Sunday 27 October 2024

Burnt to a crisp and still peeling

No suprises here, as the week 7/8 deteriorating was well sign posted. My insides feel like the outsides look so a bit raw and sore if I eat.
All through this process I've described how lucky I've been from the early diagnosis, teeth and tonsils out and now we're nearly at Caitlin's birthday and I'm moving towards the recovery phase. 

Everything has been so well signposted that my relative level of pain has mostly just reached uncomfortable. Yes my energy is low, yes I can't eat much, yes it can sting like crazy but no it's perfectly permissible and par for the course. Early on I decided to largely swallow not cough up and so I'm only at the sink one hour a day max and often only for 5 minutes. All the professionals in the NHS and pals currently or previously provided the pain pathway and I'm so grateful I listened. This extends hugely to my diet now.

I've moved to more shakes and only my sponsor's product, Weetabix, is getting quaffed. It's also sore when I swallow but I feel it's only 3 times a day and best I have a mixed diet.

I tried avocado again and it wasn't as nippy but even heavier, slow going. Took me an hour to eat half of one. The last time I put the other half in the fridge before it made it's way to the bin. I share the same confidence this evening. I'll let the boiling water cool then get on with having an evening shake to get me through the night. I've been diluting them with over a litre of water so it's making sure I stay hydrated despite what my neck would suggest.
I do have a feeling that like Del boy, I've fallen asleep on the sun bed. The neck tan, really is a braw farmers tan. I've stopped the pain medication as I'm only suffering when I eat or yawn. If I use the tube then it's not a lot of pain and it passes when you stop doing the thing that hurts.

It reminds me of a trip to the doctor's when I explained my knee hurt when I did this. The Doc laughing inside, looked at me and suggested I stop doing "that". Excellent advice and I've applied it most of my life thereafter. It's why I walk and rarely run. I'll take a lift downstairs but rarely up them. I don't do house or office moves anymore despite my love of moving cabinets around stairwells. I've long admired the geriatric generation of my auntie Mamie and Helen, hit 60 then slow down. This idea of working and keep moving before you get hit are long gone. Retiring at 46 made so much sense even if I missed out on a bit of cash. Those days are behind me and with all the weight I've lost this summer, I feel like I could start running again, but I won't. 

As a kid I was always running, I was in a hurry to either get away or arrive. Over time I've worked out it was mostly to get away. I think when you're a loner you enjoy time on your own. Not all of us need to be psychopaths, although it probably helps. It somehow makes the time spent with others more enjoyable but also you've still got loads of time for introspection. The funny stuff is well worth navel gazing over and I've got quite a back catalogue of behaviour to keep me going long past the end of my days.

I was out for a half with George and Jimmy last night. Swanys was unusually busy for a Wednesday and it was good to get some craic and hear some stories. I really feel for George who at 75 knows his knees are unlikely to be replaced before he's 78 and at that age and operation will be a lot tougher than now. Both have got issues which like most people just get slipped into your baggage if life and so the chat is more about the journeys of the past or even just the past week. They were both in great form and unlike my Dad, there's a new, to me, story to tell. They're both a bit further on the geriatric journey than myself and so it's excellent to get another perspective. The funniest one was losing the last 3-6 months while I stood frozen still in the Camino Can'cerre headlights. I think I've not lost 6 months, rather I've ringfenced this year as my first introduction to the real world of cancer. Every person I've known whose surviving or died had their own experience and I get that now. 

I couldn't hope to understand why normality is what many people with cancer crave and once you've answered the question once about it being a tough journey, there's nothing else to add. Yes, it's as tough as described now let me tell you how good the staff are and why we need to sort their career path. 

Yes, scratchy throat, feels like you've volunteered to gargle glass without considering the consequences. These people do phenomenal work and deserve all our support on providing housing for them at a time when their only way to work for near minimum wage is to live in the hinterland and commute. 

Yes, it's sore, but no more than I expected and was told about. It's certainly not as sore as joining up with two pals to rent a flat where you bed share across your shifts as it's the only way to balance the books and keep working in the NHS.

After a while you realise half the audience paid attention at the beginning and half didn't. You learn that people have strange ways of caring or showing interest. What you learn most is that wonderful expression I read in Dee's website about who can go on the Camino Can'cerre with you and who you lose along the way. It's a great metaphor for life. Don't carry those burdens all your day, you can just put those people down, cut them lose and get on.

