The View

Someone, a recent follower obviously, asked what the view from my house was like. Well this is the view as I sit at my breakfast/lunch/everything else bar.

For YP

I had lunch with old and dear friends in Glasgow last week. The fact that She is from Yorkshire (despite having lived in Scotland for perhaps most of her life) means that She never forgets her roots. So on this occasion, and this occasion only, I shall happify YP with a motto on Her kitchen cabinet.

A Walk in the Woods

The Islands are not known for their deciduous trees but the magnificent 270 hectare Stornoway woods were created in the 1850’s by Sir James Matheson and have been in community ownership since 1923.  Being adjacent to the town centre they are very popular with walkers, cyclist and a dog lovers. Anna and I went for a reasonably brisk 2¼ mile walk on Monday afternoon ending up, of course, at The Woodlands for coffee. So this is a little bit of Stornoway for you.

Stornoway's Marina and Cromwell Street

Ness Sgoths

The Lews Castle

Stornoway Harbour

There are lots of donated seats throughout the grounds

The mouth of the River Creed

A walk up The Creed

Smiths Shoe Shop - a legend in Stornoway - donated this rest place.

The walk continues

A place of rest at the far reach of the walk

Uncertainty

Apologies for my absence from Blogland. It was simply caused by a lack of broadband connection at my friend's house. We travelled back to Lewis yesterday and arrived home about 10pm. Normal service should now be resumed!

 

I think most of us are more comfortable with certainty than uncertainty in our lives.

Returning to the cancer theme. The scans were all clear. This leaves the medics with a conundrum as to what to do next given that the indicators are increasing quickly.

Some of you may know that there are trials going on into almost every form of cancer and, doubtless, many other illnesses as well. Trials are something ’other people’ go on. One of my close friends has just participated in a trial for a treatment for people with advanced prostate cancer.

There is one for people with prostate cancer where there are no visible cancers. There is a chance that I might get onto that trial. The closing date is very shortly. Wheels are turning.

In the meantime I shall await developments.

Dunblane

I called in at Another Tilly Tearoom  in Dunblane on my way south a couple of weeks ago. I like Dunblane. It is a great shame that, for many, the only thing that it means to them is the terrible Dunblane Massacre 21 years ago when 16 schoolchildren and one adult lost their lives. 

It has an attractive Cathedral, The Leighton Library, A Museum, (the last two of which I have never visited). However, although it is doubtless a pleasant place to live (and about 50 minutes by train from the centre of Glasgow) it's not a great tourist attraction and the main street has little to offer except several first class butchers (selling famous pies and the like in addition to raw meat), some small shops and charity shops and some cafés.

I have stayed and visited many times (a number of times with CJ) and passed through many times in the last half century. I hope it continues to prosper.

The gold post box painted in honour of Andy Murray's Gold Medal 2012 Olympics win over Roger Federer. The tearoom is on the left up the road just past the red car (in case you are ever looking for it).

The Blip: An Update

Just a quick update in answer, partly, to the myriad of lovely messages I have received. Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge with phone calls, texts, Facetime ,WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, emails, blogs and Facebook (does anyone use Skype these days?) all going at the same time and I hope none have gone unanswered. 

I drove home to Lewis on Thursday in order to sort myself out mentally and physically. I had done something I cannot ever recall doing before (as close friends know only too well) and travelled light with one small case and only enough of everything for the four days I intended to be away (plus an extra day of course just in case). 

Next Wednesday I have the results of my cancer scans and should learn what is going to happen in the next phase of getting more post-cancer-operation use out of this body that I inhabit. After all next month it will be 19 years since the diagnosis and operation. Nineteen years which have included some of the best of my life. Indeed, with the ten New Zealand years, one could say that I actually had a whole new life during that time.

