shank's blog

Well my fellow Jedis isn't it nice that we finally get a bank holiday to recognise May the 4th as Jedi Day. Now if only I could legally carry my light saber! Maybe we should recruit Joanna Lumley. It is a very good day today. I've just got out of hospital after 4th chemo session and am feeling physically ..... emm not bad considering but ............. I had a chest X Ray prior to treatment and the picture was quite…

Yesterday I spent the day with an old school friend I haven't seen for 20 years! It was great to see him and we started off talking like it was only last week that we saw each other. But, after we got all the pleasantries out the way we really started to talk. Long story short is he had a huge tumour on his kidney, had that kidney removed, is recovering and is going through a period of not knowing weather the cancer…

Hi all, haven't been on for a while. Neutropenic again after day 14 of chemo so back off to the hospital for another fortnight of crap food and cynical old men moaning about the NHS. My next chemo was going to be cycle 3, after which I was going to have another CT scan to see if the tumours in my lungs had changed. Reduced 50% or more = Excellent, Reduced some = good, No Change = Bad, Grown = Really shite !!!!. But…

Yep, the holidays over. 2nd cycle of chemo starts today. I had a 3 week hiatus because I had 2 collapsed lungs (which was a nightmare) and had to have 2 pleurodesis operations to fix it. It's quite interesting really, they do keyhole surgery with a camera and spray talc (not Imperial Leather I hope) between the lung and the the pleura which irritates the tissue and makes them stick together. Fascinating, but bloody painful…

Wow, 8 days since chemo, what a roller coaster! I've got a partially collapsed lung which is a real pain in the arse because I think the good days would be so much more enjoyable without it. It was a lovely day yesterday, first one for a while and I went for walk with the dog in the field out the back. If you could have seen the look on her face when after 100 yards we turned back. Poor thing had to wait until the girls…