Strap yourselves in for a ‘big-dipper’ of an episode – The Post-Oxytocin Special. Some surprising twists and turns are guaranteed
Keep the meds/finest malt close. You also might need something to avert the ‘evil eye.’ I am afraid you will also need some time – a commodity which some of us are finding a little depleted.
Patience, my friends; a little re-cap is required first.
Cold Comfort Cottage’s antiquated plumbing system is under strain.
A friend of a friend is flying in from Stockholm to administer to Our Hero a sort of massage technique called ‘tactile stimulation’ which is guaranteed to raise oxytocin levels that will help the fight against cancer.
The Meddlesome is worried she and the plumbing might not cope with the extra people in the house, and that they will not be able to raise the temperature to the 24 degrees required by the arriving therapist .
But, overall, the mood is optimistic. It has, you will remember, been intimated by the registrar that radiotherapy may be an option to treat the lymph node/s in the celiac axis which is/are now a ‘mass’ of about five centimetres by three-ish – quite a significant part of Our Hero’s body mass at the moment. However, the BMI generally is increasing - ounce by painful ounce - the photodynamic therapy is obviously reducing the primary tumour. If oxytocin can help too, Our Hero and Meddlesome can cope with a little extra pressure on what passes for the running of the household at Cold Comfort Cottage.
The episode really begins with the drive back from the airport. The snow is horizontal, as it can so often be on what is one of the most dangerous roads in the country. The therapist from Stockholm is safely in the passenger seat and the very dear friend in the back seat. Meddlesome has managed the airport car park, and the ticket machines, with finesse. All seems to be going smoothly.
You can sense a ‘but’ coming, can’t you? Smoothly? In this script? Hah!
The Meddlesome, despite being an irritant to oncologists, is a fairly open-minded, tolerant and trusting person who is prepared to try anything which will make Our Hero better.
But even she, however, has a problem keeping on the road when the ‘therapist’ begins to describe her recent religious conversion which has taken place on one of the largest Caribbean islands – a conversion that has involved the ritual sacrifice of what sounds like ‘tups’. (Male sheep to most of us.)
It is only a slight improvement when she works out that what is meant is the ritual sacrifice of a cockerel. (For your education tuppen is Swedish for cockerel.) Meddlesome’s will to live, and her driving are, as you can imagine, wavering somewhat as she wonders what, or who, on earth it is she is bringing home to Our Hero.
Her busy mind is not quite as firmly on the road as it should be.
But she remembers her manners – this has all been recommended by her dear friend.
Less desperate people, perhaps, might have turned back to the airport and put the therapist on the first plane back to Stockholm.
We will cut some of this short – suffice it to say the requisite temperature in Cold Comfort Cottage is reached, and Our Hero is indeed feeling better after several sessions of the massage.
What did I just hear? A voice?
“You mist not call it missage Bizzie – eet es tacteel.” (Actually, her English is very much better than that!)
Sorry – that should have been tactile stimulation.
And it is all very interesting and, if a few cockerels have been involved in another hemisphere, well, we are keeping an open mind. And I am not risking what could be some very bad and potent vibes coming our way by saying otherwise - so there.
Then it is on to the oncologist.
Nothing is mentioned about the letters from our ‘expert’ in the South who has done the photodynamic therapy, and nothing is mentioned about the fact that the ‘cheap-as-chips’ stent (all that was on offer from the oncologist) was deemed not to be suitable for Our Hero.
No, the oncologist’s principal aim is to prove that the pain Our Hero is feeling cannot possibly be coming from the now considerably enlarged lymph node/s and must be coming from the recently treated oesophagus.
No radiotherapy then, for Our Hero.
The oncologist puts his little hands into the air when The Meddlesome points out that the registrar had said there was no problem putting Our Hero’s case in front of a liver surgeon (you remember those liver mets?).
Just humour us, Meddlesome suggests with her most charming smile, which, I assure you, can be very charming indeed when she wants it to be.
‘Well, if you want a second opinion, you can go to your GP,’ says the oncologist dismissively. ‘Now, what about that clinical trial?’
‘I think we are wasting our time,’ says Meddlesome, gently closing up her fat blue file that contains all Our Hero’s notes. She gives Our Hero a little tactile on the shoulder and leaves the room before she loses her temper.
When Meddlesome has left, Our Hero, who you must remember has been given only months to live by the oncologist, finds himself comforting and reassuring this man who cannot understand why The Meddlesome might be upset.
The oncologist is so rattled that he fails to write out the prescription for the more powerful painkillers correctly – no quantity is put on and he doesn’t specify that it must be soluble, causing, the following day, the extremely efficient chemist some anxiety.
Our Hero has to reassure him too.
The bonus of the week is that Our Hero’s mobile phone, with all his business contacts, has somehow managed to leave the country - we will leave the probable destination to your imagination.
I am not sure about the oxytocin levels at the end of all this, but I do know that adrenalin levels have certainly been rising.
