Monthly Archives: December 2006

On my usual daily tour of my favourite websites today, I stopped in on my friend Em’s blog to discover the following paragraph, which so neatly encapsulated the to-ings and fro-ings of my mind and body at the moment I thought it silly to try to reword it to enlighten my readership and decided instead just to lift it wholesale and try to pass it off as my own.

“Sadly after 22 years I still don’t quite seem to have got my head round the concept of “improving” as opposed to “magically cured and reinstated with working lungs” and so the minute I feel a turn around I start jumping around and doing lots and then am surprised when said behaviour doesn’t go down well with my lungs which were (for want of a better phrase) breathing a sigh of relief that I was finally operating on a level they can maintain. I mentioned to my physio that you’d think I would have learned by now, she neatly sidestepped this remark by laughing politely and neglecting to comment.”

Sadly, my sense of duty and honour (and the knowledge that we have enough mutual friends for it to be highly unlikely that I wouldn’t get caught) meant I just couldn’t bring myself to fully commit to the stealthy liberation of the text.

I’d like to say my conscience was pricked by the knowledge that Em managed to write it from her hospital bed and went to all the trouble of emailing it to a friend and getting it posted for her, but I know if I did that then she’d eventually read this and send my huge screaming emails and numerous phone calls berating me for jumping on the pity band-wagon which we all so deplore.  Plus it’s also untrue, for that precise reason – pity is a trait all people should deplore. (Doesn’t that sound like a high school philosophy essay question? Pity is a trait all people should deplore: Discuss)

At the end of the day, when someone says what you want to say better than the way you wanted to say it, it’s best to hold your hands up and admit defeat than drive yourself barmy trying to best something that you can’t.

If you needed any proof of that, just take a look at what a complete and total load of waffle I’ve written trying to justify lifting a paragraph of a friend’s blog in order to help explain the challenges of getting back on your feet.

I think I should go and lie down.  Maybe this plagiarism lark is too heavy for me, after all.  Next time I’ll stick to my own drivel.

I’m clearly starting to reach sensible fitness levels as for the first time over the weekend, my mind has started to whir with possibilities of things I could be doing, or would like to do in the New Year.

Sadly, most of them are all things that will be beyond my reach before my Tx, but I suppose there’s no problem having some kind of roughly sketched plan for the future, however far away it may be.

At times like these, I find the difficult thing is to focus my mind on to one thing in particular and get something done.

Right now, for example, would be a perfect time to knuckle down and get some really good writing done.  Perhaps one of the new play ideas which have been circling my head – written up into draft form, or even just solidified in story terms.  Or perhaps taking an opportunity to look back over one of my few first-draft projects and hone them slightly.

Inevitably, though, I find myself enjoying my imagined new-life projects far too much and taking myself off into my fantasy new world while achieving nothing and taking no steps forward in the real world.

It seems silly, really, to become too swept up in the details and nitty gritty of the grand schemes I have laid out post-Tx when right now, planning whether or not I’m well enough to make a trip to Borders to finish the last of my Christmas shopping or treat myself to some new reading material.

What I need is some focus, and that’s what I’m heroically lacking in.  I say “heroically” as I’m blaming it on my brain as a way of coping with ignoring all the negative stuff that’s inevitably swirling around at celebration times and the turn of a New Year.

Yes, it helps to bluff oneself with the concept that you’re looking after yourself in the long run, and right now while you’re recovering physically, any kind of mental exertion is good, whether its practical or dream-based.  At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

There’s also the question of the “holiday season” as some loathsome people are wont to call it, which is arriving like a speeding train and is just as likely to derail any well-laid plans anyway, so it’s yet another excuse for butt-sitting and job avoidance.

Indeed, it seems fairly clear sitting here bashing away at the computer during the half-time break of the Sheffield Utd vs. Aston Villa game on the TV that the blog is just now as much a procrastination tool as anything else.

Or maybe – just maybe – forcing myself to sit and write my little progress notes of an evening is going to finally instill a little bit of discipline into my daily routine and lead me down the path of finally focused achievement.

Any takers?

Another good day today, and another day of what economists term “positive growth” – although I have to say I wish that referred to my personal economics rather than the state of my chest.

Actually, I take that back – I’d take empty bank over knackered blowers any day of the week.  Still, it’s got to show how much things have improved over the last week or so that I can actually write half a paragraph complaining about lack of funds as opposed to anything health-related.  What a relief.  I think.

Having spent a week away from K, it’s been absolutely lovely to finally spend some time together yesterday and today.  She’s been so amazingly supportive and has been there for me all the way through and has also dealt superbly well with not being there when I needed it, which I know from personal experience isn’t an easy thing to do. 

