Where Do We Go From Here?

(Insert PIC)

Preface.

Normally I’d post the blog without any pre-warning or spoiler alerts. I tend to write on a daily basis, review what I’ve written, edit it a couple of times and then hit publish. This update is probably the most depressing one I’ve written for some considerable time. For no apparent reason I’m feeling pretty down this week, as will become clear in the writing. I know it won’t last and that the corner will be turned sooner rather than later, but for now I’m struggling to see any light at the end of the tunnel. I remember writing something vaguely similar after I’d finished RT and Chemo back in 2016 when I was “Waiting” for things to get better. So, you’ve been warned that there aren’t many laughs this week, and I’d quite understand if folk would rather just give this one a miss. (There is a rather nice recipe though). I debated long and hard whether I should even post an update this week, but I did say at the very beginning of this blog back in December 2015 that I’d write “Warts ‘n all” so read on and mind the warts.

Weekly Update.

The weekend was another quiet one of doing sod all really. The only time I left the house was first thing on Saturday morning to go up to OBR to take some photos. The club had been contacted by BBC Radio Berkshire to see if they could take part in something called Peach Quest, for those of you of a certain age its similar to Anneka Rice and Treasure hunt, but without the helicopter. So I duly trotted up to the club, camera in hand and took a few publicity shots as “Big G” bigged up the Rams Sirens and the presenter was game enough to attempt a couple of conversions. 

 Then it was back home to listen to TMS before the rain put paid to that and sleep took over for a while.

I’d been warned by a fellow Lary user that eating rice could be a problem as it had a tendency to stick in the throat on the way down. I was slightly concerned about this as I’m struggling to eat potatoes unless they’re mashed to within an inch of their life, and I quite liked the versatility of rice. As the weather was so miserable, wet and cold I thought a bit of Spanish cooking would be in order to brighten up a dull day in more ways than one. Paella was prepared, along with Spanish potatoes cooked with mushrooms, garlic and peppers. I’m pleased to say that it all slipped down easily, albeit with many sips of water taken during the meal.

By the end of Saturday my throat was beginning to feel quite sore, and when I woke on Sunday, after a really crap night, I was in quite a bit of pain, especially when I swallowed. This wasn’t in the plan at all, I’ve been out for three weeks now, I shouldn’t be getting pain in the throat at this point surely? My shoulder is also giving me quite a bit of pain again after Vicki had given it a good going over last week. I’ve been completing the exercises she prescribed but by the end of each day it’s got to a point where I can hardly move it without being in considerable pain.

Spanish Potato Bites –

This is a great way to use up left over mashed potato.

In a bowl add finely chopped tomatoes, garlic and red pepper to the cold mashed potato. Mix well.

Then add in roughly 1/3 volume of bread crumbs to the potato mix and about a tea spoon of smoked

paprika powder.

Divide the mix into desert spoon sized patties and firm up in your hands. (am I the only one who 

inds handling mashed potato slightly erotic?).

Heat some oil over a medium heat in a heavy based frying pan, add the patties and turn regularly to

get an even cook. Once nicely browned (about 8 minutes in total) serve with what ever small tapas

dishes. They work really well with mushrooms fried with garlic and chorizo.

Sunday was spent doing nothing more productive than writing this blog, and listening to the radio. I tried to eat a steak for dinner, the first red meat since the op. Failed big time I’m afraid, got about two bites in and couldn’t get it down, so just gave up in frustration. I’m not yet in a position to go back to work as my body is nowhere near to being fully recovered from the surgery and my voice would be shot to pieces if I used it all day. But, unless I can start to interact a bit more, exercise more and stop sitting in the living room feeling sorry for myself whilst watching NetFlix, then I’m not sure when I’m going to be fit to restart my life.

Stupidly I agreed an update to Windows 10 last week (This is the worst OS I’ve ever come across!) the Windows version of Siri is called Cortana. She (it) requested that I use the voice recognition software, well that’s the challenge for later in the week set. I’ll be amazed if it can recognise anything that I say, I’ll let you know how it goes* 

*at the time of writing I haven’t bothered to play with Cortana.

