They Said There’d Be Snow At Christmas.

Three weeks since my last proper update, not including “Pupdates” and letters to cancer of course. In that time I’ve been to a Christmas party in Manchester with work colleagues. It was not great as my throat decided to play up big time in the early evening, meaning I left the party and was back in my hotel room feeling very sorry for myself by 8.30pm. It was a really strange restaurant that we ate at in Manchester. I think it was a Brazilian theme whereby you helped yourself to the salad bar and then different waiters came to your table with meat on skewers that they’d carve for you. There was rare sirloin, medium rump, lamb, pork belly, chicken and gammon. You’d get a slice or two and then chose again when they came back round. All very bizarre. Call me an old fuddy duddy, but when I go out for a meal I tend to order what I want to eat, rather than waiting for what’s offered to me on a skewer. It probably doesn’t help that I’m still struggling with red meats, but if they open a restaurant in Reading I won’t be hurrying to make a booking.  We had a team meeting the next day in our Manchester office and again I really struggled, by lunchtime I couldn’t speak, and by the time I got back to Tilehurst in the early evening I was broken. I was coughing uncontrollably and was pretty close to running out of the HME filters I use. It was a tired, emotional and upset Clarkie who took himself off to bed that night.

I’ve also become an orphan since my last update. My father has been in a Care Home in Wales since my mother died in 2016. For the last few weeks he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, he died on 13^th December at silly o’clock in the morning. For various reasons I’ve not been up to Wales so I hadn’t seen him since my mothers funeral. He wouldn’t have known who I was and from a very selfish point of view the eight hour round trip would have been a real struggle. My sister is away in Africa until New Year’s Eve so the funeral won’t be until the first week of January. In recent years I hadn’t seen eye to eye with my father, but I’ll forever be in debt to him, especially for driving me all around the county when I was an aspiring badminton player, and for all the support and advice he gave me when playing any sport.

Neville is settling in really well. The first few nights we were up two or three times to him as his barking / wailing was getting a bit much. Now he sleeps through from 10pm until about 6am which is roughly when we get up anyway. The big job of housetraining has started with degrees of success, and in the New Year he’ll be going to puppy training classes. I think the classes will be as much for us as for him. He had his first visit to our local vets this week for his second jab and behaved like a total tart, charming all who met him, then disgraced himself by having a pee over the examination table. By all accounts he’s in rude health and will be able to go outside to socialise on Boxing Day, which just happens to be the date of the annual Mini vs Junior match up at Redingensians. Some of you may recall that I made a 15 minute cameo last year to say that I’ve played on the same pitch as Max.

 

This year I’ll be behind the camera, I suspect Cool Dude would have kittens if I told him I was planning on playing. 

Neville seems to be building up a bit of a fan club at the moment, mainly with the females too. He’s had three lots of visitors so far. First there was Ella and Lucy (Jools and Josh were just dragged along), then SJ (Under the guise of editing photos) and finally Freya came round supposedly so that young Milo could see the puppy, yeah, right……… 😊 I was slightly concerned as Milo is only just over 18 months old and Neville has been a bit “Nippy” with his other fans, but even when Milo was poking is hand into Nev’s mouth all he got was a good licking. There must be something in the old wives tale that puppies react well to toddlers. I’m thinking of setting up a FB page for Nev to post his pictures on, similar to Sidney’s, but not a copy cat, I’ve also got the skeleton written of a book based on Neville, but that’s a long term project and I really should try and finish “Diary of a Rugby Dad” which at 17,000 words, has still a long way to go to be published.

