I think it's just the fantastic coffee beans from Cafe Gallo that I've been making again. Properly wired and I'm back having one protein shake again. I noticed my weight dropping off, so clearly I'm not eating enough despite stuffing my face every day. The problem with sleeping 12 hours and eating for 12 hours is surely self evident. They told me how long the radiotherapy continues to drain you which is why you need to take as many calories as you can. I've been trying to get my average back up nearer 200,000 steps a month rather than the 100-150,000.
The consultant told me to throw away the step count in mid October and I misunderstood my responsibility to myself. We all are statistical anomalies as well as being totally normal. I know my shoe size at 9 or 9.5 is so normal I never get bargains. My old waist/leg size of 40" by 29" never appeared on the cheap racks either. I did however find a 34" & 36" waist pair of chinos same as my 40" M&S pair with a 29" inside leg for only £6 in the Shelter charity shop in Stockbridge.
Not before time, I thought , as I finally discarded the belt that had long since run out of notches. My belt had a notch for every week of treatment carved on my own chopping board. Perhaps one of the best and most successfully brutal diets I've ever been on. Obviously I rapidly reduced the drinking from 7 pints a day to 7 pints a week to 7 pints a month over the summer months, having drank my waning wine cellar dry in May. By the time treatment started I'd already started searching for my 38" troos and slammed the 42" clown trousers in the long term, aka 2026, storage.
I have a post Camino case full of the XL tops and 38" trousers while in the other case is the post Christmas XXXL tops that accompany my inactive winter months. I'd felt ahead of schedule after our January Camino mozarabe walking along the Spanish south coast. Flip channel to Www fatal-bananas.blogspot for the fun we had in Almeria, Almenucar, La herradura, Torre del Mar, Málaga, Benalmadena and Fuengirola.
It was an outstanding walk along the south coast, probably only 250km walking and as soon as the feeding tube is out I'll be back over with Jackie to rebuild my strength. The recent floods look devastating particularly terrible for the Málaga/Andalusian area now, just like Valencia has been hammered which just makes me want to go over all the more to either help out or just spend some cash.
Getting back to the consultant advising me to throw away the step counter it's one place where my body is an anomaly. During the summer from May, I dropped from 500,000 steps to just 100,000 in the last 4 weeks of October. Like my drinking it was a steady decline and according to the dubious "calorie count" on the step machine it says my calories used quartered from 800 a day to 200 during the period. I think the radiotherapy clearly uses 2000 and if high activity only consumed a few calories I'm better stepping up to 400 calories walking as that helps my body function, from generating an appetite to just getting air in my dodgy lungs. Incarceration clearly didn't work when I got the dizzy spells and postural hypotension. That was only one weekend of inactivity and clearly for me it wasn't good. I remember on my first day waiting at the Western, I read on on the notices that 8000 was a good average to maintain during treatment and that's where I'm heading back to.
The staff have all been very good with me and I've been hugely lucky that largely my body has taken to the treatment like a duck to water. All my issues have, with hindsight, been down to my stupidity. Twice it's involved a bit of dehydration after being out in the cold for too long, both 5 days after having chemo in week 1 & 5. I was too smug by far that I had coped fine with it, but it was clearly a delayed reaction. The second time resulted in the constipation and both times I realised I'd ignored the advice. Both Chemo weeks were downward shifts in weight that I had to fight hard to get back. I say fight hard, but pig out would be more accurate. When I look back I had 2 pints of Guinness in week 4 the night before the weigh in with the nutritional professionals. They were gobsmacked to see my weight had gone up, I could only smile and confess.
The postural hypotension weekend was when I ignored my own advice to get fresh air. i sat indoors all weekend and watched the telly or slept. My body powered down and then the problems began.
Doctors can't know everything about you and although I was upfront about being an alcoholic and my 100-120 units a week. It made the notes page, while my other nonsense about how much exercise I need to keep my brain, weight and health straight was a little bit less scientifically proven. I did mention reiki/ reflexology and how important it was to me, but again to be fair, it's not scientific. My weight, alcohol and earlier smoking are highly correlated to potential success or failure, like the NPV and the Cancer they needed to treat. To venture off on the statistical anomalies of individuals renders science into a rabbit hole and it's where individuals have to take a wee bit responsibility for themselves. This reminds me of something in the paper last week.
I read some politician taking the piss out of the 'service' in the NHS recently and then using his tenuous or even fatuous claims as the basis for the crumbling NHS story he wanted to tell.
He described how his elderly mother had a lot of carers and was in and out of hospital, sometimes staying in, bed blocking, when she didn't need to. On the second occasion that week he was advised that she had now been admitted to a ward from the reception where she'd been treated. He turned up at the ward to be advised she was not there yet so probably still over by. If he had said I just got advised 10 minutes ago then the nurse might've explained I'll just check if she's arrived. This particular gentleman clearly was a Jeremy Hunt and either was short on detail, impersonating Tyrell Hatton or possibly the nurse just sent him purposely on a wild goose chase. Having read his article I would definitely do that to him in the future. These people don't deserve to abuse people in this way and should be reported.
The worst aspect of this piece was it was built on the fact that he and his household weren't wise enough to take his mother into their house or put her into one of the fantastic care facilities available. He'd rather complain that she wasn't being looked after well enough by the state. As I got near the end of the piece I realised he was one of those people who had been in power for the past 13 years and believed if you keep hitting the NHS over the head they will like Baldrick respond with gratitude.
I think that's why I believe strongly in talking up the fantastic work being done in our hospitals and by our GPs. I also believe strongly we are not very articulate if we feel there is some unique anomaly they should know about you. I'm delighted to know when I get a dizzy spell I need to go out walking preferably with sticks. I can take my blood pressure standing up to check for proof and then head out or I can just head out.
Sunday tea is hotpot. With England and Norway both winning 5-0 at home, Scotland can look forward to heading to Poland having had a clean sheet in their last game, which also ended their winless run. Like me they've been a lot better than the results keep showing, ha ha.
I managed to have three tins of Guinness 0.00% at the golf club and nearly got change from £11. I stopped at Swanys as I meandered back and had a full fat Guinness, getting 10p change from a fiver. I think the latter represents more value. The best value was walking there and back. I felt quite charged and was back to striding out Camino style. It's hard to look back to week 1 and how I had the walking sticks to make sure I kept my balance as I tried to remind myself not to charge around, or fall over. I'm starting to feel much stronger even though the temperature has plummeted and I'm needing the under armour.
Tomorrow I get another walk when Simon and I meet Rich off the train for a stroll to Stockbridge. I'll also get another rummage on the Shelter shelves.
As the clock strikes 8pm however I know it's time for bed. No point in watching any more of the genocide from Lebanon and Gaza. I find it hard not to wonder why we spend money saving people from Cancer, then sit idly by while Rwanda 25 years ago or the current Middle east genocide just trundles along unencumbered. Honestly, it makes me feel guilty to know all these care workers are being killed, never mind the children, football players or anyone else regarded as collateral damage.
It really is appalling.
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