Before I go on I have a just giving page if people want to support Scott. For those who don't know Scott set out to run a marathon and raise money for Macmillan. At this stage we knew nowt about my own cancer, so now I'm begging on his behalf. Hope you don't mind but a £5 or £10 would help him on his way. Thanks
https://www.justgiving.com/page/scott-miller-1716664629103
Simon had got me out in plenty of time. Thank you Mr Kettles. Check in for this early morning departure opens at 7:30am but my last sip of water has now passed so time to write some slander.
Back to my dream, 41 years ago. Is it true that I knew people who wore WWII fanzine t-shirts from 1942, ie 41 years before #16 was published. I thought not. What a fossil I am, and I love it. My Dad's generation never had fanzines in 1942 although comics would come out much more regularly thereafter and he was a huge fan of Thurber's cartoons.
I just can't get past the indulgence of that wonderful whirlwind period of our lives.
Issue #16 encapsulated so much of the Deadbeat madness. Keith and I going up to Inverness, interviewing Will S on the ice rink after the gig, gatecrashing a party, then sleeping at the station at 4am.
I look at the list of bands inside, the clubs and the people all jump off the page, and they're all in their 20's. I remember Jeremy Thoms trying to get the slider up and running. The review of Emma Thompson at the Fringe. It was all leading up to #17 the Flexi disc issue and our first anniversary as a fanzine. One year old, we'd come of age
We had all these plans. For the label, to get bands showcases, the venues, to do the compilation tapes to promote them and find pathways for them to exploit.
At this stage I'm still thinking the music industry was one big team of ideas, lyrics, tunes and beats. I wasn't wrong but I think I missed out self interest and a wee tad of bitterness and jealousy whenever a band got signed 🤣.
Suddenly it's 7.30 and I'm called through for pre op stuff with the nurse and the consultant explaining the biopsies and the tonsils. The search for the primary and the targeted radiation. Then it's the dentist talking about removing my teeth, the wisdoms, the back and the front teeth that look like they'd not survive radiation. The teeth need to be in good nick and if there's any hint of infection they'd be bad news coupled with the radiation.
The anesthetist finished it off by explaining that as a drunk I'd done well to cut my drinking last week but that this was a golden ticket to change and should be grasped. I replied yes, I will do better. From my 100-120 units a week I was at 7 and I said it would be that way or less for the next month.
I saw him again about an hour later and he filled my cannula with a wee drink then a big one. I slept for 3 hours and woke with a mess in my mouth. A tidy mess but it was sore.
The nurses were superb and I got ice which helped numb the pain. The consultant told me about the biopsies and tonsils. They never found anything visible to the eye but hoped the slides would be more helpful. I could care less. I'm neither an oncologist or surgeon. My role in this is patient, so that's what I'll be
I found out later when Iain came to pick me up I failed on that chore. My migraine that started with the sunny sky resulted just as I was being discharged 6 hours later at 19:30 with a small then violent vomit. Nothing apart from water came up but it cleared my sore head and off we cheerily went to get me home and in bed.
Day 2, Thursday felt like it was going to be tough so I went out for a walk. I met Caitlin in the meadows.
This was a rare treat indeed. Fresh air was fantastic and the chat was good. I was listening a bit more than usual. I was still 17 stone so no violence in the weight reduction as yet. I wandered up to the pitch n putt while she headed to see her pals and a show.
I have so many pills, mouthwash and painkillers to take I felt zero inclination to eat but managed a small juice, manuka honey, avocado and chocolate milk before sliding back to bed.
Day 3 Friday and again I thought it's 48 hours since the op, go to the pitch n putt. Meet Caitlin on Jess Rogan, mother of Brian's, bench.
We met and it was good. I'd had a Weetabix today so was a bit happier than usual. Contrary to the face being bloated I felt a bit better and so continued taking in the air. The speech therapist team at St Johns phoned and explained that days 3-5 were usually the worst for the tonsils. Joy, I laughed as I finished my pitch n putt session.
Saturday saw 72 hours since the op and after a slow start a meander to Portobello and a stroll along the front. My eczema asked for a swim but I gave it a rest.
A great time had with Scott and Simon as I tried (and failed) not to speak. My tongue isn't happy but I had two halves of Guinness and an oat latte. The height of consumerism.
I left them at 8 and headed home for a lovely veggie soup Jackie had made. It was as good as it looks.
Two mugs later I was exhausted.
By 9 I was in bed wrapped in my ice blanket. More antibiotics and a bit of paracetamol.
It's now Sunday and it's 4am. I've just had Weetabix and tea. Feels almost normal.
