Andrew, who began this thread, sadly died in September 2008, but his friends wished that his thread remain open in his memory, particularly to promote Andrew's idea of 'dancing away cancer' each Friday at 3pm. Please feel free to post your dance tunes every Friday in his memory.
Macmillan admin
Hello everyone,
this is my topic to start and its a question that has been burning around the back of my mind for the last few days.
I always thought that having a small group of very close friends was enough for anyone, ok you always have work colleagues and other acquaintances but the main group of my friends has remained within a steady little group of five people for nigh on the last twenty years. We have shared almost, if not all, of what life can show you over that period and nothing has every served to tear us very far apart for long.
There have always times when partners/other friends/own family have been more important to us and always been times when we are more important to each other and perhaps have taken some of this for granted and assumed that it will always be thus. I have reached the opinion that I have for certain.
Then you get cancer! Things change I suppose but I have cancer and all of a sudden things are important to me that weren't before and they have an impact on others which were not anticipated.
First I need to say that my friends have been great through this initial part of my illness and there is nothing to say that this position is going to change immediately - rather its me that seems to be changing and not them. I am having doubts about my ability to cope with what is happening to me and what may happen in the immediate future, I am doubting my friends willingness to hear what I have to say when they ask that questions each day "How are you?", I don't want to say "OK thanks" each time when I am not OK,
I want to say "it bloody hurts" and "I don't feel well at all" and "I think its really unfair that I have this disease and you don't" (that one really stings in your head and even if its not at all true, sometimes you can't help yourself thinking it even fleetingly).
Then after that I get guilty about having the disease and having those bad thoughts that seem to go along with it all. I keep thinking that I am asking too much of them now in terms of emotional and physical help and what if their well runs dry later when I need them even more than I do now and they have nothing left to give me. Then I think that that is a really selfish "me, me me" attitude to have and that gets me really down - can you be guilty about a guilty thought which in itself is only a selfish thought about feeling guilty - just how big a knot is that one to unravel.
Anyway before I drive all away completely with this "hymn to the depressed" that brings around the original thought I had;
- can you use up and wear out your friends and family with this thing before you need them most?
Thanks for reading (if you managed to get through the dirge without laughing too much) and any thoughts are appreciated.
Cheers
Andrew
Hi to Liz as you seem to be up and about already,
however (apologies to Liz) this posting is aimed primarily at Juls and Mooms,
following our discussions last night I ma trying to prove my cogency and mental veracity prior to leaving home for the day. Its is also designed to bore the living daylights out of you so you'll never ask me to do this again - lol.
I am going to talk about my coffee maker, at least it will be informative, because then it will have a purpose and you never know it may be enough for you to do minor sort of Victor Kayam moment - I liked it so much I bought the "product".
Actually I do love this machine. I was bored with the little cast iron Italian coffee makes I was using. it made great coffee of any variety bur took so long to make each cup by the time the last cup was made the person with the first was in dire need of another, liken it to painting the Fourth Rail bridge, never ending production line.
So I gave in and looked at one of those "pod" type things. Some friends (Baz and Debs) have one of these machine and gave me a cup of coffee from it when I was over at their house a few weeks ago. The coffee tasted great and I honestly would be hard pressed to tell that it cane from a machine and not from the usual fresh made variety.
There are myriad machinations you can make and each pack tells you how. The machine uses bar codes to let it know what you are trying to do and automatically adjusts itself to get the balance right. There are niggles of course, the water tank top has a boring habit of falling into the water well if you pick it up in the wrong way is the most frustrating. Other than that it is pretty much hassle free. I only drink black coffee but even so it can make me several varieties all of which are delicious.
The brand of this caffeinated marvel I hear you ask? well its the Braun Tassimo! It really is that good. Its a bit expensive to buy at about £100 for the machine and the pods do not work out cheap either, especially if you drink coffee at the rate that I like to, but it makes such good instant/fresh coffee that I think it is actually worth it. You can get the pods cheaper online via the Tassimo web site but in reality the supermarkets are sometimes cheaper anyway.
So, there you have it, an advertisement for a coffee maker, I hope cogently argued, and may or may not be interesting.
Juls, Mooms, if you are both bored rigid now its all your fault for making me do this to prove my own mental well being. If you are all excited over my advert for a coffee maker, then you are just a weenie bit sad at this time of a morning.
So I gauge that a win/win for me - lol.
Good morning and good luck,
Have a great day on me.
Andrew
xx
oh p.s. the pain thing, pretty much a further step forward over yesterday. The pain in the back nerve remains a kind of "heated needle" type rather than the broad ranging full back pain so is rather easier to live with than before. I think that is a good thing (it feels that way to me). So long may this improvement continue, I like it getting better rather than worse - lol)