Last weekend was the annual Christmas Lunch up at Rams ahead of the home match against Clifton RFC. I was on a table with 9 friends and the original idea was that Carol would drop me off and pick me up again. In between times I’d drink a gallon of ale and have a jolly good time. The best laid plans seem to have a habit of going pear shaped at the moment as on Friday evening my valve started to leak quite badly which meant drinking any sort of fluid was difficult without flooding my lungs. By Saturday morning the leak was quite big, so I decided to drive myself. It was still a good day and great to catch up with folk. The food was outstanding, I’m not a fan of traditional Christmas meals as I find turkey usually dry and boring, but Ady, the new chef at Rams, produced a meal which was neither dry nor boring. The stuffing was out of this world. Rams won the match very comfortably and are now sitting 3^rd in the League, their highest ever league position in the clubs long history. Truly nosebleed inducing.

I emailed the Speech and Language team on the Saturday morning before going off to rugby to say the valve was leaking and I could do with a change as soon as possible. I’d titled the email as “Tis the season to be leaky, Fa la la la la, la la la la……” I was surprised to get a reply back within the hour saying that they loved the title and would I care to visit on Tuesday to be re-plugged, it turns out they were working on a Saturday to clear a backlog of paperwork, and knowing the NHS that would have been unpaid overtime too. Tuesday couldn’t come quickly enough as the valve was leaking really quite badly, this made drinking any fluid really difficult without coughing, spluttering and feeling like pooh!

Caroline, my Speech and Language Therapist had come up with another cunning plan to attempt to extend the life of the valves as she could tell I was feeling a bit down about the whole thing. So, we’ve gone for a low pressure valve this time. It means that more pressure is needed to open the valve to get a voice, but it should be more robust. I fitted it myself which was surprisingly easy to do and whilst my voice is a bit weaker it at least feels more secure at this early stage. Caroline gave me a spare that I can use at home in case of emergency and to save me having to trek into the hospital. I gave her a box of chocolates for Christmas, and for being really supportive over the last few months. The first couple of days of using the new valve have been a bit difficult. My voice is very, very weak, but like everything at the moment I’ll give it time before I make a final decision. If it lasts a couple of months then it may be worth the weaker voice.

You will hopefully recall that I’d told the Rams Sirens players who were going to raise funds for the RFU Injured Players Fund that I’d help in any way I could, specifically by taking photos for publicity purposes. SJ, main trouble maker of the Sirens, has undertaken to swim the channel in a relay in the New Year, she mailed me asking if I’d be up for photographing the Sirens for a charity “Calendar Girls” type calendar. After some discussions with the club to make sure they were happy with the idea and ensuring that it would be a closed shoot we rocked up to OBR on a cold but bright Tuesday afternoon. My admiration for the ladies who took part in the shoot knows no bounds. Not only were they prepared to have someone they hardly know take pictures of them baring all for the greater cause, they were also happy (?) to lie down in the cold mud for a couple of the shots. One comment from a nameless player was something along the lines of “My lady bits have never been so cold!”. I’m very pleased with the final edits of the shots, all done in the best possible taste. Once the calendars are finished I’ll put a link up here for where they can be purchased. Here’s a taster shot from the day –

 #doingitforDani

As is now traditional at Christmas the Rams Students play a match to try and get the lads who are away at Uni or where ever get to play with their old mates and reacquaint themselves with the odd shaped ball. This year’s match was played on Wednesday with the opposition being a strong Chinnor side. Max played as whilst he isn’t strictly a student yet, he is an Under 23. Chinnor won the match comfortably, but the real winner was the game. Over 50 lads got a run out, there were smiles all round, the bar was busy, everyone had fun. The shot below shows Max with lads and coaches from his age group. Max, TG, Alex and Ben started playing together when they were 6, they’re now 19 😊 