I'm back up to 10,000 steps so there's progress but I took it a bit far when I tried to eat ravioli. My first holiday meal with a light chew was a disaster. My dinner companions, Jackie and Keith, were left hanging on every mouthful as I tried to get the miniscule pieces of pasta down my throat like a salmon climbing a tree..
Lesson learnt and I'll stick to swallowing liquidised stuff until my throat is healed. It feels all on one side so I guess the surgeon felt the trauma was best kept to one side. The problems with chewing when you still have stitches on your gum from the wisdoms being removed is the food migrates so matter how small a lump.
Lesson learnt I'm back to soup and no more, "could you box it for me please".
It's Sunday night and to be fair I've got no real pain if I don't eat. I can drink as much fluid as I like but just forget the solids.
It's Monday morning and medication moment. It's 6am and I realise I never took anything after 7pm, not even ice. I poured some soup, tea and Weetabix in along with liquid ibuprofen, ,2 paracetamol and ice. 16/6 so dropped another couple of pounds off somewhere. It's a brutal diet but effective.
I was writing my American dream song last night and through the night. A very angry one about how much of a con it is.
Don't feed your own discontent there's only one f***** becomes president.
I have always been impressed by the way the American dream has been sold. I think we do not hear enough about what happens when you fail to be the one who wins.
Who cares you have to be the best who cares Lennon isn't wearing a vest
I knew I'd make it, make it somehow everybody knows, knows my name right now
A stuttering conclusion but I like the other verses too about the sports kids who suffer paralysis or die in their teens, pursuing papas dreams.
A triple salko, salko with pike
Didn't mean you to land on that spike.
Throwing that touchdown while they
Smashed you up
Won you a wheelchair and a share of the cup.
It's natural selection
Darwin wouldn't care
Human insurrection
Abuse laid bare
I've also an affectionate dislike of selection processes and how the top performers didn't always make it through because coach makes decisions and they envied you. Put you in a play off at your period worst knowing full well your floodgates would burst. Chucked out of the programme on the whim of a man, who held all the cards in the palm of his hands.
You wrote all those words it was a Pulitzer prize, your teacher stared so enviously into your eyes
She ripped up all the pages, under your nose, scattered in a 1000 pieces on your toes.....
She sang
Dream a dream you can realise
Flipping burgers and serving french fries
Don't dream of a Pulitzer prize
You could never ever wear the disguise
You stand here a BMI fatty
Not gonna work with our glitteratti
Don't dream your own discontent
There's only one fucker becomes president
Look at the ring it is a fawney
It's too small to land on the square
The hoop and the square peg cause such fun
This Fawney game so easily undone.
I love the derivation of the word phony and it's so applicable to this nonsense song of mine.
Originally it was a word, what the Irish used, to describe our gold (brass) wedding band.
Nowadays I've taken that ring and said it will never fit any hand. I do like the way it gets used as a pawn in the game of switching gold for brass, and leads to the Pretenders, brass in pocket. That's my head, obviously.
Juxtaposing the concept of throwing rings onto hooks appeals to me as everybody knows it's a con and yet for me it encapsulates the American dream. No matter how hard you work at it you will never achieve success. There are a chosen few who have the capacity to become good at a sport and there are even fewer who are chosen to run the business of, and government.
Find your place in the counter culture class learn about friendships and the dream will pass. Live in the moment, breathe in your day, dance to your tune and dance the night away.
Ah yes, it does go on. Like this pain.
Wednesday & it's August 6th one week on.
It feels like only a week ago that Simon was waving bye bye as he scooted back to Edinburgh in the school holiday rush hour traffic. In my great self absorbed way I forgot to ask him if it had been quieter on the roads.
For all the great activities of yesterday sleep did not become me. Paul and Jimmy gave me the honour of the double bed whole they assumed their positions on the bunk beds. I'd had too many coffee breaks and lay awake until 1am. I awoke with a startle again and it was 02:57. I squinted, then agreed, shit I'm ready to get up.
The craic, driving, walking and swimming was superb yesterday. Embleton is on one level a quiet out of the way place, the vast beaech reminding me of blqckwaterfoot on Arran, endless sand and one other person when I went for my dip.
Pain was well manageable until I ran out of ice. There's a tiny raw piece on the lower deck where they took the wisdom tooth out and also scarred the cheek and tongue. It sang veryloudly when I tried linejuice and salt with the avocado, a trick not to be repeated for a while. It's the only issue I've had so I've been very lucky as the rest of the pain is just like a very sharp elbow in the face at football, irritating but just dull in it's permanence. I once got caught with someone's back swing at golf when I was a stupid pre-teen person. It's a bit like that. In fact it's so much worse than the time Mike Edington tried to have a cheap shot at Arnaldo. It's one of my favourite 15 year old stories. Mike's haymaker caught me square on the cheek and I looked at him laughing and said if that's your best shot get your corner to throw the towel in now. I felt he never said thanks for saving him from inevitable but that's ok. I was happier that I saved Arnaldo from having the story brought up time and again about the time he flattened the would be mauler Mike.
