Like A Butterfly

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

My posts seem to yo yo from happiness and good things happening to the very worst. I jump from one situation to another, just like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, drifting on the wind.

In my last post I was writing about always expecting the unexpected and I was really happy then. Suddenly my life has been turned upside down again by something unexpected and its not good this time.  I have been suddenly afflicted by really bad pain in my lower back and hip.

Before the days of cancer, I would have accepted it as sciatica because I have always been prone to that and used to go to the Chiropractor to put it right. Ever since being treated for cancer, I haven't been able to have any chiropractic treatment because it is far too risky and might break a bone, made fragile by cancer and radiation treatment. 

I wish I hadn't experienced a burst of enthusiasm last week, when I climbed the portable step ladder and painted two walls. I felt so good when I saw the transformation and had planned to paint two more. Its not as if I was doing a thorough job, like moving everything out and doing the ceiling and all the wooden paintwork. No, I was doing a cosmetic job and just lightening the walls and it was really looking better and made me feel good.

Now I have this awful pain and can hardly walk and I am obviously thinking it might be the cancer returning faster than I thought.

So, I have panicked and have brought my Oncology appointment forward by weeks and I am going today to be seen after the afternoon clinic finishes and to be prepared to wait a very long time, bring a book and plenty of Paracetamol because that is all I was advised to take for now. 

I will not find out anything today, only a scan can really tell me what is going on and believe me, the amount of scans I have had over the last two years is enough to give me cancer.  However, at least I will be in the system again and will get a physical examination and be put on a waiting list for a scan if the hospital think thats what I need. I will get advice on painkillers and such like. I have been down that road before and don't want to be doped up, but it is surprising how pain will change one's mind and in the end there is no choice. 

This post isn't meant to whinge but to be a source of therapy by writing and to be an account of what is happening to me for future reference. I regard my blog as a journal so I'm sorry if it is taken as a grumble. Its all part of the journey when I flit from one state of mind to another.

Appointments

I have recently been for a CT scan in our large city hospital.

I had to arrive early and drink a jug full of insipid tasting liquid that looked like urine, very slowly over a period of 45 mins. I soon calculated how quickly/slowly to drink it and got down to my last cupful of liquid that had to be drunk inside the scanning room.

"Good," I thought, "I will soon be in the scanner and then out of here."

Suddenly all hell broke loose. Alarms going off everywhere. Staff came out and told us to leave the premises as they were fire alarms.

Still clutching my drink, I moved down the long corridors with all the other out patients and headed for the street. There is a fairly large forecourt outside the hospital but that was soon filled up with patients and staff.

No sign of Harry, who had been with me. Another woman had also *lost* her husband, too.Within five minutes the Fire Brigade arrived. The first fire engine parked along the side of the hospital and the crew disappeared inside the building. I was hoping they'd rescue Harry wherever he was, but they weren't letting any of the public back in.

Eventually, Harry came out, looking sheepish. He had decided to go to the toilet on the way out of the building.

Words failed me......... isn't that just what you are NOT supposed to do?

Well when Nature calls......... as it obviously had, I suppose you have to go but it wasn't as though he'd had to drink all that liquid like I did.

Two more fire engines arrived. By now I was wondering if my appointment would still be valid.

After much coming and going, the Fire Brigade left and the hospital was declared safe to go back into.

I was very near the front of the surge of people returning

and as soon as I sat down in the out patient area, my name was called. I managed to lie still under the scanner without coughing, as I was getting over a bout of laryngitis. That had been my main concern until the fire alarm incident. Would I stop coughing long enough to have the scan?

As we left the hospital, I was still telling Harry how unwise it was to go into a toilet when there was supposed to be a fire. He replied that he didn't smell any smoke so thought it was not an emergency!

Last week, I was rather surprised to be given a Councelling Appointment that I will attend very soon. It is five months since the moment I heard that I had cancer, and after completing six sessions of chemo therapy it seems strange to get the offer of councelling now. I really needed this last November when I first was diagnosed, as I was then shocked and angry and frightened and upset. I had felt that I'd lost my identity and purpose in life, suddenly being an invalid and not being able to work. However, I soon discovered that I was a fighter, more than I had visualised and I learnt to live each day as it came. This was so not easy for me and I am still learning.

I will go to the appointment this week, if only to tell them that I needed to talk when I was first diagnosed.

Then there is the question of my teeth.

I was told that while I had chemo, I could not have any dental work done because of the risk of infection. I was appalled by this because I have always looked after my teeth. (Unlike Pam Ayres) Does anyone remember her poem *I wish I'd Looked After My Teeth* ?

So this week I have also got a dental appointment and I believe I see cavities when I look at my teeth. I dare say that chemo blasts away enamel too. I am not looking forward to this appointment as I am squeamish about teeth but even more squeamish about losing them.

I must also get an appointment to see my chiropractor soon. All that sitting about while I felt ill was not good for my back and I have twinges much of the time.

