Hibernation is over - time for ime to defrost

Yebo Everyone,

I hope this finds you well and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope this finds you a bit warmer than you have been for the last couple of months. It seemed like the cold weather would never end.

For myself and Jay it has, without doubt, been the most challenging and stressful time over the last couple of years in terms of my physical health and our collective mental health! But as seems to be the case in life in general, as long as there is some good to counteract the bad then you have to just get on with it.

Two weeks ago I found myself in the Accident and Emergency ward at my local hospital, St. Georges, getting my left hand and wrist x-rayed. I had woken up earlier that week with stiffness in my hands and my left hand got progressively more painful to the point where one morning I couldn't physically transfer into my shower chair and was stuck in bed. Obviously, if only 25% of your body works, then your hands, arms and shoulders become important tools.

Being unable to wheel yourself around is not the only issue, there are also practical issues such as being unable to even go to the loo or make a drink, so it wasn't fun and pretty distressing as you start imagining that it must be tumour growth.

And to compound issues, because I had pain in my hands and felt weak, I sheared a lot of skin off the back of my legs by transferring badly from chair to bed earlier in the week. This was to add to the pressure sore that developed on my sacrum. So the combination of having sores in the worst place and being completely immobile meant that we were not happy campers. Thankfully there is no fracture in the wrist they can identify, even though they want to see me again as there is some damage there.

I was given a wrist brace and that seems to have helped. I can move around and the pain isn't too bad at the moment. My skin is healing very slowly but hopefully if we are careful then it will eventually all heal up.

So that seemed to be the lowest point.

All the while I have been treated once or twice a week for the pressure sores on my leg. The hard work Jay and the nurses have been doing with my leg seems to be paying off as I have gone from having three sores to one sore and that seems to be healing. I had a vacuum machine attached to the wound on my ankle for six weeks and now it seems to be a month or two away from healing.

Because I have reduced my steroids so much, the only drugs I pump into my body are painkillers and sedatives so that is not a great cocktail combined with pain and mobility issues. Steroids, for all their negatives, did give me energy. The less you move around, the more non-compliant your body becomes and the more pain you find yourself in. One afternoon Jay went to work and came back to find me sat in the same spot, half asleep like a bear with a sore head.

So all of these factors added up to life grinding to a halt and being mostly about keeping going and making it through the week rather than  doing anything interesting. At least I was managing to sleep properly a couple of nights sleep a week, and realised debilitating constant pain and discomfort can be. Not being able to get myself into the car and go out was really frustrating.

For the good news, I had my 3 month MRI scan last Tuesday and to be honest I feared the worst as I was feeling so rough, but at the follow up on Monday the consultant was happy with the images as he says there is no new tumour growth in my spine. I was dreading having to get onto the table for a scan with my dodgy wrist but thankfully I have embraced the power of painkillers so they could have set fire to me and I wouldn't have noticed.

To be fair, because my veins have mostly thinned from all the steroids I have been on and the sheer amount of blood tests I have had (14 blood tests in one week at Stanmore was a record for me) it really difficult to draw blood or stick needles into me. So needless to say, after a nurse blew a vein on my baby finger on her fourth attempt to insert a Cannula I was pretty happy to have dosed up on painkillers.

I go back in 3 months for a follow up scan and take it from there. In fact the consultant said that there are signs of cancer cell necrosis, which to you and me means that some cells are actually dying. However, the fact of the matter is that the tumour isn't going anywhere but somehow it isn't growing so I am exceeding expectations as far as that is concerned.

I even let a well meaning volunteer at the Royal Marsden rabbit on about taking the fight to cancer without flying me into an indignant rage about how being sick is nothing like a fight. The late Christopher Hitchens put it succinctly when he said, 'I am not fighting or battling cancer - it is fighting me.'

We have seen a few groups of friends over from Zimbabwe which was great - It really is a parallel universe in the homeland where things can change in a heartbeat whereas in the UK the opposite is true, so at the moment I am glad to be somewhere stable where I can get whatever I need without too much difficulty. Everything except decent fishpaste that is. Those of you who are aficionados of the culinary masterpiece that is Peck's Achovette on toast will know what I am talking about. People always ask me what I would like from back home when they come over and instead of the predictable childhood treats and delicacies like Biltong, my standard request is ground up anchovies.

Jay is well and back at work after the Easter break and has been working hard to educate and entertain her students during their afternoon extra lessons. Having taught one on one lessons when I was working at a language school many moons ago, I know it can be like pulling teeth especially when the pupils sometimes aren't keen to be there so I feel for her, but she does a great job.

So we are slowly trying to get back into some kind of routine and raise my energy levels as the last few months have really taken a lot out of me, but I am positive that I will be back in the swing of things soon enough and be in a position to get out and about a bit more. Some of my mates have even given me writing projects to do.

Thanks for the messages of support we continually receive from so many of you. Right, I am off to brave the streets of Tooting to get a haircut from a guy called Tony. No matter what I suggest I always trundle out of there looking like a  paraplegic Polish bouncer, but I am too cheap and lazy to find an alternative.

Lots of love to you all,

Bruce and Jay