Queasy Rider

Greetings all,

My throwaway comment about this year being better than the last has gone for a ball of ****.  It seems as if it is much worse than anyone expected, a bit like Neville Chamberlain telling the British public to not worry too much about the Nazis, as they just love dressing up, brass bands and marching.

Terror and disasters seem to be closer to home than ever, and hopefully the great and the good will make a concerted effort to alleviate people's problems. I just can't work out who the great and the good are yet.

My darling wife continues to expand the yoof's grasp of the English language. Things took a strange turn a few days ago, whilst she was engaging in an activity with two of her pupils.

"Which word rhymes with the word 'back'?", she said.
"Sack", one piped up.
"Crack", the other added.

Ah the old back, sack and crack male grooming regime. I can only hope they are too young to see the funny side of it.

We recently went to a diabetes foot clinic as my right foot is constantly a worringly purple colour. We were in the waiting room for ages and I was being my usual impatient self.

A nurse walked out and screamed "Alice Diaz!"
Again "Alice Diaz"
I looked at Jay and shook my head.
Bloody Alice Diaz keeping me waiting I thought to myself.
Jay whispered that it was probably me.
Of all the bastardisations of my lovely but unique surname, Alice Diaz has to be the worst. Instead of Allardyce, I have been called A Lard Ass and Acid Arse before.  So of of course Alice Diaz was indeed me, and I gave the nurse my most withering look as I wheeled past. My foot is fine in case you were wondering.

Recently I have been in excruciating pain and managed to get an emergency MRI on my birthday. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is the gift you give to the man who has everyhting. When my pain levels are this high it is always a bad sign.

We went in to the Marsden last Monday and waited for the news. The first sign of trouble is always the sight of the head oncologist coming into the room.  The poor man must be able to see the despair and dismay his patients exhibit whenever he walks into a room. If it is good/average news then they always send in the Registrars or other minions to tell us what's going on.

So the sight of the El Commandante, Dr. Saran, made us both extremely worried.

The actual tumour has grown a bit, but the main concern is that the scans have shown significant signs of change north of the tumour including swelling, which would account for the pain in my sides, back and neck.

So things are not looking so good. I am immediately back onto high doses of steriods after spending months reducing them and gradually losing weight. They also have to start me on chemotherapy treatment as soon as possible. This is where it gets interesting.

I was given three options for chemotherapy:
A. Chemotherapy that has a high percentage (10%) of causing permanent irreversible hearing damage. As simplistic as it sounds, I couldn't bear to lose my hearing, as music is one of the few things that has kept me happy and sane during this little adventure.
B. A course of Avastin that costs between £60,000 and £90,000 for a year, including all blood tests and administration. It is not funded by the NHS as it only adds 3 months on average to your life expectancy and is therefore not seen as a cost effective treatment.  I always wondered if there was a real price on human life and that is it.
C. Something else I have tried 6 years ago. I had stopped listening by then.

When your choices are this bad, the only setting I have is my default maximum denial setting. So I told my Doctor that I had a holiday to Scotland booked and we all agreed we would worry about me 'elf when I returned.

So we drove up to Scotland last Thursday and spent a couple of days in Edinburgh seeing our friends Glynn and Anita, who treated us to a lovely lunch at a restaurant at South Queensferry. We also met up with our mate Ryan at a seafront mall called Ocean Terminal which somehow contains the Royal Brittania.

As I wheeled around a corner of the mall I saw an enclosure containing some huge fake ferns and foliage that interested me. On closer inspection, the foliage moved to reveal a huge mechanical T-Rex towering over me. I screamed like a six year old. One of the problems with being in a wheelchair (No.675) is that you have a tendency to never look up, thereby giving dinosaurs the opportunity to frighten you.

We are now staying in a cottage in Drimvore near Lochgilphead in Argyll. It is really beautiful and quiet here and the air is so fresh. The cottage is fully accessible and is really comfortable. And I have enough morphine to sedate a drunk herd of Alt-Right protesters. My ever practical wife made me look up the nearest hospital just in case.

We are off to Oban tomorrow to try and find some decent seafood and have a birthday meal. That is the great thing about having our birthdays so close together, as you can save a wee penny or two by having a combined birthday dinner. So the scallops had better start shivering as we are coming hungry.

I meet with the Doctors on Monday 21st August and choose my posion for the forseeable future. So once again I rejoin the magical roundabout of treatment and once again the future is uncertain. Until then I am going to re-read Cormac McCarthy books and ponder my existence. I am also reading a book written by a pastor that attempts to answer questions about Christianity that sceptics have. I am a sceptic, but I also have an acute fear of missing out. Jay is loving the countryside and taking some incredible pictures as always. She is also birdwatching and exploring the Scottish flora and fauna. Be afraid Instagram, be very afraid.

At least it is serene and peaceful here and there is no phone signal. I am working on developing a death-ray I can send down the phone to the various imbeciles that cold call me every day about non-existent PPI claims and imaginary car accidents they think I have been in. In the meantime splendid isolation is one way of not letting the b***rds grind you down.

Peace out.