While I’m on the subject of support, though, I’ve been blown away by all the messages of support I’ve had from people reading this blog – it really is something else. 

It’s a remarkable feeling to know that you’re loved and thought of by people all over the world (and it really has been from all over) and I want to say that every single one of your messages have made a huge difference in encouraging me and keeping me going when the times have got really tough recently.

As a side note, those of you who’ve been emailing me at my onetel account, I have to apologise for lack of responses, because I can’t access my emails from Mum and Dad’s.  I went back to the flat for the first time in a couple of weeks today and was there long enough to check my mail and discover a whole raft of messages to which I want to reply but didn’t have the time.  So please excuse my rubbishness, but I will get back to you, I promise!

As far as today goes, I’ve had a lovely day of chilling out and relaxing.  This morning, after sleeping in nicely till 11ish (caused mostly by poor sleep and drug-related tiredness), K and I were visited by S&S, no longer the newest double-team on the block, but happily still going strong. 

It’s been a while since I caught up with them, so it was good to have tea and chats and to humiliate myself with my awful knowledge of music while we channel-surfed through MTV, VH1, TMF, Q and other letters.

When they’d gone and we’d had a nice big bacon sarnie lunch with Mum and Dad, with super-fresh bakery bread, I did my drugs and caught a cat-nap before K and I ventured out in the car for a bit of a spin and stopped over at the flat, where I checked my mail and gathered a few bits and pieces to keep me occupied at home for tonight and the week ahead.

It was good to get out of the house properly for a bit and I was impressed at my discipline in again not pushing myself too far in trying to do too much. 

Our friends at The Lodge, including the aforementioned S&S, D and PS are throwing a Dirty C Word Hawaiin Luau at their place tonight, which I really wanted to pop my head into, not least because it was at least partly motivated as an opporunity for K to get out to.  But it would have been doing too much and I doubt I’d have managed to stay for just the quick “hi” and “bye” that I’d wanted to because I’d have had so much catching up and gossiping to do. 

Mum’s got all of her book group over for the night tonight, but I’m shutting myself away upstairs and being anti-social.  Although I get on well with Mum’s friends, I’m just not sure I’m up to maintaining conversation with big groups of people at the moment, so I thought it best to opt myself out of it and sequester myself in my room with Dad’s laptop on wi-fi and today’s papers to keep me occupied.

I’m sure I’ll soon have my Social Strength back up to full-speed, but like everything I’m working with at the moment, I’m trying not to take too big steps too quickly.  Slow and steady wins the race, as someone once said about something to someone. 

Profound, that.

So, in the grand scheme of things, this week has been a Good Week. 

Following last week’s major dip in form, interrupted only by a day of media insanity which appeared to coincide happily with an inexplicably good chest day, I finally appear to be getting a grip on a) the physical recovery process, with more energy, more internal resources and less time necessarily dedicated to sleep and b) the mental side of the game, which has seen me first acknowledge then work to accept my newly imposed limits.

In fact, my biggest challenge at this moment in time seems to be how to write a blog when covered in constantly interfering kitten.  Pepe, one of Mum and Dad’s two new additions (alongside sister Tio), isn’t happy about my paying more attention to the funny glowing box with movey-cursor thing and there’s something distinctly antagonistic in my fingers on the keys, it would appear.

It’s hard to type with a kitten biting your thumb.

As I improve I am working hard not to get too carried away with recovery and am relying rather heavily on K and my ‘rents to keep me grounded for the time being.

For the first time today I ventured out of the house under my own steam and wanted to do more but was talked down by K.  Dad has a Christmas party at work tonight and needed a lift there, but Mum had been to a Christmas party at work and was one over the limit, so I obligingly offered to run him into Town, from where I was planning to go to the flat and pick up some bits and bobs.

But, considering I’ve now gone two days without an afternoon kip (through lack of tiredness, not stubborn-streak staying awake), it fell to Lady K to suggest that perhaps racing round to the flat, up the stairs and back no doubt laden with odds and sods wasn’t the best way of testing how sustainable my energy levels actually are.

That said, it didn’t stop her urging me to boldly step back into Real Life by stopping at the chippy on my way home…

The point is, though, that as much as I feel like I’m striding forward at the moment and as positive and happy as that makes me feel, it’s important not to lose sight of what a tight-rope I’m walking just at the minute and to do what I can to minimise the risk of  a relapse.

Which means that while it’s important to know my boundaries, it’s equally important to identify them through gentle probing rather than smashing through them at a sprint.

