Eighty

Today is my 80th Birthday.

It's a Marmite Day. That is to say one either loves it or hates it.

A friend recently reached that age and refused to acknowledge it.

I want everyone to know and I shall be celebrating. Nothing extravagant: just coffee with friends in the morning at The Woodlands. In the evening Gaz and Carol are taking me and my sister-in-law (who is staying with me at the moment) out for dinner.

The reason I am celebrating is not just for myself but in thanks to our wonderful NHS without which I would not have lived much past my 16th birthday. At that age I had a disease that still kills people today. However by a stroke of good fortune I was referred to a specialist who (and there were long waiting lists for some operations even then) removed much of one of my diseased lungs.

Since then I've lived with cancer since my prostatectomy in 1997 because some cancer cells had already escaped elsewhere my body. However every time so far that the cancer has started to show signs of asserting itself the medics have found a way to stop it. The last, and currenet, treatment started about 7 or 8 years ago with a drugs trial which proved very successful for me.

I had a heart attack in 2000 and had 6 stents inserted.

I could go on but I think that's quite enough evidence to justify my grateful thanks for the wonderful people who work in our National Health Service.

Thank you one and all.

Thank You NHS

So far this year has been unlike any I can recall. It's the first year since I started blogging that I've been away from Blogland so frequently.

I lost my younger brother. I still keep wanting to send him wee messages about things and have to remind myself that he's no longer around to answer them. 

This week my son, Gaz, had his fiftieth birthday. What!! 

When one gets to one's eightieth year life should, in theory, be slowing down. In practice it seems to me that it's speeding up instead. The date of my birth seems further and further away on a daily basis.

All of a sudden things that I thought nothing about like climbing up ladders and wandering around roofs checking them have become things to either avoid or think very carefully about because my sense of balance isn't what it was. 

My electric foldable bike has suddenly become too heavy and cumbersome to fold and put in the back of my car. Indeed my balance riding it had become rather problematic too. 

I've suddenly realised that I'm no longer the spring chicken that I once was. 

Don't get me wrong I'm neither complaining nor being maudling. I'm intensely proud of the fact that this body I inhabit and which, but for the then newly formed NHS would never have got past its teens, has served me well and is continuing so to do.

Despite having cancer since my diagnosis and operation in 1997 I am still being treated successfully. Every 4 months now I get my uretic stent renewed. 

I have 5 or 6 stents in my heart since a heart attack in 2000. 

I had a new knee eight years ago and it is so good I usually forget that it's not the original. 

All this makes me realise that despite the underfunding and apparent attempts to privatise it and all the unfortunate hundreds of thousands of people waiting for appointments and treatment there are still millions of us who have benefitted hugely and who are still here to say 'Thank You' to the 1948 Labour Government which had the courage to establish it.

The Time of Life

I am very fortunate. I admit it and am happy to shout it from the rooftops.

I'm not too far off the respectable age of 80. I appreciate that a good few of my readers have reached even more respectable ages but there's still a few of you youngsters knocking about too.

Despite the fact that I've got more metal and plastic inside me than many people (and have lost more parts than many people too)  I am still fortunate enough to be able to lead a very full, active and very happy life. 

Since my partial lung removal at the age of 16 and many other life-saving procedures for cancer and its effects and life-enhancing things like a replacement knee (due to the fact that I was a fencer and fencing coach at one stage of my life) everything that has been done to me has been done by our National Health Service. 

I hate to even begin to think of the cost over the decades. 

Of course if I hadn't had my lung operation (and as it was very major surgery in 1960) I wouldn't have needed the NHS for the next 70+ years because I'd not have existed much after my 16th year.

I would not be surprised if the gross income and national insurance taxes I paid over my lifetime was a net loss to the economy (although it did help pay a lot of NHS wages!).

Despite everything we hear in the news every day of the appalling situation that our NHS finds itself in, the majority of us still are net beneficiaries of the service.

