A day in the Life of a Lary

“Is everything back to normal now?” – The question I’m asked on almost a daily basis by folk I’m interacting with. I usually answer with something along the lines of it’s as normal as it’ll ever be. But, it got me thinking as to what my “normal” day now consists of and how much it’s changed over the 14 months since Lary’s appearance. Take Tuesday, the Tuesday after the Bank Holiday weekend. It should have been a day like any other, but due to Lary it became a tad different.

I’ve been getting very breathless of late if I’ve been doing any form of exercise or even just walking up a slight incline. I noticed last Saturday when I was walking Neville back from the park that I had to stop twice on the steep hill home to recover my breath. Then, last night at about 2am I woke with a tight chest and only really able to take short, sharp breaths in. I resolved, after a fairly sleepless few hours that it was about time I called the Dr’s. So at 8am, after doing an hours worth of work related emails I called the number, got through straight away and had an appointment for 9am the same day. Crisis, what crisis? J The Dr. I saw was very thorough in her examination, blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, pulse and then the cold stethoscope to my chest and back. The only slight problem was when she asked me to take deep breaths through my mouth, oh how I wish I still could. She could find no overly obvious causes of the breathlessness (Which luckily made a guest appearance during the examination) but prescribed yet another course of antibiotics and sent me off to the hospital for a chest x-ray. I was lucky in that there was no one else waiting in the Radiology Dept. when I arrived so I was in an out in 10 minutes flat. A quick drive home via the Chemists to pick up the Antibiotics (note to pharmacy assistant, I can’t speak very clearly, I’m not deaf!) and within two hours I was done and dusted, sitting back at my desk……………………..

…………….. feeling like crap! A quick call to my boss and we decided that a duvet day was probably the best course of action. I was coughing heavily, having to clear out my stoma every 10 minutes or so. Not really fit for purpose. A few hours in bed helped to settle my chest down a bit, but I still spent most of the remainder of the day coughing whilst struggling to get my breath comfortably. One of many advantages to being married to a nurse, especially one who works in Respiratory Medicine is that Carol had a quite word with the Radiology Dept. and confirmed there are no underlying signs of infection on my chest showing up on the x-ray. Good news in some ways, but it doesn’t explain why I’m struggling so much at the moment, especially if there is no infection. Carol is going to be undertaking some “home” tests on me to see if she can find out what’s up, it’s been a while since I was her patient, I wonder if she’ll wear her uniform?........ J  So a day that started off as being a normal one ended up with me feeling frustrated and pissed off with myself. An early night beckoned as I was missing sleep, sleep is good.

As Tuesday wasn’t a “Normal” day I thought I’d give you an idea as to what is:

6.30am – Carol’s alarm goes off, I try and grab another five minutes sleep as I’ve probably been tossing and turning since 4am. Eventually at 7am I drag myself out of the bed and start the “looking after Lary” process. Depending on how I’ve felt the previous day I’ll have to either change the base plate I’m wearing from the overnight soothing one to a more heavy duty beast, or perhaps I’ll have had a good day and will still be wearing the same plate. Either way the valve will need cleaning out with an implement that looks a bit like a pipe cleaner and acts in the same way. Stick it into the hole, twist it a couple of times, pull the gunk out, cough into a tissue, replace the filter and we’re ready to face the day.

7.30am - Breakfast will usually be a bowl of cereal sat at my desk in my office at the back of the house. I like to be online early in the morning so that I can deal with any emails that have come through. I’ll also look at my online diary to ensure I’m up to date with all my cases. If Max is not at home or is working early I’ll take Neville out for his early morning walk. Our preferred destination is Sulham Woods where Nev can have a good run around without being bothered about the “Oldies” who walk their dogs in a pack at the local park. He’s fine on a one to one basis with other dogs, but gets a bit spooked with packs. 

9.00am - The working day continues with customer contacts, emailing, phone calls, spreadsheet filling and copious amounts of coffee being necked. Along with nudges from Nev that he’d quite like it if I threw a ball from him in the garden. This is all of course interspersed with me clearing out my stoma, sticking the pipe cleaner up to ensure I can speak and apologising to anyone that I speak to as I sound like Darth Vader’s camp brother still.

Midday – I tend to stop for lunch and watch the TV for half an hour or so. Jacket spud with tuna and cheese. Pie from Waitrose. Cheese on toast…….. and I wonder why the heck I’m now pushing 90kg and have had to buy a new suit. My physio came out with a cracking comment the last time I saw her. “Paul, your weight is about right for your height, we just need to redistribute it to the right areas!” – oh how I laughed.

Afternoon – I’ll admit, my energy levels disappear after lunch. I’ll invariably need to have a short nap at some point in the afternoon. I was a bit worried about this initially, but having read up on the after effects of Chemo and RT it would appear that being zapped to Hell and back and poisoned with heavy duty rubbish has a lasting impact on your body. There will be many more cases of clearing out the stoma, trying to time phone calls when I’ve a vaguely strong voice and frustration until I logoff for the day.

5pm(ish) – Nev has his second walk (after tearing around the garden for as long as he want’s, or more likely sleeping peacefully in my office!). The second walk tends to be a lead walk for half an hour. We try and balance out walks between lead and free running.

Evening – I do the cooking in the house as Carol doesn’t get home much before 6.30pm. Chilli, Lasagne, Pork Belly, Streak, Salmon will be the staple diet from Monday through until Friday. May not be exciting, but it’s a pretty healthy offering. I really enjoy the couple of hours I spend in the kitchen prep’ing and cooking, probably the most relaxing part of the day. By the early evening time my chest will normally have settled down, so there will be less coughing and less clearing the stoma.