Quite simply it's not really my responsibility to understand every needy person, so when people lean back on their chair, feel that smug glare of care,  and think about the poor unfortunates they know, it comes over loud and clear. I used to obsess over not being ignorant then I realised it doesn't bother others and I probably was a lot more ignorant than I knew.

I realise now, so  I listen and concentrate on the many that have joined me on the journey. It's so strange but it's probably a life lesson that my Auntie Mamie and Helen were trying to explain to the 9 year old me. They told me I wouldn't look back after I left Holy cross for Darnestown in Maryland and to be fair it was true. Like when I left Holyrood I have no classmates I know. Once a door closed, that was pretty much it. I moved on to the next party. In the case of Holyrood I'd failed to get a move to Bouroughmuir which resulted in me never wanting to be at holyrood never mind spell it. I was too clever for them and too stupid in my religious self flaggellation, turn the other cheek approach. I got even more stupid when I decided to make amends for all the bullying in fourth and fifth year, then I went to uni and in a final irony, ditched religion. At school, I seemed to have built a list which explains why I laughed so much at game of thrones and the Arya Stark character and her list. 

So much wasted time I laugh, I was too stupid to learn how to play football. It would be another 10 years before someone would explain I was a two footed water carrier. Growing up we just saw the goals and glory, we never saw the structure of how the glory was gained. I never understood why the limelight shone on players who read the game and picked a pass, I saw George Best dribbling.  The subtle and not so subtle ways that people found themselves in a 2 on 1 situation. It was obviously a trick you performed on the field of play, football, basketball whatever the sport, you want an easy opportunity to convert. One where the percentages rise. You give yourself a 12' putt uphill not a 6' putt downhill. Some old heads on young shoulders work this out early, some, even now, still think closer is better. You could put all the percentages in front of some people and like me at 15 they'd still argue blue in the face that closer is better. Running up the wing into a cul de sac a la a Christian Daily, ah, those were the days.

You can't help some people, they know their own minds, and as I said early on in this blog, those people who know their own minds are usually the most vocal as well as being unerringly wrong more often than most. You should never listen to them. They have an illness that forces themselves to believe they are right.
That's ok, unlike my cancer, it's not treatable. They will always be right, especially when they're wrong.

For me as I was navigating from 15 to 25 I think I had to learn that lesson, often in the hardest of ways. The learning never stopped at 25 as it's been lifelong trying my best to use the ears and mouth in proportion. My first experience in the boardroom was a real eye opener where I listened 98% of the time. The Camino Can'cerre really helps this and it's another reason why I'm so grateful for the journey. My throat certainly encourages me to listen more and let more things slide when my impulse is to be a pedant and point out some nonsense nuance or another as if anyone cares. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story and we all like a good story, my mum would say in France.

My two brekkie shakes and my 4am and 9am Weetabix saw my weight at 100kg when I arrived for my Doctor's appointment. The consultation is to check how I'm doing and I need some tape, green juice, paracetamol and a check of my mouth for thrush. I also need to know how to change my tube. If there's a technique to replacing the pouring in section. I still can't explain how I can lift a cake to my mouth and then stop after one bite and 15 minutes of chewing.

I really do power down on the energy front.

It's like the way Europe bailed out the USA with the financial crisis. I remember laughing at how even in 2008 we still hadn't worked out what globalisation meant. Quite simply our love of rules and how easy it was for our rules to be circumvented. We think we can't be conned because there are rules, but we're fools.

We didn't just bail out all of those funds in the USA, we did it joyfully. Then we said our banking industry was about to collapse and could the government step in please. We'd not long finished paying the WWII debt back and here we'd picked up a new debt from wall street, washed it through our banks and handed it via the tax system to every worked who pays PAYE, oh yes, every public sector worker, including our NHS.

I wrote about it 10 years back so won't go over the ground again but like me randomly powering down with the cancer treatment, idiots like my near neighbour who brought down the RBS, wanting to play poker with the NYC gangsters really didn't understand his capability. Worse than that, was we prided ourselves on our rules and he broke every one.