Jaw trauma brings to light many other stories. One time my brother Gordon smashed me and in a split second I had to decide if I lifted him and threw him over the banister head first or take a dive. I pictured in a split second lifting him by the legs and spiking him head first down the stairs and the psychopath in me just stepped away and instead I took the knee. He loved thinking he decked me. I loved thinking I never killed him. Same story, both true and a happy ending.
The other story a few years later was when I was in a taxi with Keith on the way back to Deadbeat central in marchhall road. We were outside the commie pool when a vespa with passenger pulled alongside revving like it was a 750cc powerful thing. I pointed to Keith and laughed. The passenger was less amused, getting off the bike opening the taxi door and breaking my nose. I laughed even more as the taxi driver offered to chase them. When Keith and I were talking about it, the 40 years in between just vanished and it seemed like yesterday. It was so funny. We were in the middle of one of the issues, probably the Flexi disc one, #17, that celebrates 41 years today. Wow, how the years have passed. I still listen lovingly to the Dancing bears as they sing "looking back on the says when we had such fun, drinking wine in the park, in the warm summer sun". I think Ritchie was probably 19 when he wrote that song, oh how it must sound today when he sings it.
So back to today and we have a long walk to banburgh castle today I think. It's funny being with boys who are getting pissed and I'm so in my own painful wee world that I'm trying to reason with them. I've only been abstaining for 2 weeks but you'd honestly think I'd forgotten how to be a drunk.
As a lifetime alcoholic I find it strange that I could forgot so quickly but as I said to the anaesthetist a week ago when I went from 100 fags a day to zero it was just one of those sad funerals where you love smoking but you have to ditch it as you can't breathe. I think the trick with my addiction processes, always important to understand yourself, is I'm a sweetie jar person. When I was known as pukey McQ, or just Pukey, it was because I'd be sick every night before going to bed so I didn't put on weight or awake with a hangover. Had I known about Cancer I would've forgotten about trying bolemia and gone straight for the most brutal diet of the lot.
Having watched many others, not least Stuart and Arnaldo's brutal campaigns in the last Cancer Olympics when they both dipped from nearly 12 to borderline 10stone before settling at their healthier looking weights of today. I of course have been a fat greedy, lazy bloater most of my life. If I haven't got a pint in my hand it's a cheese and ham toastie. In my youth it was a pint of milk and a peanut butter sandwich. In my post Camino last 14 years I reach for the wine and tapas. Yes at the certain of my alcoholism is nothing more complicated than greed. There are many people where the chemicals grab a hold. Junkies get a bad name but actually they're a very good social experiment to find out how quickly you can become addicted and which people have the wherewithal to recognise the freefall and who just falls. The documentary series on oxycontin was something I welcomed with open arms. While many of us knew what was going on in the drug industry both here and worldwide very few politicians seemed to want to get involved in fixing it because they hid behind "market forces". Any drug company boss will be as greedy as I'd be with a free bar, free tiramisu, in fact it reminds me of one of my dad's stories. I'll continue to digress as this greed is handed through the generations.
We got a TV when my Dad got to the final of brain of Britain. He would later be on their 60's version of eggheads. The story he tells of being allowed, nae ushered, into the green room is the epitome of greed. At 92 he remembers his 35 year old self being told to pour his own whisky and refill at leisure. What then followed must've been a masterclass in answering the question after the answer had been given. It was all live TV back then so I can only imagine how funny it would've been as this drunken man on the panel would say, " yes Wagner, its the 2nd cycle of the rings trilogy", "yes, Vincent, that's just what I said". Greed saw that he never got invited back but also taught him a valuable lesson about how naturally greedy some of us are.
Back to my days as Pukey not only did I sleep well, I'd also be able to get drinking as early as possible the next day without a hangover.
I'd call myself greedy. There's no trauma inviting me to drink apart from aspirational stuff from when we were kids. We all wanted to have enough money to drink as much and as often. It was our American dream to be able to have cocktails on the beach or vodka and galliano in the st Clair hotel at 16. Many of my fellow alcoholic pals had the same aspirations. Many stopped after 8 pints and went home unaware they were nursing a 120 units a week habit. One of my favourite lines a pal tells me is all his hobbies I volved drink at the end. If a sport didn't have 2 pints afterwards it got dumped, if it had 4 pints afterwards it became a permanent feature. Hence football, badminton and the running club worked for him and squash didnt. Had he joined a different squash club he'd have been fine.
Good news. I can stop slavering, my jaw has settled down.
