Onwards and Upwards

Apologies to those of you who have been checking my blog and looking for updates since my last post in July, I know there are a few of you as it's been viewed nearly a thousand times since then, but here I am rather belatedly but thankfully.

I started this blog in 2006 and didn't expect it to become an account of my cancer life, but I guess it's just as well. I still hope to go back to Peru and South America and write more about that wonderful place and it's people. However it seems to be retreating further into the distant future. I remember my surgeon, the exceptionally talented Mr Speake, telling me in June 2013, that he would have me ready to travel by November 2014. Not likely now, though I'm definitely hoping for some time in 2015.

Mr Speake successfully operated on me, for the third time in a year, on 24 July. After which I spent fifteen long days in hospital, until I eventually had to ask them to let me go as I seemed to have come to a dead end in my recovery, and in any case staying one more day would have meant two more days for various reasons which needn't dedain us here.

So I got home on 7 August and been recuperating ever since then and still visiting my nurse twice a week to change the dressing on my surgery wound, which is taking an awful long time to heal, as my body is so battered and bruised, it's struggling to get back to normal.

The five months of chemotherapy has left me with something called peripheral neuropathy in the soles of my feet, which means that the nerve ends have been affected and have decided to die on me. I've been to see a palliative care specialist who gave me some re assurance, in so far as being able to tell me that my feet were not about to drop off or are ever likely to need amputation, which was a great relief. My feet may or may not recover, but from what he said it looks as if I'm going to have to live with it, but the next six months will be decisive. And hopefully it won't get worse. He didn't seem to think it would.

Sometimes I get annoyed with my body for letting me down in so many ways, but then when I look back on life I have to be grateful it's carried me this far, through thick and thin so to speak. I have tested it's patience to the very limits of it's endurance, many times, so I have to accept this little diversion it's put in my way. We go onwards and upwards together. I reckon if I speak nicely about it things can only get better.

Thats all for now. Tomorrow I will tell you all how I intend to vote in the referendum, which I'm sure you've all heard about and had enough of by now. But let's face it, it is the most momentous day in Scottish history for many a long day, some say 300 years, though I'm not sure about that, but long enough to make us all think long and hard about our vote. So look out for my posting tomorrow.