Quite simply we sent a wee boy to do a woman's job. My mum and Audrey Russell who were both in the institute of banker's until they were emptied by the banks in the 1950's for getting married and denied a pension, would've spotted it. If my auntie Maisie was about she would've seen straight through the bluff and the game would've been over. ABM amro was the great Trojan horse and deserves it place in history accordingly. They played a masterstroke as I've documented many times before. I've told the story so many times I feel I was in that room in the Netherlands when puir wee gullible Fred saw the deal being struck with Barclays on Bloomberg. 

Big deal bluffing is an art form and when you have a variety of part time con artists, magicians and gangsters wanting to party together, the best place to be is outside the ropes and a safe distance away from your cheque book. Sadly for the UK we'd become the centre just as we had been months earlier when northern rock admitted what the steal had been.

This is where everyone is culpable. We knew when the bubble blew in October 2007, I knew in August 2006 and yet it still took the UK industry another period of time to finally admit the game was up. What were the regulators, bank of England, non executive board directors, government doing, waiting on their Nannies, oh of course they were. This was a bad poo on the steps leading to the bathroom. It had come out before I was ready. I know the feeling and as a 12 year old that's fair. As a 61 year old, I had to deal with it last week. I had to say don't come in here, I've an issue and it needs more than one tissue. What ages were these bankers, the auditors who signed off, "nothing here Guv," as they traipsed by a box under an arrow signed "toxic debt" aka pretend debt, not really debt, dinnae fret debt, just money we haven't written off yet, debt. Was it UBS who quietly declared £5bn or was it £50bn bad debt provision. I can't remember but they did declare it like it was a manageable amount.

I had a great song I sang through most of 2008/9 using the word debt, and

Dinnae fret, it's just debt or 
dinnae fret Fred, with debt and dead making an appearance.

I'd never met 
A man with Mair debt
His eyes barely wet
We're checking his pockets yet
His boss' absconded I'll bet
Or hiding in retirement 

Puir wee Fred 
It's messing wi his head
He got his way
Almost every day
Until the RBS Wiz dead.

I can't remember them all, they were terrible, the rhythm of the rhyme was higgledy-piggledy and while the sentiment was fair I'd never get close to the sex pistols "Bodies" or "God save the queen", but I did chuckle and cackle as I sang my way along the road.

I remember the Ryder cup at Valhalla in 2008 and we had Nick Faldo captain of Europe. It was as if the banking crisis had invaded golf. It was all about Nick and we took a pasting from the USA. The European team asked if the French had words for deja vu.

Exporting losses onto some "sucker" is the first rule of business for some people. If they in good faith bought something that proved bad, they should sell it to someone who looks sad and tell them it's a bargain. Buyer beware, first rule of the market. You can't blame the snake oil salespeople from NYC for re-packaging it all up into (don't check page 237) bundles of joy. What's that joke about one bad apple, oh unlucky pal, everyone else got a bargain. 

"Who's gonna give me a £1 for what's in this box?"

I've been to ingliston Sunday market and bought a moulinex cheese grater for £1 at the age of 12. I have however as an adult walked away from a £2m deal, a £140m deal and other such deals when I've smelt the air. When I've poked the surface and found this water doesn't make ripples. When I've spotted the con. Just because you always want to act in good faith doesn't mean others should. Yes they could and you'd hope laws would oblige them, but they don't. Financial crime rarely carries a sentence because nobody pursues it, unless it's a charity and if the public find out.

What surprised me most about fearless Fred was that such a charlatan should think he was the only dodgy geezer in town. Apart from the legacy, and the fact our jails are too full, it is one of the funniest corporate jokes that bounces around even now in how not to do business. The difference between theory and practice.

Lost even further back in that history and evidenced by the great film the big short, is those realtors in Florida (and across the USA) all got paid with money ultimately paid by the European taxpayer.

All the NYC houses that packaged the debt so beautifully, those who designed the bows, the brochures, organising lunches that our idiots filled their boots with under Tony Blair's watchful eye, yes it was all going so well too. His pact with baby Bush ensuring we take our share of the USA pain. Capital can flow freely until it's all swallowed up by the baby.

As it hit 5:33 it's time to go back to bed and sing that lullaby dinnae fret, aboot ra debt, no yet, no no, no yet.

I've been very sleepy for a few days now and so enjoying little exercise and mostly sleep. 

The football has been a welcome distraction and so Sunday afternoon sees the game poised at 2-2.

Time to publish 



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