 9 Whitehouse Terrace, Edinburgh on 13th February 1934. Just a stone's throw from St Peter's.

On a more controversial note Turnbull tells how the first broadcast by the BBC from St Peter's in January 1934, was sabotaged, when the cables for the broadcast were cut, almost certainly by Protestant Action, who were very active in these parts in the 30s, and later of course.

On a more personal note, today I had my MRI scan, so that's me fully scanned now and will know the result when I see the consultant on Wednesday.......