The great thing in writing this for me is it's my own wee diary but I'm happy people read it. It's a self absorbed load of nonsense with tongue firmly in cheek, not just to stop the pain.
I likened someone recently to having all the empathy of a 747 lying on Lockerbie. Apologies to Lockerbie but Jim and I drove to Blackpool on Christmas day that year and we saw the site and it was an awful sight. It's the closest I'll ever get to the devastating effects that hit Gaza daily, the Ukraine and all the other places where violence at the hands of men with unrestrained testosterone destroy the lives of people. For all the nonsense talked at the Olympics could someone please just call it out at the UN. Oops, slipped into a rant there but that's me all over, self absorbed and allowing that stuff to dictate my emotions.
Time I did the word teaser from issue #16, now that will test the memory banks.
So it's Thursday morning and I'm not going to hang around while the boys give me food envy with the full English.
Yesterday was a great day of walking, talking, cards, drinks, food, painkillers and great craic.
While they had breakfast in the dunstanburgh hotel I took my Weetabix on Bernard's bench.
It was delicious. A three pack in my wee box, I ate two by the time they'd returned. The other one I left soaking and had it as a wee drink for the rest of the day.
Quite apt considering how many wheat fields we would walk through.
After leaving Bernard's bench we popped into the golf club for tea then got walking the high route around the edge of the dunstanburgh course.
Stunning views of the beach and when we arrived we were met by a chorus of cackling chicks awaiting some caterpillars for breakfast.
I tried not to envision the 6 on a skewer ready and cooked but my food envy does go to weird places.
We had been walking through Ferniehill and it was good to be able to get back to the beach and more importantly a pub in low newton for tea.
Next up was the long route to high newton. Instead of 15 mins up the road we went for 30 minutes out to the point and then in the back of the town before settling down in the joiners for beer and sparkling water.
I tried some mango juice but it wasn't to be. It seems to be a wee sore on my tongue that reacts to any acid and therefore best not to. It looks like the site of one of the biopsies so I'll find out on Tuesday when I head back to oncology.
It's been so largely pain free this last week I've just got to live the dream and stick to liquids although the prune juice was brutal. I got two wee baby food sachets. Carrot was superb, benign and tasted like a liquidised carrot. Prune was too acidic for the cotterised area. So be it I shrugged.
I was less sanguine at the end of the evening when I tried a bowl of soup. It looked benign but trust me, the tears were real.
Three spoonfuls, three tears, 6 swear words, head in hands then repeat at one minute intervals. What a drama, puir wee puppy.
After the 3-4 pints in high newton we kicked off for the fabled Blink Bonny pub by the railway crossing.
Jimmy's miscounting of the scores as we chased the Ace was proving too comical for words.
It was time to move and the Blink Bonny offered us a two hour drink reprieve in the hot sun.
It was a walk that started well but quickly we realised not every farmer wants walkers nearby. Although they don't miss a chance to advertise their cottage for rent.
The paths as they were, were either overgrown like the Ferniehill or fenced in and had bushes preventing passage.
It was a bit bizarre but we still enjoyed the very slow going.
At one stage Jimmy did disappear but when we hit a peak he would reappear.
We finally found out way over the wall and onto the busy main road before crossing over the outskirts of Embleton and making it along another quieter road and then a bridal path coming out at the caravan park.
The last stretch was probably the same length but the time splits suggest we're not good on the fields.
The overgrown or vanishing pathways were 2 hours while the same distance on the flat was 30 minutes.
We cared not a jot, we were on our holidays and they were getting merrier by the moment.
I decided to join the Guinness party at the Blink. Paul returned with my half and also a story about change from a tenner after buying 2 pints and a half. The Blink is not a tourist trap. Note to self. 5 star review.
We sat inside played cards then went outside to laugh at Paul's sunburnt coupon.
The wind was too wild so we went in again and to slow both our drinking and sun burning we took to the games room and the 50p pool table. Stop the bus this is Deadbeat for 10p territory. We never put the price up as I really didn't want to. All our inputs went up between 1982 and 1985 so we should have, as by 1986 it became loss making, except for the ads, free gigs and records, I digress.
We played pool and Paul was our champ but Jimmy had his moments. His vision was sufficiently blurred that he started potting from distance!
I knew when I saw my second pint of Guinness my eyes had not been bigger than my belly but threatened the throat tolerance.
We thanked the kind woman for her help in keeping us refreshed and entertained. We wished her and the locals well and wandered back along the road, through another uncut path and into a field with cattle and a well defined path.
Soon we were back in the greys inn and having our tea. Thank you Northumberland.
Just time for me to squeeze a high tide swim this morning at 5:51am. A quick walk past the green keeper attending to the tee.
It was stunning.
Thank you
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