So the fact that the hospital (on the Mainland) has had to delay my uretic stent replacement because there are no beds available, did not stop immediate treatment on Saturday when I presented myself to A & E (Emergency Room) in Stornoway. Longer term readers of this blog will know that I've got an unfortunate tendency to develop sepsis (because of the uretic stent) and constant UTIs. That's what I thought was developing on Saturday. As it happens the sepsis hadn't got established and after lots of tests and treatment I was out later that day feeling great again having been told that I'd done exactly the right thing and made their job easier because the sepsis hadn't got established.

I have no idea what the solution is to the problems of our increasingly aging and sickening population requiring more and more treatment but it's not just money and nor is it wholesale privatisation.

The one thing I am absolutely certain about is that I, and my generation, have lived through the best of the times Britain has seen. I think that subject may be continued at some future blog date.

You Should see The Other Bloke

A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with a carcinoma on my nose and a melanoma or two on my forehead.  This morning the consultant surgeon who removed the squamous carcinoma on my neck four years ago removed the nose lump and grafted skin from my neck to repair the hole.  The amount of damage on my forehead was such that she removed various bits so that they could be sent to the pathologist for analysis. 

I have to say that the whole operation was quite amazing. I had read some while ago that the anaesthetising of the nose was a deeply unpleasant experience so, whilst I wasn't concerned about the operations themselves, I was dreading the anaesthetic. As it was there was less discomfort from that than from the average taking of blood from one's arm and, as you will know, that is a pretty okay event.  So all in all there was no pain or discomfort and I haven't even had to take a paracetamol since the anaesthetic wore off. 

The nursing care was a mixture of efficient professionalism, comforting reassurance and light-hearted banter helped by the fact that one of the nurses had looked after me when I had my first bout of sepsis. 

My plans to go South and stay with my brother and sister-in-law have been thrown into the dustbin because my stitches will not come out for two weeks by which time it will almost be time for my Cancer Trial Review in Glasgow.  So I have re-scheduled the visit to October when, hopefully, there will be no obstacles to a relaxing time away.

Anyway the Good News is that I've been told not to undertake any strenuous work for the next week or two. Seems a bit unnecessary to me but I'm not going to argue. Hopefully I will be spending more time sorting my photos and catching up in Blogland.

Twelve Months On

I cannot believe that it was twelve months ago today that I received the phone call from a surgeon at  Ayr Hospital telling me that I had a kidney stone blocking the exit to my right kidney and that he wanted me to return to hospital immediately (fortunately I was in Glasgow an hour's drive away) and have the stone removed.

Since then I've had 10 hospital admissions related to problems caused by the kidney stone (including four admissions related to sepsis). Of course it's not as simple as that because most of the problems have arisen because of damage caused by radiotherapy in 2009.

Add to that all the hospital visits relating to the cancer treatment and the Drugs Trial I'm on and I must have spent a decent part of the last year at medical appointments of one sort or another.

Anyway my hospital visits, per se, is not really the point of this post because, despite all the hospital etc visits, I feel as fit and healthy as any person my age and am able to live a very full and active life. For this I never cease to be thankful.

At a time of criticism of the NHS I just want, for the umpteenth time, to sing its praises and, of course, praise the wonderful people who work in it.

My pal Anna was up from Bishopbriggs for a few days and we had (as always) a very enjoyable time. As it happens the weather on two out of the three days were also glorious so we went for a walk in the Castle Grounds. It was Saturday morning and all the mountain bikers, walkers and even some less usual modes of transport were out and about. We had a gentle 3 mile walk and it was glorious.

 

At home the garden is well past its summer best but there is still quite a bit of colour in the Crocosmia, Mombretia (the original or naturalised Crocosmia) Japanese Anenomes, Livingstone Daisies and the Lavatera.

Spoons, Vegetables and a Question

I was recently interviewed for the Scottish Health Survey. It's an interview that lasts for an estimated hour. It took two hours in my case - and you may understand why when you've read this post.