You might wonder why I chose bunk beds to illustrate this post.

They are the ones the girls sleep in when they stay.

Next week Sam, my son, is going away to the south coast for some training for a course that he is doing. So I am having the children for the week. I am quite looking forward to it, as I feel very much up to doing this now. I have missed looking after them while I was on chemo. All being well, it is just a question of feeding them, taking and collecting from school, amusing them until shower/bath time, putting to bed x 5 days. Sam will be back on Friday evening so I won't be putting them to bed early that night.

I might not have as much time for blogging next week though...........

The Twenty Minute Slot!

My Chiropractor was not happy with me this morning when I went for my three monthly check. "What have you been doing?" He asked. Well, I couldn't think of anything unusual and I'd been so careful with lifting and bending as I know from experience what the excruciating pain that a bad back and sciatica can be like. Absolute torture and the phenominal expense of having the necessary run of chiropractic treatments needed to put it right again was something I didn't want to repeat.
I suddenly thought, the only thing that is different in my life now from when I last saw the chiropractor three months ago, is my blogging! Well, I wasn't going to tell him that, was I? My blogging is an absolute secret! So I said, "I seem to spend a lot of time on my computer!"
"You mean you have spent hours slouched over a lap top?" He asked me. I felt like a naughty school child being told off for something bad that I had been caught out doing and reluctantly admitted, that yes, I did love computer work.
Computer work, a sort of obscure phrase that. Could have meant anything really, but certainly not blogging! Obviously he could think that I was doing something much more sinister on my computer than that and the fact that I kept it all a bit 'cloak & dagger', made me think he did! 

He was quick to tell me that I must carry a timer with me whenever I undertook any task and I had to set it for 20 minutes. After that time, I must move on to another activity.

Well, I ask you! Just imagine having to resist the temptation to read just one more blog because my pinger decided to go off just at the wrong time. I might be really involved with a creative flow of words only to be interrupted by a "ping"! That would be very off-putting.

Not only do I have to time myself on the computer, but for every other task I undertake. I can weed the garden for 20 minutes and then have to do some clipping or pruning whether it needs to be done or not.

My ironing is not a task I really enjoy, but imagine setting it all up, only to leave it again 20 minutes later! My steam iron would be just getting into action by then.

Too bad if my cooking takes longer than the alloted time, I must now move onto dusting and forget about the dinner.

I wonder what Work would say if my pinger went off and I said, "Oh well its time to move on to another task now!

I expect I'll have to come to some compromise but I am the type of person who likes to see a task through to the end, so it will be really hard for me to leave anything unfinished. Goes against everything in my nature.

Excuse me, I've got to go, now, my pinger has just gone off!

The Dangers of Recycling!

A few months ago I noticed I was limping because of a pain in my right foot. The whole foot felt as though it was on fire & really hurt when I walked. My chiropractor pulled the affected foot about & asked if there was anything different in my lifestyle. After a very long, hard think, I realized what had caused it. Recycling!

Since Sam & family had come to live with us, there seemed to be much more to recycle.  All his beer & lager cans had been stamped on to make them more compact, using my right foot. (After a course of treatment, the foot pain eased, but this cost a fortune!) As we give all aluminium to a church scheme sponsoring a little girl in India, I was becoming embarrassed by the sudden influx of beer cans & tried to arrange them at the bottom of the bag, hidden from view. Didn't want people thinking that Harry or I were were verging on alcoholism! Now I use a little hammer to flatten the tins & my foot is back to normal. For people like us, who have no garage, recycling can present problems. Our kitchen is overwhelmed by little bags, boxes & bins, each packed with something or other that we have been urged to save by the Council.

The large wheelie bins are only emptied once a fortnight, so we really do need to recycle or there'd be no room left for real rubbish & anything left outside the bin will not be collected.Just looking at some of the houses round here, with small front gardens filled with bags of rubbish, makes it obvious that they are multi let homes. The bins  overflowing with rubbish do attract rats. (I will write about MY rat very soon!)

The Council also provides a box for a variety of things, including paper, glass, foil, tins, spectacles, shoes, batteries & textiles. This is emptied every week & believe me, is heavy when filled! We have separate compost containers provided for house hold food waste & I also have two compost bins in the small garden, but have stopped using these for now, on account of the large number of  fruit flies that somehow or other find their way into the kitchen. For a small yearly rent we have another large wheelie that we can fill with garden waste & cardboard. All this is made into compost & probably sold at a profit by the Council. Bit of a cheek that!

All this recycling is very time consuming & you have to be fairly fit. If you don't get a hernia or slipped disc lifting the heavy boxes, or damaged feet crushing the drinks cans, then you might forget what goes where or which day things are collected. You really need to be with it! Oh, & I still have to walk half a mile to the nearest plastic bank as the Council does not yet pick up plastic for some obscure reason. Is our city unique with all this nonsense? And why don't we get a reward for all the hard work?