This is a new start to my WordPress account. A lot has happened since I last posted, and the first thing that I need to do is bring things up to date. A bit boring, but I can’t promise that anything coming after this will be any less boring.
If you are a reader of this, then it is not really intended for you. This is for me. This is my therapy. This is intended to be cathartic.
So here goes…
I was diagnosed with Stage 3B Lung Cancer in May 2017. I had 3 months of radiotherapy and 4.5 years of chemotherapy, before PET scans gave me the all clear at Christmas 2021 . The Consultant said “…if there is any cancer there then I will treat it as a new primary…”. As far as I and my family were concerned I was cured. I was fit and healthy and still walking 10,000 steps a day, on average.
I stopped the chemotherapy and felt amazing…for a month. However, the step count started to drop and breathlessness started to take over. During the next few years the breathlessness continued to worsen. I stopped walking, and kept working. Breathlessness was making getting around difficult. The mystery was that the Consultants couldn’t see any change in the lungs and could not explain the increasing breathlessness.
I had broad range of hospital tests all over the body, I had cameras inserted into every orifice, including the one at the end of my penis to check my bladder. I think that this is the point where I started to loose all of my dignity. Two people chuckling about what the doctor had for lunch and apologizing that there hands were cold as they inserted a camera in the tiny little hole that I wee out of. It was a very small camera but in all honesty it felt like a whole camera crew was going in!
Despite all the tests they could not find out what was causing the breathlessness.
In June 2024 I went into the Royal Brompton Hospital to treat a plural effusion that had formed on my right hand lung. It was a routine procedure and I was expecting to be in hospital for a couple of nights. 3 Months in intensive care later I returned home after I had suffered Respiratory Failure and the discovery of a tumor deep in my brain. My breathlessness was now very bad an I could hardly walk more than 10m. They also discovered that the original cancer has spread to my brain. Stage 4 Metastatic.
The prognosis from here (May 2025) is months to live rather than years. Although I reckon I am tougher than a couple of months but we will see.
I am now under palliative care and unable to work.
What I hope will follow are my fears, hopes, dreams, and potentially prescription drug-induced ramblings about everything, not just cancer.
From here and in everything that I write I do not intend to offend, upset, marginalise or make anyone uncomfortable, that is why the preface says this is not for you to read. I truly believe that all people are equal and should have the opportunities to live their lives in peace.
The New Normal 