I'm just back from a morning spent at the hospital. There were no queues when I went to have my blood taken, which is unusual for a Monday morning. Maybe everyone is stuck at an airport somewhere.
We then walked to the Centenary Wing Clinic to find that empty. Very strange. Where is everybody. We soon found out. The clinic was taking place in another part of the hospital so we retraced our steps, saying hello to a friend along the way. We arrived at the new clinic area, booked in and I went to be weighed. Another 3Kg heavier. I thought my jeans were getting tighter.
Eventually we were called in to see the specialist. He was not a happy bunny, having been evicted from the modern state of the art consulting rooms and forced to use a grotty and run down cubicle that didn't even have a paper roll to cover the couch. Or a stethoscope. Or a pad of sicknotes.
He made it quite clear to anyone within earshot how unsatisfactory it all was. And it was. Is.
It seems that the powers that be have decided that a unit that was based at Northampton is having the use of the Centenary Wing Clinic, and it's a shame because there was a continuity of care and a sense of being part of a community in the old location. And there were volunteers ready to make you a cup of tea.
Not any more.
Once again it has been proven that the people who take these decisions never have to live with the consequences, or else they wouldn't make them.
Anyway while all this was going on I sneaked a peek at the computer screen, where my records were displayed. There were tables of figures that showed various blood results, and it was clear that the numbers are going down. For instance, one column's readings for the last three months were 0.6, 0.5, 0.1. i don't know what that means but my specialist thinks this is very good, as all the other indicators show the same trend.
So what's going to happen? I'm still coughing and sniffling and I could see the doctor weighing up the various alternatives. This is what he's come up with.
Tomorrow's chemo has been postponed indefinitely and I will have a bone marrow test next week. This will determine whether the four bouts of chemo have done their job and I am in remission. If I still need more treatment this will take place at a later date.
I had a nasal swab for another test and received more drugs to keep me going for five weeks until my next appointment.
It could be good news. At least something's happening either way. I was getting sick of living in limbo.
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Dave Clemo's account of living with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Don't forget to add your comments when you drop in.
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My recommended reading
- "The Stars my Destination" by Alfred Bester was published in 1956, so it stands as the last of the pre space-age sci-fi novels. The hero is Gully Foyle and he is a man on a mission. He is out to exact retribution to the occupants of a space liner who ignored his distress signals and left him to die in deep space. It's a brilliant epic story, and is Bester's best novel by far. Neil Gaiman writes in the forward that it stakes a claim to be the first cyberpunk novel, albeit thirty years before the genre was established. I've read it at least four times in the last forty years, and I can highly recommend it. 10/10.
- "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. First published in 1968. This is a stunning book, written in the 1960s but set at the turn of the 21st century. The title refers to the fact that if every person alive was given a space 2ft by 1ft, they would all fit on the island of Zanzibar. By the time the novel ends, they have overflowed the island and are standing in the water. It deals with the pressures of conflicting world ideologies, overpopulation, how advertising and propaganda can shape our worldview, and features a character called Chad C Mulligan, a socioligist who was so appalled at mankind that he just dropped out. But not before publishing a book called "The Hipcrime Vocab" which was duly banned by the authorities. Brunner predicts legalised recreational drug use, intelligent computers, politics by assassination, and a state of war between conflicting ideologies. And spontaneous riotings and "muckers"- people who just go beserk and run amuck, killing as many people as possible. Spooky. 10/10
- "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. First published 1957. Over 10 years in writing, this is a stunning read. Set in the near future (from a 50s viewpoint), it sets out what inevitably happens when socialism is allowed full rein. Eerily prescient. 10/10.
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