The challenge now is how to ignore my natural instinct to plough ahead full-steam and instead to slowly reintegrate myself to life, the universe and everything.  And those of you who know me will be only too aware just how big a challenge that is.

It may be slow progress, but I’m definitely learning – I’m improving my understanding of my body day-by-day and feeling better and better as a result.

The last two days (Monday and Tuesday) I’ve done absolutely nothing – the closest I’ve come to expending energy has been throwing a sandwich together or making a cup of tea, and even that I’ve done very rarely.

I’ve been incredibly strict with myself about sitting doing nothing, or next to nothing – watching TV or reading, not even letting myself work up to a blog (sorry about that) – and I can honestly say I can feel the difference.

Granted, I’m on new antibiotics and a not-inconsequential dose of steroids to boot, which I have no doubt are pushing things along, but lack of energy expenditure is certainly playing a big part in my improvement over the last few days.

Today for the first time in 5 days I actually left the house, heading over to Oxford for a physio session and a quick once over.  For the first time since I started IVs back in November, I actually had enough blow in my lungs to check my lung-function, which didn’t come out great, but the fact that I could do it at all was a step in the right direction.

We’ve opted on another week of IVs in the hope that the improvment that’s been shown over the last 7 days continues and when I eventually finish next Friday (the 15th), I should be fit enough to get through Christmas and New Year relatively hassle-free.

I’ve very much stopped planning ahead over the last couple of weeks and have avoided arranging things that I may have to cancel, simply because it drags me down so much mentally when I do. 

Christmas is rather unavoidable though (and I wouldn’t want to avoid it, either, however much of a Scrooge I may appear from time to time) and so my best plan of attack is to make sure I’m as well as I can possibly be and that I know my body well enough (at its newest settings) to stay on top of things on the day.

The last few days have really energised me, though, and I feel a lot more positive in myself.

At home we have an old joke stemming from my Mum when we were little, whereby every time we complained of any small ache, pain or minor ailment she would eventually come back with the line, “You’re probably just tired.”

It was infuriating to everyone at the time and hilarious to us all now, but I the last few weeks and months have driven home to a large extent exactly what she meant.

When you’re tired, physically and mentally, everything becomes a stretch.  Things that wouldn’t faze you normally can become the biggest hurdles when lack of sleep or simple exhaustion gets in the way.

Having bowed my head and accepted that yes, maybe mother was right (occasionally) I find things much easier to deal with.  It helps that I’m in a well-supported environment and I know that if I need to sleep, I just take myself off and sleep and I don’t have to worry about anything else. 

Hopefully this new-found self-knowledge, when combined with my old self-discipline at staying on top of what I can and can’t do, will help me into a new period of positivity and enable me to move forward in getting some of the things I want to do done.

Even if I don’t get them done, here’s hoping that perhaps I can muster enough time, energy and inclination to actually attempt them.

Watch this space…

So, it turns out I’m not really very good at this adapting lark.

On an evolutionary scale, I’d be stuck somewhere around the fish-with-lungs kind of level – broaching the edges of a vast transformation but not quite grasping the basics of the new world laying itself out before me.

Everything is tiring.  Not just averagely sleep-making, I mean tiring.  Moving from one room to another if I have to slip off my O2 to change supply (because, let’s face it, I’m not about to raise the subject of O2 lines with Allied any time soon, even if it was an idea that appealed to me, which it doesn’t) can lead to a required recovery period of several minutes if not longer and the merest hint of further activity leaves me body screaming for bed.

The biggest problem I have is learning to listen to what my body’s telling me and then making the appropriate decision and acting upon it.

For instance: this evening I am beside myself with tiredness.  I didn’t sleep incredibly well, waking fairly often through the night in discomfort and from odd dreams.  Today, my wonderful Godson came to visit and we had a great day playing games and watching movies and just generally hanging out.  But it’s left me completely shattered.

The most sensible course of action would seem to be to take myself off to bed and sleep, but he left at 6pm, which means that if I’d slept for an hour or more at that point, which I desperately wanted to, I know that come 11pm tonight when I’ve finished my evening IVs, I’d have been unable to get myself off to sleep.

So I tried just taking myself to bed and relaxing with a book, which worked for a while before tiredness crept in and made the book a blur, on top of which the urge to spend a little more time with my soon-departing bro crept in.

I came downstairs and settled in the kitchen (comfortable but not sleep-able) to read some of the Sunday paper and we had some left-over scraps from lunch for our supper with Mum and Dad before he left.