I tend to disappear upstairs for a soak in the bath between 9pm and 10pm. The key to having a soak is to not lean back too far, otherwise the bathwater disappears down my stoma. This happened for the first time in an age last week. I was in a state of panic when Carol came up to find me having coughed what looked like blood all other the place, but was in fact red wine. After my bath is when I decide how I’m going to dress for the night. Will I leave the base plate intact? Slide it off and replace it with the soothing gel one? Or maybe, if I’m feeling daring, go au natural for the night and wear just a smile? It’ll then be reading in bed whilst listening to Radio 4Extra on sleep mode, drifting off by 11pm, and then starting it all off again at 4am the next morning.

My god, what a bloody boring life I lead.

Four years ago I spent a very uncomfortable night sleeping on a concrete floor in the grounds of a private school in Reading. A local charity, Launchpad, have an annual “Big Sleep Out”

to raise funds for the homeless of Reading. One of the main men of the charity is a chap who also happens to be a member at Rams and has been a good friend for a number of years now. When he asked me if I’d take part I had no second thoughts. Through my contacts via my work I managed to raise a pretty penny, which Santander then doubled under their matched funding incentive. It was an uncomfortable night, the rain started about 2am and my home made shelter was frankly pants. It leaked, it wasn’t wind proof, but it gave me an idea how the folk who have to sleep out in all weathers and seasons must feel. Albeit we were in a safe and secure environment, unlike the folk who sleep on Friar St in Reading every night. I stoated off home around 7am, to a warm bed, a cooked breakfast and a cup of tea. This year I was pleased to receive an email from the organisers asking if I’d be free to take photos of the evening for their official fundraising page. So, come 6pm on Friday I’ll be at the school in Reading, camera at the ready, shooting the brave fundraisers as they assemble their various shelters for the evening. Listening to the inspiring speakers lined up and then going home around 10pm to my warm bed in a safe environment. If anyone has any spare cash lying around here’s the link to the fundraising page –

https://www.justgiving.com/launchpadreading 

The Launchpad photos will closely be followed by the Rams photos as the 15^th season of following rugby at Old Bath Road commences on Saturday with a home fixture against Canterbury RFC. Max was dragged shouting and screaming to the club as a 5 year old, he didn’t like it at first and it took the odd bribe of a sausage bap and can of Coke in the first few weeks. By Christmas he was hooked. Within two seasons it was him dragging me out of bed to get to rugby. This coming Saturday he’ll hopefully be playing for the Mighty Cents in a preseason friendly, probably his last match before he disappears off to Portsmouth and University. Hopefully he’ll continue to play rugby at Uni, if not I’m sure he’ll play for the Mighty Cents when he’s back. Rams will be looking to improve on their third place finish last season in National 2 South. I was down in Wales with the team a couple of weeks ago when they took on Bridgend RFC in a preseason friendly and came away with a win, not many sides do that. Luckily they weren't wearing their wrestling costumes for the match. 

The trip down to Wales was my first time on the Fun Bus for a couple of years. I was initially a bit concerned as to how I’d get on, I needn’t have been worried. No one commented when I was clearing my lungs out, no one looked when my voice was a squeak, the Ramily looked after me as I should have known they would. Saturday night in Cardiff was an interesting sight, luckily for the guilty I’d put my camera away by the time we eventually went out. The long trip back by coach on the Sunday morning was surprisingly peaceful, I guess the players had worn themselves out playing rugby the previous day, or something.

This Sunday will see the Mini’s and Junior’s returning to action at the club, there will be a lot of relieved parents to know that their offspring will be looked after and worn out between September and May. I'm looking forward to getting my weekend fixes of rugby back and I've a few ideas of how to spice up my photography of the games this season. Watch this space. 

We have finally got round to booking our late summer holiday. We’re back to the Barcelo Hotel in Gran Canaria that we visited last November. The deal offered by booking direct with the hotel and sourcing our own flights via SleazyJet was just too good to say no to. We had looked at going back to Fuerteventura, however the road to the dunes that we enjoyed cycling down has been closed until mid October, supposedly so that important ecological studies can be carried out. Strange that the closure also coincides with the filming of the new Wonder Women feature film in the dunes. The locals are up in arms about the road closure and the impact it’s having on tourism, the main staple of the island. This year our trip to GC isn’t over the same period as the Pride celebrations, I’ll still take my leather chaps with me, just in case J 

The Saturday prior to flying off to the sunshine will see us driving down to deepest, darkest Sussex for the first South East Krom-Fest. This is a gathering of, as far as I’m aware, all of Neville’s brothers and sisters from the litter he was in, plus a few stray aunties, uncles, half brothers etc. I’m not entirely sure how many Kromi’s will be there, but as there are only 50 in the country I reckon there’s a fairly good chance we’ll have a quarter of the whole UK population in one place. How long for is anyone’s guess, but it should be fun. We’re hoping that the one and only Sidney will be able to attend, but it’s a fair old drive from North Cornwall. Neville will be enjoying 5* accommodation as his luxury kennels whilst we’re away sunning himself, pretty sure he’ll make us pay for it when we get home, and we do feel slightly guilty about leaving him, but he really wouldn’t like GC, all that fine sand would get into his fur. Anyway, he can’t speak Spanish. We're hoping to make it up to Neville by taking him down to Cornwall for a long weekend now that the crowds of holiday makers will be back at their desks. 

So another unplanned update comes to an end. It ended up as a bit more of a ramble than I'd planned. At the time of publishing the blog has had just shy of 100,000 hits. I’ve no idea when the next update will be, but it certainly won’t be until we come back from Gran Canaria. This blog may sound a bit downbeat, but it isn't really, it's just the way life is, and it's much better than the other option.

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued………….

#Shoulder2Shoulder