For one of the questions I was shown a true to size picture of a tablespoon. Some of my readers will not be familiar with a tablespoon. For all practical purposes a tablespoon looks like this but, of course, this gives you no idea of the size. Measuring mine the bowl of the spoon is 8cm x 5cm. In strict measuring terms it is equal to 15ml.

Armed with that information I know that you can all now envisage exactly what a tablespoon of, say, flour or rice looks like. Or perhaps not!

One of the questions in the Survey was "Measured in tablespoons how many spoons of vegetables do you ear per day?"

Eh? I responded that a lot of my vegetables were eaten in the form of home-made vegetable soup.  Soup, however, is classed as a  drink and does not count. I mentioned that the people who set the question had obviously never seen my soup. As for the rest of the vegetables I eat daily I could not even make a guess at how many tablespoons are involved. What, for example, does a tablespoon of cauliflower or asparagus (of which I eat a lot) look like?

A rather conservative (and, in my view, totally meaningless) guess was made.

That is the one question that has stuck in my mind but there were quite a few other which elicited much discussion.

How many spoons of vegetables do you eat each day?

Life - An Update

I’ve been in Glasgow for a couple of weeks.  I should have been home last week.  I came down for routine scans and an appointment with the drug trial coordinator for my cancer treatment. Once more things have not turned out as planned: partly because of the snowy weather and partly because I’m back in hospital with an infection again. One of the problems of being in hospital is that I’m separated from my laptop. This makes Blogland laborious using my iPhone. 

All my British readers will likely have seen plenty of pictures of snow much worse that the snow we’ve had in Glasgow but the chaos here has been considerable with trains cancelled en masse and general transport disruption. At Anna’s where I’m staying the road was totally blocked for cars except a few 4x4s for several days. I eventually got to The Beatson on Friday by walking out to the main road 25 minutes away on foot and getting a bus. In places the snow was over the top of my wellingtons.

I had planned this post with photos but despite all my efforts I cannot find a way that Blogger will post the photos from my phone. The original Blogger app was discontinued long ago and using Google’s Chrome app on my iPhone as my browser elicits the same message as do all the other browsers ie that it is not a Google supported browser for Google Blogger. How strange.

So that’s all folks: for now.

Blame Europe

A couple of days after the Harris trip Mo went back to Canada and I popped down for an appointment at The Beatson (the West of Scotland's centre of excellence for cancer treatment) in Glasgow. A play and a concert were planned before I expected to fly home at the weekend.

By Thursday night I was unwell again and on Friday I was admitted to Glasgow's Royal Infirmary from whence I returned home late this afternoon.

I knew from my previous experience a couple of weeks ago that I was seriously unwell as I had a raging temperature, rigors and was tachycardic. They were easy to spot even from where I was lying. 

The hospital staff were fantastic. From the moment I registered at A and E until I was on the medical reception ward with intravenous antibiotics already administered took just two hours.

No-one does emergencies better than the NHS.

Oh, and what's Europe got to do with it?

I had urosepsis but, in my befuddled state, all I could think of Eurosepsis. I think Brexit is getting to me.

So I've still not read any blogs, done any Christmas cards, made my Christmas cakes or, in fact done anything much to speak of at all. For three days I hardly even ate. 

So this is just to bring you up to date. Hopefully I've seen the back of hospitals for a few months at least when the routine stuff kicks in again.

However Pat and I have made a pact that we are starting the gym again in the New Year. Come on Pat: now more than ever!

More soon! 

The National Health Service (NHS)

I wrote this a while ago.

On Friday I had my scans to see how my cancer was doing.

On Saturday I was called into the hospital because an eagle-eyed doctor had seen that my kidney stone had moved and was blocking the exit to my kidney.

On Sunday I had an ‘emergency’ procedure which was not successful (because of previous cancer operation damage).

On Monday I had a Nephrostomy.