But I’m still no better off in the tiredness stakes, and I don’t really know what to do about it.  I know that, listening to my body, I should be in bed right now, but I have a dose of drugs to do in an hour’s time, which will take an hour to go through, and if I fall asleep before then and have to wake up for them, that’ll be my night totally ruined.

I suppose one could argue that if I have nothing to do during the days, perhaps it doesn’t really matter what time I sleep, so long as I’m getting enough rest in during the day.  I could, for example, live like a badger and stay up all night watching the Ashes and take myself to bed when the day dawns, but I’m not sure that’s the answer.*

For one thing, being up all night on my own I know I wouldn’t feed myself properly then I’d miss all my day-time meals and so end up losing weight, which I really cannot afford to do.

Further to which, if I needed anything, had a nasty turn or my oxygen went funny or anything like that, it would mean rousing the house to come and help me, which I’d be mortified to do – it’s bad enough having to get someone else to make me cups of tea when I want them, or shifting oxygen tanks around on my whims, let alone getting them out of bed when they’re supposed to be resting.

What I really need to do, I think, is to find something which will keep me happily occupied in bed for a large chunk of the day – a computer game, or internet-linked lap-top or the like.  The problem with all of those options being that I don’t know how long I’m here for and they’re ridiculously extravagent things to entertain me when there’s a perfectly good TV downstairs.

I just can’t get used to spending a day on a sofa, though.  Daytime telly is bad enough (and I still can’t force myself to watch it, no matter how ill I am), but I’m also just not comfy on the sofa all day.  Odd, really, given I’d be quite happy in my bed 24/7 if I had summat to occupy myself with.

This is all one big crazy ramble now, largely caused by the constant fight to keep my withering eye-lids from gluing themselves together and calling it a night, but essentially it comes down to an “answers on a postcard” poser, really.  Any cunning plans for occupying myself whilst enforcing a strict “not out of bed” rule?

I’m determined to get better at listening and – hopefully, one day – pre-empting my body’s mood swings.  I used to be pretty good at it, but I seem to have lost my touch of late.  Here’s hoping it’s not too long before I get it back again…

*That’s not to imply that it is common badger behaviour to watch cricket all night, it was more an inference to nocturnal awakenings.

I mentioned in the middle of last week having a bit of a to-do with Allied Respiratory, the new home oxygen service providers.

At that point, I was mildly full of grumble because I’d cancelled a hospital appointment and spent my entire Thursday waiting in for the oxygen engineer to call round when he’d phoned at 3.30pm to tell me he wouldn’t be coming because the job we’d asked him to do was a 2 hour job and he didn’t have time in his day to do it.

I’d remonstrated with him, and also pointed out the rearranged hospital appointment, at which point he agreed he could at least swing by and drop off a back-up cylinder for the flat and a couple of portables that would at least give me enough oxygen to make my trip to Oxford the next day.

One thing he said did strike a deep note of caution into my brain, though, when he dropped off the portable cylinders telling me I was “lucky” to get them.  How can an oxygen provider think it acceptable that a person entirely dependent on oxygen 24 hours a day is told it’s “lucky” for him that the company can provide it?  It’s unbelievable.

Further to that, when he told me he’d not be able to come that day, he committed himself to coming to do the job first thing in the morning.  However, when he arrived at the flat to drop off the cylinders, I said I’d look forward to seeing him in the morning and his eyes went blank and he clearly hadn’t remembered his “promise”.

In fact, he arrive at nearly 3pm the following day.  I’d gone off to Oxford for my check-up and my brother, who should have been making his way back to work in Canterbury, had stayed in my flat waiting for him.

On the whole, then, not a great start to my experiences with Allied.  I’d heard murmurings from other users that there had been problems, but hadn’t expected to discover them so quickly, nor to such an extent.

Apparently, they’re chronically short of portable oxygen cylinders.  Between the collective brains of myself and a few friends in similar positions to myself, we can’t for the life of us work out why this is suddenly the case.  Having taken over the entire oxygen provision operation, why is the service so chronically short of portable cylinders, when previously there was no problem at all getting hold of them under the old, GP-prescribed system?

Today, things have taken another turn, and stoked my ire yet further.

I spoke to Allied yesterday, explaining that I’d been forced into a move to my parents’ house and that I was now out of portables and had no back-up cylinder here.  I did manage to bring over my concentrator, but it’s not set up for use in multiple rooms here, which means that rather than being the hub of the O2 system as it is at home, it’s now in effect merely a static, bottom-less cylinder.

