The old fishermans latest report on the health front!

Now the Royal Marsden Hospital have advised that the chemo is not working and they can do no more for me, the challenge is to control the pain so that I get some quality of life during my remaining months.  This is a lot easier said than done.  Fortunately this is where the St Christopher's Hospice get more involved. Last week I was not well enough to go to my regular meeting at the hospice to review my pain control, having vomited three times the night before and still feeling rough.  The hospice kindly arranged for a male nurse to visit me at home the next day.  His name was Matt Loveridge and he was excellent.  He reviewed what was happening to me, how I felt and what drugs I was on and then he made a number of recommendations which he wrote out in beautiful script and gave to me.  I know a lot of my readers have a medical background so here is the detail:-

For pain relief - increase the OxyContin tablets to 40mg twice a day.  Continue to take the OxyNorm liquid,10 to 15ml when required.  Take Nortriptyline at 20mg in the evening.

To control sickness - take Domperidone 10mg 3 times a day before meals.

To relieve constipation - take 2 Laxido sachets in 250ml of water each day.

I also take two 500mg paracetamol tablets four times a day at four hourly intervals.

Fortunately now I am off the chemotherapy I don't have to take all the pills associated with that (what a relief!).

However I am starting to wish I had shares in pharmaceutical companies!

Two of the things the medics ask that I have difficulty in answering relates to the pain. They ask where does it hurt and how bad does it hurt? The where is the easiest to explain except that the pain is internal and varies with movement and breathing. Basically my whole right lung aches most of the time even when I am under the pain control medication. It used to only ache low down but has progressively moved up.  When the pain control pills have worn off then the pain is a serious distraction and I have to try and do something about it. On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is no pain and 5 is excruciating pain I feel I regularly score a 3.5 and sometimes even a 4! This is when I use the OxyNorm liquid and the heat bag!  The heat bag was made by my daughter-in-law Debbie and it contains wheat, I think, anyway put it in the microwave for 90 seconds and it stays warm for a couple of hours.  I then place it on my shoulder and neck and the feeling of heat tends to mask some of the pain.

On the good news front Rosalind and I have met with the funeral director and I have decided where I want to be buried. The cemetery is called Greenlawns Memorial Park and it is high on the North Downs about 3 miles south of where we live, well away from traffic and heavily populated locations. Hopefully I will be able to "rest in peace!"  Only flat (horizontal) head stones are allowed making for a vary open and airy scene.  I bet it makes cutting the grass easier too!

Fly Fisherman has a Brush with Art!

Saw Bernie, the specialist nurse at St Christopher's Hospice yesterday for my pain control check up. I showed her a graph of what my previous 24 hours had been like and she advised me to double the OxyContin pills.  I did from 8 pm and they worked effectively till 6 am when I awoke with extreme pain so I had to get up and move about.  Not due the next dose till 8 am so I took some paracetamols and some OxyNorm liquid as top up.  Then I needed something to distract me so I decided to blog. Here goes:-

I had an excellent art master called Kenneth Somers-Yeates at secondary school.  He caned me once for playing the fool when I was around 13 years old but later when I was a prefect we became good friends. He taught me a lot about perspective drawing so from time to time I dabble.

This is a fish picture I painted a long time ago of a fine spotted trout.

Whilst doing voluntary work at the London LDS Temple I painted this view of the Manor House as seen from my bedroom window.  This has been my most reproduced painting as practically everyone who has served on site has requested one.  In the end instead of giving them away I started charging a £5 donation to the Church's Perpetual Education Fund.  This has raised well over £300.

Recently at Center Parcs I painted the view out of the lodge window, not very exciting but the only place I could get comfortable enough to paint.

More moans from the old fly fisher!

I can just hear you all saying "I thought this blog was meant to be about fly fishing and all we are getting is some old codger moaning about his hospital experiences!" Well this old codger is conscious that he is missing one of the best times to fish, with the water cool and the rainbow trout feisty at Bewl and the Wiltshire brown trout remembering their attraction to lunching on mayflies.  Oh to boat fish the drift at Bewl or to stalk brownies in the crystal clear waters of the Avon! Just being there will be a tonic. So what is stopping me, because lots of people have offered to take me and I know they all mean it. Currently the situation is that I am in a lot of pain from my right lung, the chemotherapy makes me feel a bit bilious and I get out of breath.  If I take the prescribed morphine for the pain then I am very light headed and could probably walk on the water!  Casting right handed would be painful but I can cast left handed, not as well but good enough to tempt a trout.  So my short term goal is to master the chemo and the pain and to get on or near the water with a helpful pal as soon as it is possible.  

Meanwhile, my lovely wife puts up with me being irritable and she drove me to St Christopher's Hospice yesterday, a friendly cheery place, where a lovely lady called Ann spent an hour reviewing my situation with me and introducing me to the services they can offer.

I am amazed at the support I get from the health and other services, key nurse workers call to see if I am OK, a dietitian wants to see me, the district nurse comes to check on me and the urology dept at the hospital want to see me (I am not sure I want to see them).

Apart from calls and e mails from friends and family my biggest comfort is my ipad tablet because it lets me watch catch up TV on BBC iplayer anytime night and day.  The BBC have such good programmes hidden among some popular rubbish.  The really good ones distract me completely from the discomfort and pain, so well done BBC!  

Anyway if you are fit and healthy please make the most of it and get out and do something exciting, I really believe that as well as helping others, we are meant to enjoy the journey!