Horray! Succesfully uploaded this time!

Thanks to Drew and Anji’s tip I am hoping to be a bit more successful with uploading this episode of my blog! So frustrating to loose half an hours work at the last minute! Typing it in Word first has the added advantage that I can also check the spelling before I press the ‘submit’ button and avoid exposing the evidence of my slowly addling brain to the whole web site! That is the problem with increasing years. I used to be able to spell no problem. Trouble is on the computer I see words pop up in front of me and sometimes they just looks wrong and so I change the offending word to find I was right in the first place! Anyone else found that too? Touch of the senile dementia setting in no doubt! Should have confidence in my natural instinct I think! Anyway I digress! As I said yesterday, the kind comments in response to my first blog certainly have encouraged me to try to keep this up to date recording my journey, my thoughts, feelings and the mundane events of my everyday life! Sorry folks! Should also help the old grey memory cells too, trying to remember what I have been up to, keeping them active and functioning- going back to previous paragraph! Thanks Joe too for the advice regarding the lotions and potions. I will certainly try and make sure that I slather the cream thoroughly wherever it should go taking great care not to miss a bit after your experience! The inflatable ring cushion I ordered has arrived and in fact I am sat on it at the mo as I sit on the hard , unforgiving wooden kitchen chair to write this! It is quite a strange feeling as it seems to makes me feel quite unstable in fact even a bit sea sick but no doubt I fell get used to it! Will probably try to get one of the ring cushions you recommend Joe, was the one you had gel or foam? Hubby treated us both to a weekend break this last weekend at a beautiful manor house hotel not far from where we live. Very luxurious and I felt very pampered. I think the idea was for it to be a bit of a distracter whilst waiting for THE appointment this week! We arrived Friday evening to be told we had been given a complementary upgrade to a deluxe room! Perhaps my luck is changing a bit after all! The room was lovely with a huge king-size bed, a large comfy sofa, sugared almonds in a little pot on the dressing table (very posh!) and a complementary decanter of sherry and a bowl of fresh fruit! The view from the window was of the immaculate gardens stretching out in front of the house. In the bathroom there as the most enormous corner bath big enough for three I’d swear, with all the appropriate shower gels, moisturisers, shampoos etc as well as slippers and fluffy towelling dressing gowns! Felt like right Queen! Or perhaps that should read like right royalty! Each of the public rooms had roaring open log fires in the dog grates with plenty of comfy leather sofas dotted around and plenty of up market magazines littered around just waiting to be browsed through. How the other half live! And us too……….. for two whole days! The very good deal we had included dinner, bed and breakfast and I only wish I could have done more justice to the delicious food presented for our delectation! Hubby managed to fit in a couple of rounds of golf and the idea was for me to make use of the spa facilities, heated pool, sauna and spa baths but unfortunately when it came to it I just wasn’t up to it!!! Typical! One of the symptoms of my cancer apart from extreme tiredness has been a dreadful pain in the a*** (PITA as I find it is referred to in the chat rooms and a term I will adopt for with!) My PITA is completely wearing and at times can be excruciatingly painful. It pinches with every movement constantly at the best of times and feels as if the heart of my bottom is falling out at the worst! Not sure what exactly sets it off to be worse one day more than another -I can’t seem to make any links. I know and am expecting pain during and after treatment but didn’t expect it to be so bad before it starts! Anyone else experience the same thing? It has been getting steadily worse over the past 3 months. I shouldn’t grumble too much as it was this same PITA, that first alerted me to go to the GP and to keep going subsequently to try to get to the bottom of it.( oops excuse the pun again!) Trouble is now, not only is it very painful generally it is getting increasingly difficulty for me to go the loo and leaves me straining away as if trying to move a mountain, despite taking gallons of lactulose 3 times a day! Who would have thought I would have become so bowel obsessed over the past months?! But--------- if I eat what I would consider a normal and not excessive diet of three meals a day then everything seems to grind to a halt in my system and I end up with excruciating tummy gripes that are completely overpowering and leave me totally wiped out, exhausted and near to tears! Any tips anyone? Of course trying to eat 3 course dinners each night, and at first thoroughly enjoying them as the distraction technique started to work and the different surroundings forced me to forget the stresses and worries of this big C, but meant that I paid for it on both Saturday and Sunday! So instead of lounging around having a healthy swim and even signing up for a massage treatment I just couldn’t face it! When the PITA is bad I even have difficulty in walking any distance and seem to hobble around - a bit like John Wayne without his horse I imagine! Whatever I must look like I don’t know! Anyway in the end on Saturday afternoon I had a long hot soak in the bath reading one of the glossy mags and then lay on the bed to watch the 6 nations cup match between Wales and Italy. Which indecently Wales won eventually! Yes! I am 100% Welsh by birth but never having actually lived there! But I am always the loan voice shouting for my Celtic forebears in our household, raising the rafters with my tuneless renditions of ‘Bread of Heaven’ etc! Good job English born and bred hubby was out on the golf course at the time! Anyway by the time he got in to get ready for dinner I was feeling much better and managed to stagger down stairs to the bar and dining room for round two! Probably not a good idea as I was woken in the early hours of Sunday morning with the most dreadful stomach ache with gripes and endless more or less fruitless painful trips to the loo for the rest of the night and day! I am probably sounding ungrateful, but this sort of thing is now an everyday occurrence for me and so it was still a great treat to be pampered in luxurious surroundings for a couple of day despite it all. Although not sure if sitting on the loo in a luxurious bathroom is any different than sitting on my own loo at home, where at least I feel I can scream and yell as much as I feel the need! Yesterday I was feeling much better but just restricted the diet to a banana for breakfast, toast for lunch and two boiled eggs for supper washed down with nothing stronger than diet coke and gallons of water! This with repeated visits to the loo meant by yesterday evening everything had at last moved on and more to the point out! And I had lost that awful feeling that I was about to explode! I even managed to go out for a walk for 45 minutes yesterday as the weather was so beautiful. Bit of activity must help! Took it steadily and ended up in the village pub for a natter and a cup of coffee before coming home to order the weekly shop on line from the supermarket! What a life saver that is too! Will try and go out again later today for another walk and perhaps a swift half on the way home this time! Wednesday sees my long awaited appointment with the specialist oncologist and the hope that, at last, the treatment planning will start and I will be given some dates. My experiences over the weekend have now convinced me that I must be more honest with the medics and to stop being a martyr and own up to the amount of pain I am in and the growing difficulty of going! Instead of answering blithely ‘Oh, I’m fine thanks’ when the question of ‘How are you feeling?’ is posed. You know I am not a wimp and have quite a high pain threshold normally! My GP tells me I am on the strongest pain killers she can give me without prescribing something that contains opiates (such as co-codamol or paracodal) which she says would make me constipated on top of everything else! NO THANK YOU! Anyone know of anything else? All experiences, suggestions and coping strategies very gratefully received! My son and partner are coming for the weekend as it is his birthday on Sunday and my daughter, her hubby and my gorgeous 17 month old grand daughter are coming too staying Saturday night and then leaving my grand daughter with us till Tuesday whilst they have a couple of days away! I am so looking forward to that. Certainly the best tonic for me at the moment! So there we are, up to date! Will let you know how I get on on tomorrow. Keep blogging one and all. It’s good to keep up with all your stories and progress x