They told me that because of the change of address I’d have to submit a whole new load of oxygen request paperwork from my GP before they could process an order, as they couldn’t do anything without it.  Luckily, my GP practice is outstanding, and got straight on to it, dealing with them direct and putting in an urgent request to have the oxygen delivered that day.

I received a call from Allied in the afternoon, telling me that they wouldn’t be able to do the delivery today (yesterday), but that they could set it up for tomorrow (today).  I explained that as I was now out of portables, it would need to be in the morning if it was being delayed.  She assured me that she would put me down for an a.m. delivery.

Imagine my surprise (or sad lack of it, so cynical have I become in such a short space of time) then, when today saw no hint of an engineer’s call all morning and still none by 2pm this afternoon.

I phoned Allied.  It looks like the order had been booked on their system for next week, would that be OK?  I took a breath and calmly explained that no, that’s not really OK and today is what they’d agreed and today is what I expected.

She checked the order and told me that I could probably get the back up cylinders (that’s the large ones that sit in a corner or cupboard and are hard to move around) today, but that portable ones were unlikely.

I explained, as patiently and calmly as I could, that this meant I would be unable to leave the house until their next delivery.  She said she understood and she apologised.

Frankly, I think that it’s only my high levels of tiredness and low levels of energy that stopped me shouting down the phone this time, which is good because I don’t like to shout at people on the phone. 

I know it’s not their fault and they’re just doing their jobs from a call centre somewhere in Surrey.  But it’s hard not to be riled when someone behind a computer screen is telling you that you’re not going to be allowed to go out this weekend because they screwed up their bookings and now couldn’t supply your needs.

Even more surprisingly, they don’t deliver on weekends, so there’s not even any hope of getting anything tomorrow. 

To her credit, the lovely-sounding girl on the phone went away and spoke to the engineer working in my area today and chased up whether he had any spare portables “on board” which he could drop with me when he dropped the back-up off.  In fact, he does and I’ve now been assured he will.

But that just underlines the ludicrous nature of the service and the system they have in place.  Clearly, they have no way of telling what oxygen is where, they have no tracking system of cylinders, both full and empty.  The whole service is shoddy and I have no idea how they propose to rectify the situation, but something really needs to be done, and soon.

It seems hugely ironic that the day after I write an article for the Guardian preaching about making the most of the time I’ve got left, that I find myself house-bound at the whim and the mercy of an oxygen delivery system that doesn’t appear to know it’s portable from it’s concentrator.  To put it nicely.

I wait – not with baited breath, because that would be too much effort – to see what becomes of this afternoon’s assured delivery, and wonder how on earth I’m going to meet my increasing demand for oxygen as my chest improves on the new antibiotics and steroids and I want to get out and about more and more.

PS – as promised, following yesterday’s excitement, my article has been published on the Guardian website here, and the Independent interview is available here.

 UPDATED 01/12/06 19:00:

What a fuss over nothing.

The muppets in front of the computer screen may have been able to cock up the proverbial piss up in a drink manufacturing plant, but the engineer couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.

We weren’t given an arrival time, and were getting somewhat anxious as 5 o’clock rolled around, thinking that they usually finish on office hours.  A swift phone call to Central again reveal he was on call all night, thought and that he would definitely be coming along tonight.

Just before 7 he called looking for directions from the top of the road (no one can ever find my ‘rents’ house) and walked in with one half-size back-up cylinder (half-size being slightly misleading considering it’s actually about 3 foot tall and REALLY heavy) and two of the nice little white portable cylinders (the ones that are actually light enough for me to carry).

When he asked if there was anything else he could do, I chanced my arm and volleyed for some more portables.  He said he wasn’t sure how many of the white ones he had, but he definitely had a load of the little black ones (the portable, but slightly heavier ones).  He toddled back to his van and returned with 2 more white ones and 2 black ones.

I also explained how it would be good to have a back-up cylinder upstairs as well as down, if that was possible, and he immediately went back out to the van to get me another one.

So after all the huffing and puffing of the last 24 hours with Allied at their call centre, I’ve ended up with exactly what I asked for – 2 back-up cylinders and 6 portables to replace my spent ones, all delivered to my new address.

But why did we have to go on the merry-go-round of phone calls we’ve exchanged since yesterday, where they’ve told me this isn’t possible, that’s not possible, I can’t have anything till next week, I an only have one back-up, I can’t have portables.  It seems like a chronic failure in communication across the board.

The engineer was so nice and friendly and completely accomodating – nothing was too difficult, he never once made a face like it might be hard to do something.  He brought everything in, sorted it out and helped with everything I needed.

Why oh why do Allied make it so tough on themselves and so stressful for the patients?