The Dark Side of the Moon......

……. Each time Astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders vanished behind the far side of the Moon they lost all contact with the Earth for 45 minutes on each of the 10 orbits. During the first long silence the black void crackled with tension until Mission Control in Houston reported, "We've got it! 

Well, the bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I’m guessing that I’ll be out of contact for a tad longer than the 45 minutes it took for Apollo 8 to come back from the Dark Side of the Moon. I know I’m going down to surgery first thing on Monday morning and that the operation will take most of the day, so it’s unlikely I’ll be posting a selfie from my bed on Monday evening. I haven’t taken my laptop in with me to start with, I’ll get Carol to bring it in when I’m feeling a bit more like a human again. But once it’s with me I fully intend to keep writing this blog. As well as keeping up to date with what’s going on in the world and watching a shed load of stuff on Netflix. I’ve downloaded eight new books which will keep me going for the couple of weeks I hope. The last time I was in hospital for more than a couple of days was back in 1982 when I had an operation to remove my left knee cap. I’d broken both legs a couple of years before in a motorbike accident. The right knee cap was removed at the time, but the left had been screwed back together. Unfortunately over time the screw started to come loose and the knee started to disintegrate, so there was no option but to remove it. There was an upside though as one evening a rather pretty nurse came onto the ward, promptly slipped up on some liquid on the floor, fell flat on her back and gave the ward residents a rather nice view of her shapely, stocking and suspender clad legs……. That was the first time I met Carol. I’m pretty sure that hospitals will have changed somewhat in the last 24 years, or at least I hope they have. Back then the food was just this side of edible, you could smoke in your bed, the nurses on nights would share your beer……..

In the meantime, whilst I’m silent, it would be great if some of you could check in with Carol and the sprogs to see how they’re getting on. They’re not going under the physical knife, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to be feeling it. So virtual and actual hugs would be appreciated whilst I can’t do it. Thanks guys J

The week was a strange one. I wasn’t feeling very good all the way from Saturday night. We went off to Nino’s for a last supper with Anna and for the first time in all the years I’ve been going there I didn’t really enjoy it. The food was up to its usual high standard, the Nino’s their usual cheerful selves, but I just couldn’t get into the swing of things. I even ordered a started as my main course and struggled to do it justice I’m afraid. Mind you, Carol enjoyed drinking ¾ of the bottle of red………

The work week was spent mainly trying to get on top of things before I go on holiday. By Friday afternoon I was done, the laptop shut down, the phone locked in my desk, “Out of Office” set to no idea when in the future.

I can’t remember the last time my desk was this clear…..  

  

Saturday morning was spent at OBR watching the first NZ vs Lions test, my god NZ are ruthless. I suspect they’ll only get better over the next two weeks, but I will be taking my Lions shirt into hospital and following the two remaining tests on the TalkSport radio ap. that I’ve downloaded, I don’t suppose I’ll be supping on a pint of Rams bitter whilst I listen though. 

Sunday morning was quite surreal. Despite what I’ve written below I got almost 12 hours sleep, waking up at gone 9.30am. Breakfast whilst watching the recording of Foo Fighters at Glastonbury (what a show!) and then it was time to get my bags ready, making sure I didn’t take too much, but enough to keep me entertained this evening. I decided to push the boat out for my last lunch and went for asparagus wrapped in parma ham with a poached egg. All washed down with a glass of Malbec. I’ll be gobsmacked if I get served that in the hospital.

When I’ve had op’s recently we’ve played the usual game of count to 10 and see how far you get before falling asleep. There must be something more interesting to do in your final 7 or 8 seconds on conscious thought? So this time, as I know I won’t be able to talk for some time to come, I think I’ll try and get my 10 favourite words in…………… I hope I don’t make the nurses blush.

My stomach has been playing merry hell with the mixture of pain killers and other meds. I don’t think the 30 degree heat earlier in the week helped either, but sleeping was just not happening. Even my afternoon naps weren’t easy to come by. When I asked the CNS Nurse what would happen if I didn’t have the treatment she said I would slowly start to feel the effects of the tumour and I think that’s what started to happen over the last couple of weeks. I know where the (not so) little bastard is and whilst I can’t physically feel him growing, I can feel the pressure he’s beginning to exert on me. Well mate, tomorrow you’ll be cut out, enjoy your fun whilst you still can. I’m frightened, but whatever the future holds it’s got to be better than the present where I’m hardly coping.

I’m hoping to get the next update posted at the usual time on Friday evening, subject to having a WiFi connection and being able to actually type something in the week. To date there have been just over 35,000 hits on the blog and I haven’t been refreshing my feed that much, honest ‘guv. Close on 80,000 words have been written. That’s far, far more than I ever expected to achieve, mind you, I didn’t expect to be writing for 18 months and counting. I’m now at the stage where I really don’t want to have to write anything else about cancer. There’s another book waiting to be written, non-cancer related, maybe another job for when I’m recovering.

In the meantime, as always thanks for reading and I’ll see you on the other side.

To be continued……

#Shoulder2Shoulder