Update from Aberdeen

Hi All,

Peter is in Aberdeen for radiotherapy to his hip that has been causing a lot of pain.

His CT scan has discovered cancer secondaries in his liver. 

It looks like the cancer is progressing more quickly than we had hoped.

He should be home at some time over the weekend (weather permitting).

Michael

Once more into the breech.

It may be once more into the breaches buoy.
There is  lot of discussion about how to get me to Aberdeen at the end of the month.
It will be time for them to wheel out the ray guns.
As I am so remote and have a lot of problems it is not easy to arrange bed to bed transfer with a break (no puns) in GBH.
They have tried and are trying other therapies but will now run out the machinery to try Radio Therapy
I was sitting by my heap of Happy Pills the other day deciding that I will not be holding back on them any more when it occurred to me that it is not only policemen who seem to be getting younger. It also people like me who appear to be getting older.
I know nurses should be grateful to us for keeping them from becoming redundant but there is a lot to be grateful for in the NHS.
The whooper swans are coming back for the winter and other birds have stopped on their journeys as they passed the house. A yellow browed warbler sat on the verandah the other day looking in at people having lunch.
Hopefully we will have a discussion next week about using the astronomical telescopes and watching shooting stars and trying to see the Araura. We will see.
I need to get other people organised and of course explain to Janet how to mix concrete.
I will keep in touch and if we decide that the happy pills could lead to a new lifestyle I will arrange for cheaper rates for family to install their tents.

Progress!

I got there. I am now in the top 50 in Scotland (48).
This made me feel pleased with myself but getting any higher is extremely difficult.
I need to meet good players on their bad days while I am on a series of good days.
Still worried about travel to Aberdeen. If I can get stretcher to the airport, possibly overnight in hospital in GBH then I have the transfer from stretcher to wheelchair to plane seat and v.v. at the end of each flight it could work. Given extra morphine.
I would be looking in on the nurses I keep meeting as I go in for treatments from time to time.
The hip was a large part of my body, I thought, when it gained my full attention by hurting more. Then the other day the extra painkiller kicked in and it appeared to shrink a bit.
I seem to have lost the first part of this entry so I will abandon for the moment and keep what I have.
I am keeping my chins up.

Back Home

I am sitting in my bed having returned yesterday from another stay at GBH.
They changed my tablets so that I do not have a slow release patch but tablets daily and an extra tablet when extra pain occurs or I want to get into an artistic mood.
Sadly I was tired and gloomy last night with a more cheerful state of mind this morning but a lot of vomiting.
My trip in was to deal with the big problem of the left hip. Both cancer and arthritis have been working on it and my confidence in it has been diminishing. I'm less worried now.
I was worrying about my next trip to Aberdeen where I will be going in a few weeks.
This will be for Zapping, the only thing they have not tried yet. They say it will slow the growth of the cancer in the bone. So I get a tattoo to ensure they send the ray gun in at the same place and the same angle each tine.
I looked on the website while I was in hospital where I find the top hundred players from each country. I am in the top hundred in Scotland. There are no Scots in the top hundred in the world.
I shall try and get into the top 50 in Scotland. It is  possible but not likely, although I may play some amazing stuff under the influence of my latest drugs. I'll keep trying; its good to have an ambition.
I'll be putting in short bulletins as I feel able.

Reading the bones

We have a conference daily. It goes a bit like this.
Nurse(or Janet) "Does it hurt?"
Me: "Yes.",
Both of them. "Ha Ha.)
They then manhandle me out of bed and into a wheelchair wheel me to the next room and pour me into the electric chair.
I make obligatory noises like Ooo! and Aaa! while they either laugh happily or tell me keep a stiff upper lip.
My favourite is one of them telling me "It doesn't hurt that bad."
The doctor rings daily and asks how I feel about being X-Rayed. I tell her I will need an ambulance door to door  each way. She agrees but I do not trust the people in Lerwick to do it.
Anyway I need to recover to enable me to have the checks in Aberdeen in November.
I'm not keen on travelling anywhere at present.
We still have two house but are gradually clearing the old one. It would be impossible to live there at present so the sooner it becomes our ex house properly the better.
Apart from asking about the pain, looking for wiggly bones, and assessing my ability to move things they can do little before getting me under the machinery. So coming soon may be the trip to Lerwick.

Frail old bones

I was trying to get from the armchair into the wheelchair. I slipped backwards and decided to throw myself forward again. There appeared to me to be a cracking noise and a lot of pain. I lay in the armchair shouting Oh! and things like that. Janet got the nurse and they got me into bed where I stayed for the rest of the day.  I am taking all the painkillers now. I got up for a couple of hours yesterday but just  a minute or two today.
They mentioned Xrays but I cannot go into Lerwick by car. I will need an ambulance each ways.
The nurse has ideas to stop bedsores and I am taking her advice.
I can watch films on the computer so have some entertainment besides internet chess.
Meanwhile I am reading Frank Muir's autobiography.

Foiled Again

Having arrived at the hospital with my entourage, Janet with Graham and Jeff, I was given a bed but decided not to change and get in in. I was thinking, give me the blood and I'll go.
Anyway the long and short of it was that I had no lung infection and that I would not get any blood. They thought it could give me more problems rather than fewer.
So I got the free lunch which was fish and chips - but the chips were last weeks by the taste. They also had a strange sponge pudding with odd dark bits in it. I thought I would steer clear of that. When I saw someone I knew from previous visits to GBH I asked her to remove the plate.
Since then we have been talking pain management.
They are very keen to have paracetamol in the background whatever else I take. I wonder about steroids as they gave me an appetite and I was able to drink beer and wine. My visitors had the odd drink but I seemed less able to bend the elbow as I had done earlier.
So Graham and Jeff have gone, Margaret and John arrived, Barnaby and Erin dropped in and Emma (Oscar's fiancée) and her father Andrew looked in and stayed a night.
Apart from the doctor on Friday, the local nurses every other day. the MacMillan nurse on Thursday, Rose and Murray on Monday to play Scrabble, and of course some neighbours with a few very healthy looking mackerel, no one else called except the man to fix the door handles.
So I am back in the groove watching the chess competition in St. Louis and looking forward to one in California later this year with a 1 million dollar first prize, oh, and a world championship match coming soon.
I hope to have a star night in September but have not decided which night. I may let people know we have telescopes here and they can ring saying when they want to come. I have to be able to at least get them started before going back into the warm. We'll see.