Anyway on Monday after a nurse has changed the bag on the tube sticking out of my kidney I shall be getting the afternoon ferry to Ullapool and then driving to friends near Inverness. On Tuesday I shall leave for Glasgow and at crack of dawn on Wednesday I shall head off to Irvine and an appointment with the person in the NHS who has been my liaison and point of contact and mental brick in my cancer treatment, to see what awaits me. We agreed that this time she wouldn't tell me anything until we were face to face. Whatever the scan results we know that the cancer is developing and has to be treated.

Then I'm hoping that, whilst I'm down, they will finish playing around with my innards and get my system up and running again.

Why am I telling you all this? I suppose it may be partly therapy. However I see people all the time who have cancer or get cancer diagnoses and see every emotion from pure negativity, to fear, to 'Why me?', to just ignoring it and hoping it will go away all on its own (it won't so deal with it!), to determination and positivity that would blow your mind (like Jaz in New Zealand who has been my inspiration for so long). I want to impart some of that positivity to others who may face that which I have faced and am about to face.

Patients' Attitudes

Those who have been reading this blog for any length of time know that if I wake up in the morning and go to sleep the same night then, for me, it’s been a Good Day. This week I have had much time to reflect on that and haven’t altered my view one little bit.

I shall do (another) post in praise of the NHS shortly but this post is specifically about the attitude of the people I have encountered this week since the phone call that led to the blip in my plans last Saturday.

I was on a hospital ward from last Saturday night for 4 nights. That made me (apart from a gentleman of 102) the longest stayer on the ward whilst I was there. The second a bed became empty it was filled again. Unlike the last time I was in hospital (in Stornoway) having a knee replacement when I was acquainted with almost everyone who came into the ward this week I knew no-one. I felt like an observer.

There were no Highland or Islands accents, no Gaelic and, indeed, no English accents (I have a sort of English accent) all of which one finds in the Highlands and Islands and everyone was ‘Hen’ or ‘Pal’. Nor were there were any thin people (Mr 102 and I excepted). I felt positively emaciated.

However, by far the most noticeable thing was patient attitude. There seemed to be a strong air of negativity. I wondered how people expected to get better with such attitudes. I wondered how on earth the staff coped and put up with such attitudes. Most of all I wondered ‘Why?’.

There were the Waiting Complainers who seemed to take the view that the hospital had no one else to look after. There were the Food Complainers (I eat well and appreciate good food and I can say without hesitation that the large choice and quality of the food - which was, where appropriate, always piping hot - was pretty darn good for an institution delivering thousands of meals a day out of public funds. But then there was no junk food.). There were the They Don’t Know What They’re Doing Complainers. (Who made life even more difficult for the medics by saying that they no longer drank but surreptitiously topped up their beverages with something out of a concealed bottle). And there were the just plain Miserable Complainers.

I could go on but I’m sure that you get the picture.

My conclusion? Well I suppose it’s like every other trait and attitude we have and as I have no idea whether these things are inherent or learned or both I shall leave it at that.

However what I can say is that if you have a positive attitude then you are more likely to be happy and whilst a positive attitude won’t necessarily make you better a negative attitude is very likely to make you worse. As Mr 102 observed (rather too loudly) ‘How can that chap in the corner expect to get well with a miserable face like that?’

A Blip In Plans

We were enjoying a lovely lunch a few hours ago in an Italian Restaurant in the centre of Glasgow. A friend of very long standing had come over from the other side of the country just for lunch. It was all going well until my cellphone rang and I decided that I aught to answer it.

At this point I should tell you that yesterday was a day of scans at Ayr Hospital.  

"This is Dr X at Ayr Hospital. Where are you? Are you back on Lewis?"

"No. I'm in Glasgow."

"Good. How quickly can you get to Ayr Hospital? I need to see you."

All of a sudden things didn't sound so good. As the scans were cancer-related my mind was having difficulty computing why I should need to be seen at a weekend.

"You have a kidney stone."

"I know. I've had it for many years. It's never given me any bother."

"Well it's moved and it's blocking the exit tube from your kidney and there is a considerable risk of problems and infection. Can you come in asap and I'll do an investigation today and I'll do a procedure tomorrow. You could be in until Monday."