You may remember that I had a run in with a greasy haired oik at Waitrose a couple of weeks ago when he parked in a family parking slot. He’s also the bloke who called me a freak. Well I bumped into him again on Monday morning as I was on my way to pick up a prescription. This time he parked on double yellow lines blocking a business access whilst he ran into the Nationwide, well when I say ran I think waddled quickly would be a better description. He was walking directly towards me and obviously didn’t recognise me, I’d have thought the hole in my neck might have been a giveaway, however once I’d introduced myself by saying “You’re still a parking twat then?” he seemed to twig and tried to get out of my way, with a look of pure terror on his face. It’s quite pleasing to know he’s local, as I can see that we’ll become well acquainted over the next few months. I’ll treat it as my “Care in the Community” project to re-educate him on courteous parking!

I’m feeling pretty low this week. Life is a case of getting up, eating, watching TV, going to bed and then repeating. I’ve got the balance between recovering and living totally wrong at the moment. I hardly get out of the house and other than Carol and Max I’m not really speaking to anyone either. The problem is I don’t know how to get myself out of this current malaise. I know it’s only 5 weeks since the operation and when I eventually escaped from the hospital I thought that would be the start of a new beginning. Now I look in the mirror and I hardly recognise the face that’s looking back at me, not just the scars and the stoma, it’s my eyes that aren’t smiling anymore. Making the videos last week wasn’t a good idea. In my mind my voice was pretty good and strong, but listening back to the video I realise that unless people listen carefully to me then they’re going to struggle to understand what I’m saying. This makes going back to work very difficult at the moment. Despite outward appearances I’m nowhere near to being back to normal and I can’t see the time when that will be the case anytime soon.

Tuesday followed Monday as sure as night follows day. Up early, breakfast, TV, lunch, TV, afternoon snack, TV, dinner, TV……. Bed.

Wednesday started badly, went down hill to the pits and slowly started an upward curve back to just “Crap”. I’m feeling totally useless at the moment, even the simplest tasks seem to be getting to me. I’ve been downloading Lightroom to my Laptop and trying to sync photos from a hard drive should be a five minute task, it took me most of the morning and almost resulted in said Laptop being thrown through the window in frustration. A spilt bowl of cereral, struggling to find a bag of flour, finally cutting my finger on the mandolin (took 8 months from when I first started using it, so not too bad), the day was a real cracker!

Thursday arrived with a decent lie in for a change and to make it better I actually had something in my diary. I went into town to meet up with two work colleagues for a catch up. After realising I’d directed them to the wrong car park we eventually sat down for a coffee and chin wag, well that was the plan. In the end I had to do far more listening than talking as my stoma was having one of its more “Fluid” days and needed to be cleaned four times between 9am and 11.30am, I’d normally only clean it probably three times in a day. I lasted about an hour in town before I had go back home, have something to eat and put my feet up. I was good to get an update with what’s going on in the office and find out how my case load has been progressing for the past few weeks, but it’s reinforced that I’m not ready physically to go back yet. Speaking for more than about a minute in one go makes me very breathless as I’m still learning that when I’m speaking I’m not able to take any breaths. It’s quite a trick to master and one that I’m going to have to make a conscious effort to practise and perfect.

I was lucky enough to get another physio appointment on Thursday evening at the rugby club to look at my shoulder, which despite doing the exercises is still quite painful. Vicki gave me a good pummelling for half an hour or so and by the end of the session I’d got a few more degrees of movement back into my right arm, I suspect that by Saturday morning I’ll be paying for it, but the long term goal of full movement will be worth it.

I’ve no real plans for the weekend at the moment. On Sunday Max fly’s off to Hamburg for a 4 day break with the latest squeeze, so depending on how the stoma is behaving I may suggest to Carol that we go out for dinner in the evening.

Next week’s update will be full of the joys of spring (Or even British Summer if it ever reappears) there will be laughs, japes, pictures of fluffy kittens and other such happy events.

As a special sneak preview of how good next week will be, here's a video of the late, great. Lemmy covering the late, great David Bowie's Heroes - Motorhead - Heroes 

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued……

#Shoulder2Shoulder