The next day I was really paying for being outside for a couple of hours on a cold and damp evening. I couldn’t stop coughing and had virtually no voice to speak with. I also had my final check up at Royal Berks for the year. By the time I checked into ENT and passed over my bad of chololates and biscuits, as a small seasonal thank you to the wonderful staff, I was feeling decidedly rough. The clinic was quiet as befits the last days before Christmas and I was called in five minutes early to see Cool Dude. He could tell straight away that I wasn’t in a great place and forgo sticking a camera up my nose and down the remainder of my throat. The problem I have is that a normal person, when breathing in cold air, gets it warmed up by their mouth and throat before it hits their lungs. With me breathing in via my stoma the cold air just goes straight into my lungs. I can’t wear a scarf over my throat as I wouldn’t be able to breath, so a bit of a catch 22. Cool Dudes advice is to try and avoid, if at all possible, going out in really cold weather for any length of time. Over time, and he’s talking about years rather than months, things should get a bit better, but chest infections come with the territory. Bearing in mind that one of the things I get the most enjoyment from is photographing the Rams teams I left the hospital feeling pretty down. By the time I got home I was in a foul mood and spent the rest of the day grunting in the general direction of Carol and Max, not my finest hour.

It took until Saturday until I really felt myself again. I managed to get into Reading at the crack of a sparrows fart to finish my Christmas shopping and was home again by 8.45am, oh the joys of Marks and Spencer Lingerie section J I decided to risk driving over the Sudbury to watch Rams take on London Irish Wild Geese and was glad I did as Rams ran out easy 52-12 winners against a poor LIWG side. It was the first time I’ve been to the new ground of LI and whilst the pitch facilities are first class the whole place seemed to lack any soul or identity. I felt like writing a letter of complaint to the BBC Weather forecasters, they’d been banging on all morning about how the weather would be mild. Mild? It was bloody artic at Hazelwood!

Today is Christmas Eve, it really doesn’t seem like two years ago that I was originally diagnosed, it seems far, far longer than that. My memories of life before cancer are quite dim these days, as are my memories of life before Lary. But I can vividly remember Carol and I sitting in the office of Scary and meeting her and CNS Jo for the first time on 24^th December 2015, being told I’d got T2 Throat cancer, but that in Scary’s opinion I was “Worth Saving.” Having to go home to the kids and say “Sit down guys, we’ve something to tell you, Dads got cancer, Ho Ho Ho, Happy Christmas…..” This year there will be the five of us at home, Carol, Anna, Max, Tom and me. We’ll be eating a simple Lasagne tonight. Laura, Max's latest squeeze will join us. Carol will read The Night Before Christmas to the kids on the sofa, including Tom whether he likes it or not. The dinner is pretty much prep'd for tomorrow, just the veg to sort out. Penny and Nev have just had a big bust up, but they'll eventually tolerate each other. The second bottle of wine is open, chocolates are being scoffed and I may well "Rest my eyes" for 15 minutes or so. 

Happy Christmas to everyone who reads this blog. The messages of support and encouragement over the last two years have been massively appreciated, it’s been great to make lots of new friends through this horrible bastard illness. To all the folk I chat to who are still having a battle, together we’re stronger, we know what it’s like, we know that bitching and moaning are sometimes better than a large slug of morphine (ok, that’s a lie, nothing is better than a large slug of morphine, but you get my drift). There are some friends I’ve lost this year due to the big C, I’ll be raising a glass and thinking of you and yours.

Finally, there are a few folk out there who deserve a name check for being around when I’ve most needed it in the dark times. Dougie is going through the same as me, we can bounce. Kasagne who knows what it’s like.Kim in NZ who seems to be awake 24 hours a day and is a wise old bird. Tina in USA is a “mad dog women”, but in the nicest possible way, and can change my mood with her chat. Chris H. who manages to come up with the more inappropriate comments at exactly the right time. Graeme C. who manages to come up with the most appropriate comments at exactly the right time. Matt and Pete who are always around for a chat when needed. Sidney T. who managed to persuade me that getting a Kromi would be a good idea and to Jo for allowing me to change my mind. All the folk on the Peter and Jane FB page who offer support and a degree of piss taking. The wider Ramily. Carol, Anna, Max, Penny and Neville, my family.  

Here’s to a totally boring and uneventful 2018!

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued……….

#Shoulder2Shoulder