Well I didn't see that coming when I woke this morning.

Somehow dreams don't seem so important just at this moment.

Dreams By Any Other Name

Yesterday I wrote about sleep. I have posted several times on the subject of dreams. It is not the lack of sleep that concerns me these days nor the number of times I actually get up during a night. What disturbs me most is the variety and number of dreams I have almost every night. If one gets up during the night the, as I understand it,  pre-waking time is often REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. I 'suffer' from that constantly.

The first post I wrote on the subject was on 2 September 2008 entitled

Dreams and Things

For some time now I have been having vivid and prolonged dreams. Unfortunately most of them are not particularly pleasant. I have got to the stage where I classify them as dreams (ok, perhaps even pleasant but I'd rather just sleep), night ponies (I'd rather have had a dream and, in any case I don't usually remember them), night mares (not very pleasant at all but usually forgotten within a day or so) and, worst of all, night stallions (which cause me to wake in a fearful sweat, which often remain with me for weeks and which come back again and again both when I'm asleep and awake).

I'm up early this morning because of a most unpleasant dream. I slept very well indeed and was, I thought, awake listening to the cockerel as the dawn was breaking - the bedroom windows were wide open. All of a sudden I was in Stornoway at the harbour and a lady I was talking to fell into the harbour and was trapped under the water just out of my reach and still blowing bubbles. I can still see her face. It was one of the most realistic dreams I've ever had and all the more horrible because I was convinced that I was awake. Every time I thought of sleep I could see her face again so I got up.

Somewhere out there there must be an explanation or a reason or even a cure. Has anyone any ideas?

Things haven't changed much apart from the numbers of dreams which have increased substantially. I wish that they hadn't.

Thankful Thursday: Sleep

It's far too long since I wrote a Thankful Thursday post. Thank you for reminding me  Fi (of Four Paws and Whiskers) in our recent chat.

Anyway I woke up this morning (in itself always something for which to be thankful) and really was thankful. Thankful for the best night's dreamless sleep I can remember having for many, many years. The recipe? Get up at 0430 after a very disturbed few hours. Drive 250 miles feeling amazingly un-tired having met up in Dunblane for afternoon tea with the pal with whom I'm staying here in Bishopbriggs  so that we could enjoy the last part of the journey catching up. Have dinner and a few glasses of wine and a small cognac as a nightcap. Watch a programme about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Fall into bed around 10.30.

I woke once at 0305 for a comfort break but was asleep again the second my head hit the pillow.

My next wakening was at 0630. I dozed 'till 0700 and got up and made a cup of hot water and lemon.

I had not even been aware of dreaming (which is, perhaps, the most unusual fact about the night)!

So the first thing I thought about as I lay in that blissful half hour was just how blessed I was for most of my first half century in needing little sleep: probably because once I put my head on the pillow I slept the sleep of the dead.

It's nearly 19 years since my first cancer operation left me with a need to get up frequently during the night and 8 since my radio therapy exacerbated the problem. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining. I'm only too glad to be alive to have the inconvenience. It does make one appreciate a relatively undisturbed night even more though.

So this Thursday morning I am grateful, very very grateful.

Caution: Otters

I'm sure that there are unusual road signs all over the UK but this one on the Isle of Scalpay just before the Scalpay Bridge to the mainland of the Isle of Lewis is one of the more unusual that I have come across.

Scalpay Bridge - opened in 1997

St Mary's Church, Cilcain

One of my original purposes of blogging was to provide a diary of sorts or at least a reminder of things I've been doing. In Eagleton Notes I have rather lost track of that objective. When CJ, Partner Who Loves Tea and I went to Cilcain in North Wales in July and had lunch at the The While Horse about which I blogged we also popped over the road and visited the Anglican Parish Church of St Mary's The Virgin. If you are interested in knowing more about the church then there is information here and here so I won't bore you here.