On Tuesday I had a day of waiting.

On Wednesday morning I had an exploratory dye-scan and was discharged in the afternoon to come back another time for an operation.

That was 96 hours and four nights in hospital.

Four nights when I slept well.

96 hours when I didn’t have to think but had all the time in the world to think.

96 hours when the NHS looked after my every need.

96 hours when I observed hard-working dedicated staff at every skill level each doing their bit to provide a wonderful service.

96 hours when I had a lot of time to ponder on how darn lucky my generation has been with its free-at-point-of-delivery health service.

I do not have an extensive knowledge of the health services of other European countries and our press regularly says that the French and German services are superior to ours. They may be. We do not have a monopoly on being the best at everything.  

However one thing that my research has thrown up is that other countries which are held up as paragons to us have critics in their own countries just as we do.

I do know that in many countries I would have been dead in my teens because I had a disease that is often fatal today.  My parents could never have afforded the operation and treatment that I received.

So I, for one, have a great deal of praise for the NHS.

Thankful Thursday: Walking

Last night I arrived back on Lewis from a few weeks away visiting friends and family. In the process the Nighthawk and I have covered nearly 2,000 miles and seen enough motorway traffic to do me for years to come. Travelling in England in the school holidays is a dreadful experience. So a Thankful Thursday post would be quite enough if all I said was that I'm glad to be back safe and sound with all those miles behind me.

However the real reason for this post is to be thankful for all the steps that I have walked and walked easily and free of pain. CJ and Partner-Who-Loves-Tea and I strolled around stately homes and Welsh towns and Chester city. When I arrived back in Glasgow Anna suggested a walk along the canal. Well to be exact, before someone points out that walking on water is not one of my fortés, along the canal towpath which has been given a tarmac surface and is used by cyclists as well as walkers.

It is the first 'routemarch' that I've managed for years and I managed it without any pain in my knee. It was a wonderful experience and gave me the confidence a few days later to walk from where we had parked to visit friends, along pavements into Glasgow city centre and back against the clock. Until my knee problems I'd have thought nothing of such a walk. Now I can do it again without any thought.

So today I'm very thankful, once again, for the surgeons and team in the National Health Service Western Isles Hospital who have so improved my quality of life.

Heron

Forth and Clyde Canal

Thankful Thursday

I'm hoping that in order to send this I have an internet connection sometime today.  If I do, then that alone would be enough for me to feel very thankful this Thursday because I've had no really usable internet since Monday morning.  A great deal of my communication relies on an internet connection not just because of the computer but also because the mobile/cellphone signal here is such that we cannot get data and therefore cannot use many of the apps on the phone without wi-fi.

So I may or may not be visiting blogs depending on my access but I'm doing my best.

The other thing for which I am thankful is our wonderful health service.  I know that many of you in the US are not in favour of the public national health service we take for granted here in the UK (and some other countries in Europe too) but I owe my life to it and yesterday I benefitted, yet again, from the services of a first class surgeon and the team who provided her backup and support.

I had a cancerous growth removed from my neck.  It wasn't there six months ago and when it was removed yesterday it was affecting an area of about 20 x 15 mm - perhaps more.  Certainly the area of tissue removed was larger. 

It's removal will allow the treatment for my prostate cancer to carry on without any complications.

So this morning when I woke from a remarkably good sleep in the circumstances I was very thankful indeed for our health service and the people who staff it.

Now all I have to do is wait for an opportunity to get this post into the ether.

This Is Not An Advert

When I was a child there were two ointments in our house that I can recall with absolute clarity: Germolene and Zam-Buk.  There were also two anti-septics, in addition to iodine:  TCP and Dettol.

I have been an advocator and user of Germolene for as long as I have been a lover of Marmite ie for as long as I can remember.

Germolene and Zam-Buk both came in a tin and each had a very distinctive smell.

