Remember this?
Wednesday 7th Ocotber. This will be my final blog until I come out “the other side” after my operation. When I come out of theatre it will be either to the high dependency unit or the morgue. I know which one I prefer but don’t know which one fate will have in store for me.
A dressing gown belt has turned up but not THE dressing gown belt but washings are in progress so I can be the best dressed patient in my “drink beer” pyjamas, and my Guinness dressing gown and slippers. Possibly not the best advert for a hospital ward but let’s live dangerously, eh?
Antony, Lyndsey and Eleanor and Tim have now gone home after our carvery meal at Shepherd’s and now I am going to finish off my affairs and then go down to the club for a delicious diet coke or two. My last solids are no later than 2 a.m and the then I have to take picolax at 8.00 a.m. to start the bowel clearing programme. Irene’s parting shot as she left for bingo was what did we want for dinner tomorrow night? I told them that I didn’t care what they have and Alex suggested that I cook a big T bone steak and watch him eat it. I would write him out of my will if it wasn’t for the fact that I have left him the kids. He wants to know what I have done to him!
I have bought some new glasses from ASDA for £3.00 – the ones I paid £171 are rubbish compared to George’s cheapos. I tell Eleanor that I have a big problem with them – they have got a big label on them with the word George and my name is not George. Eleanor laughs and then tells me to get a pair of scissors and cut the label off. No flies on her!
Thursday the 8th and I am now on the final countdown. This time tomorrow and they will start to saw me in half. I have had to stop eating from 2a.m. so I had a chicken sandwich at about midnight and was awake half the night with heartburn.
The club was relatively quiet last night – there are even not many bingo widows about – and I enjoy a delicious glass of diet coke while Alex quaffs some of the foaming ale. Irene comes up from bingo. She hasn’t won and the jackpot of over £1000 has not been won either. So there’s a lot of hope for next week. The old lads in the corner are on form as usual. Ron is back to his favourite subject – pipe cleaning. He has read somewhere that if a man “cleans his pipes” at least twice a week then it reduces the chances of prostrate cancer by half so he has been cleaning his pipes for many years. It reminded me of my old mate Terry who did the Full Monty in a bar in Spain. Linda, one of our party, said “Ooh Terry, you have got freckles everywhere – you’ve even got some on your willy!” to which Terry replied “Yes and I have been trying to rub them off since I was twelve!” Anyway, Ron is recommending to the company that we all get our pipes cleaned twice a week. “It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it!” he pronounces.
Doctor Lewis at 9.15 and she is not late. Well not very. I told her once that I didn’t mind her being late because as a G.P it meant that she was doing her job properly and not just pushing patients through the system. She went through my diabetic review and everything was good except for my blood pressure which was a little higher than she would like. Oh yes – and my weight. Irene has started putting weight on since she has given up smoking (her and Jonathan nearly five months!) and the Wilkie’s have always been – shall we say – well built and Tim looked at her the other day and said “Mum, it’s taken you thirty years to become a Wilkie, well done!” When I added that she looked like Homer Simpson when she was in bed laying on her back with her pyjama top rode up exposing her belly that really was the icing on the cake. It’s a wonder that we weren’t wearing the cake!
I tell Doctor Lewis that I have to be in hospital for 6.30 in the morning – “I can’t even have a lie in!” She replies by saying that I will be having plenty of bed! Then we discuss the Adrian Mole on my face which is due to be removed on the 2nd November, I haven’t postponed it even though it is less than a month from my Ratso removal – that’s a positive altitude for you! She says “It’s your last day before your operation and you have come to spend some of it with me!”
So it’s back from Doctor Lewis and into the Council office to get my will witnessed. The staff are in a good mood and the clerk tells me that I have to have a positive mental attitude because I have told her that I will either come out of theatre and go to the high dependency unity or the morgue. I truly am positive, but also realistic. I have been told my many doctors how high risk I am.
I am now sitting at my pooter desk whilst sipping the delicious Picolax purging laxative. I know I am a bit late but I like to live dangerously. Irene has just come in and asks if I want a cup of tea – I would prefer a glass of vino – but tea will have to do. I have got a two pint mug which says “Grandpa knows best” on it that Eleanor bought me.
Now it’s just wait. Wait for the Picolax roulette game. And then wait for tomorrow morning for a life changing day.
Thanks to all my readers and thankyou for all of your kind comments and encouragement over the past year. I will get someone to post tomorrow and let you know what happens in the next thrilling instalment of the Demise of Roland Ratso and last of all – keep smiling!
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For those who don't know me - diagnosed with bowel cancer in December 2008 and spent most of 2009 undergoing chemo and radiotherapy culminating in a crescendo where I had an APR - removal of anus and rectum and about two feet of bowel taken away. Walked into hospital at 6.30am on October the 9th - had seven hours on the operating table, four hours in recovery, two days in intensive care, two days in high dependency and nearly five weeks in the joint, finally getting out in a wheelchair and a journey home that nearly made me pass out on the way. It was over three months before I could go out on my own. Some people said they found my blogs inspirational - I found writing them helped me a lot and the comments after publication were a major part of helping me through my journey through cancer. I have had an anniversary scan with a response that says "There is no convincing evidence that cancer has returned." My friend who lost a daughter to cancer at 23 and is an Oxford graduate in languages says "The language of reassurance is complicated" so I wll leave it at that for now.
I have lost a lot of friends, both on this site and elsewhere but truly believe that laughter is the best medicine so I will sign off as usual
Keep smiling
Love
Drew
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