Zam-Buk seemed to disappear many years ago until about a decade ago I saw it advertised in our local pharmacy as a nostalgic product.  That it certainly was.  There is something wonderfully comforting about things from our childhood that we perceived to have been soothing and good for us.

I bought some but apart from opening the tin in order to savour its aroma I don't think I ever used it and it's no longer in my medicine kit. 

Then some years ago Germolene ointment was joined by Germolene cream.  It is a pale imitation  both in colour, substance and smell of the real thing and I have never developed a liking for it.

A few weeks ago I went into a pharmacy in Glasgow to get a tube of Germolene ointment.  There was none on the shelf and the assistant looked puzzled and said that she'd have to get some from the stock.  The pharmacist then intervened to say that there were production problems with the ointment and it wasn't available at the moment.  Disaster.  Finding Germolene ointment became a quest over the next few days.  Life without it is unthinkable.  Various pharmacies just said thy must be waiting for it to come in but one said that it was no longer in production because people didn't use ointment any more they preferred creams.  I don't!  Boots said it was still available on prescription.  So every time I saw a pharmacy I popped in and eventually found a few odd tubes left on shelves.  I'm ok for a year or three.

Then I was back on Lewis and in Stornoway the shelf of a local pharmacy was full of the ointment.  Had there been a problem?  Apparently not and on looking up the computer it's still available for ordering.  So I'm a happy bunny again.  It's the most useful product I know of.  Whatever external part of the body has a problem Germolene Ointment will solve it.  Believe me!

 

Thankful Thursday

In an hour or so this evening a friend of many years and his dog Molly will be arriving.  They are crossing The Minch in brilliant sunshine and a force 6 wind from the NNE making the ambient temperature of 10℃ feel like freezing point.  Tonight the clear skies will mean that the sky is light all night as the sun just dips below the horizon giving way to a twilight of about four or five hours.  If it was just a bit warmer this would be paradise but, playing the Glad Game, if it were warm and windless this evening the dreaded Scottish Midge would be having a field day.

I had the cardiac clinic at 0840 this morning - the equivalent of the cardiac MoT or WoF or Safety Inspection or whatever the equivalent is for the car in your country.   My 120/74 BP reading wasn't   too bad for an oldie and I am now certified alive and officially fit and well for another 12 months.

That stood me in good stead for this afternoon when I spent 4 hours trying to sort a friend's broadband connection.  BT eventually agreed with my assessment that it was their line which was causing the problem.  I kept my cool for the whole of the several hours of conversations with someone in India.  I was quite pleased with myself.

So today I am thankful for the the fact that I'm in such a good mood as I set off to meet the ferry.

Thankful Thursday

This morning I set about the task of filling my pill boxes which enable me to make sure that I take the appropriate medication that the medical profession deems appropriate to keep me on this mortal coil.  It's one of those irritating tasks but one that for a short while once every four weeks saves me time each day.  However it's rather like dishwashers: they save an enormous amount of time late at night after a dinner party but the task of emptying them has suddenly become a chore.  Whilst I was filling my pill boxes I was thinking about my Thankful Thursday post.  I had intended to do a post during the week but didn't make the time and by this morning I couldn't recall what it was.  Silly me.  Then it suddenly occurred to me how grateful I am for the medicine that has ensured that I have been able to live a trouble-free life since my heart attack 11 years ago.  This medicine is provided by a national health service free of charge.

So today I am thankful for the good health that I enjoy as a result of the doctors who have attended me, the drugs which have been developed which give me that good health and the system that provides them (at no direct cost!).

And PS I'm also thankful for the 'medicine' in the bottle at the back of the picture.  The docs say that in moderation red wine is beneficial to the heart.  Amen to that.

Be Still My Beating Heart

A few days ago I was looking at a friend's photographs of his recent holiday in France. I had been there with him last year. We had enjoyed the local culture and played petanque in the village. I remarked to CJ how nostalgic I'd felt and happened to say "Be still my beating heart". What a silly saying. That's just about the last thing I want!