No Sleep 'Til Kettering ...

Strands of sunshine eventually force their way through the gap between the curtains of my room. Morning. London is quiet, too quiet. It must be early. I get up and look out the window, pleased to see the sun softening the patchwork of tiled Victorian roofs. In the kitchen, teabags are being dropped into cups as a kettle reaches boiling point. I head down the stairs and take my place at the table. Soon Cole appears, clearly having wakened only seconds before. He has never looked less like his promotional photo on the flier. We exchange a glance as we both reach for the Frosties. We know it's the last day of the tour ... Kettering awaits us. Soon we would be driving away from The Smoke, turning our backs on our opening night (twelve hours before, but it felt more like fifteen.) The M1 ... diet Coke ... Ginster's Buffet Bars ... queing for fuel.
For those about to rhyme ... we salute you!
The shortest tours are often the best, in my experience.

This is a quick post just to say a big thank you to my very good friends in Kettering for turning out in droves and supporting us last Saturday at the poetry reading. It was a great experience for Cole, Martin and myself, but perhaps especially for me as it reminded Mary and I of your loyalty and support. Invaluable! Thank you! It will be one of those memories that I look back on for a very long time.

Thanks also to St. Luke's, Holloway for a great evening on the Friday night. Again, kind people with encouraging words. Let's hope we can do it again sometime.

I think I might accidentally have just written a poem that isn't about illness. I am a bit taken aback myself. When I get it right, I'll post it on the blog, just to give us all a break ...

44 and not counting ...

Birthday Celebrations


I am just about to finish the third chemo cycle out of four. (The routine is for me to have chemo for two weeks and then to have a week’s break so that my body can recover; this happens four times.) My visits to the hospital have been quite encouraging and blood tests suggest that my kidney and liver function is normal and also that my white blood cell count is high enough for me to fight off infection. I have to say that to the surprise of many (including myself) I am feeling really well. The skin on my hands and feet has started to peel a bit (lovely image, I know) but other than that … fine! What is even more encouraging is that I have now been completely off pain-killers for over a week. Until I started chemo I was absolutely dependant on them, so it is a good result indeed. So what is the reward for my stamina and resilience? Well, the doctors have decided to increase my period of chemo from three months to six if I remain well until mid-march, which is when the fourth cycle ends. We still face the harsh reality of the disease being in my pelvis, lungs and bones and I guess that has prompted the decision. Anyway, if this very tolerable chemo regime slows the cancer’s progress, then we are happy and very grateful. A scan in March will confirm the effect of the treatment

And so to family news. I’m sure it will surprise none of you that Mary is in the village panto. She is playing the part of a degenerate buffoon … something she has been able to observe at close quarters for almost twenty years. Naomi and Martha are also in it which leaves Joel and I free for a quick visit to Scotland this weekend. On the national theme, Scottish poet Ronnie Kerr and I enjoyed two readings in and around York last weekend. They were well supported by kind people who had nice things to say. A big ‘thank you’ to them. The tour continues with Cole Moreton and Martin Wroe, and we are visiting St. Luke’s Church, Holloway, London on 15th February and Christ The King Church, Kettering on 16th February. I have a reading in Paris later on in March (he dropped casually … you see I really will go anywhere, even after the weekend’s rugby) and two booked for April ...Bristol and Northwood, London.

Well I will bid you farewell on this first day of Lent. Have you given anything up? On the radio this morning a bishop was suggesting that rather than giving something up (negative overtones and all that) we should consider taking something up instead. Good advice, and so I have started shoplifting.

Thanks as always for visiting the blog and for your support.

Almost Half Way ...

Belated New Year wishes! I hope that you had a good celebration wherever you were at the time and that the return to normal life has been bearable for you. We had a great time over the season, with my brother Simon coming down from Scotland and my brother Phil and family coming over from Paris. We are all back to school now and reminding ourselves every morning that the nights are getting shorter.

This is just a brief post to update you on the chemo. Many of you have been kind enough to email and enquire. I will be half-way through the pill taking on Friday, and then there will be a week's break from the pills which will take me to half way through the whole treatment. For those of you who have been praying that I get away lightly in terms of the long list of side-effects, keep going! It's working. I can honestly say that, other than tiring quickly in certain circumstances, I am free from any side-effects. (This is all against the back-drop of the hopsital recommending that I stop taking the chemo three days before Christmas so that I had energy to enjoy the day with the children ... ie. it is surprising.)

So what's ahead? I am really looking forward to doing some 'living room' poetry readings with some very talented friends. Two readings booked for York, one for London, one for Kettering and another due to be booked for London later in March. They are great fun to do and very cathartic for me, so if you haven't invited me to read in your living room ... why?! As well as that, Mary and I are escaping to the Lake District for another child-free weekend away. Oh joy! Kind brother Phil is heading over to look after our cherubs. He is seriously building up treasure in heaven. Talking of which, Joel has just started saying "Oh dear," at the top of the stairs which means that he has done something regrettable that will probably cause his mother and I to be perturbed for an hour or two ... like last Wednesday when he somehow managed to empty a bathful of water onto the bathroom floor and through our kitchen ceiling. When I made it up the stairs and was treading water in the bathroom, looking him in the eye as he sat in the empty bath, he furrowed his brow and said, "Cold ... "
Yep, live and learn, son.

Falling

Falling
“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

My child leans off the edge of the frame,
the ground three times her height away.
I hold her gaze during the moment’s fall
before I am enmeshed in
the ivy-bind of arms
and the silk web of her hair.
.

My child forgets the rule,
stands up in the boat,
stretches towards me.
He disappears beneath waist-high waves,
down to where my feet chill
on corrugated sand.
Dragging him out, I hold him
as he laughs from the safety of my shoulder,
his glossy hands drawing heat
from my skin.
.

I am falling, gaining speed,
arms wide like sycamore seeds.
With eyes tight shut against the upward rush,
its brush against my skin is the assured hand of Thomas;
its hoarse blather in my ears, the loosened tongue of Zechariah
blessing his first born.

A Quick Update

In short, the news isn't good. We met with the doctors this morning to receive the results of the blood test and the scan. Unfortunately, the cancer has spread in my lungs and further into the bones of my pelvis. Chemotherapy has already started and will run initially for three months. On the positive side, this regime is taken in tablet form but sadly it is going to be tougher than last time. For this reason I am going to have two weeks on the tablets and one week off. Not the best start to Christmas celebrations, but it can't be helped. For 25% of patients this regime will shrink the tumours. For a further 25% it will just keep the cancer stable. For the other half it will do nothing at all. If I end up in the latter scenario, they will factor in a stronger drug introvenously to run alongside the first regime which should up the chances of there being shrinkage/stability. This other drug has tended to cause shrinkage in 40% of cases and stability in 75%. After that, if I am one of the unlucky 25% for which it does 'hee haw,' then they swap the second drug with a third one. If that doesn't work ...we'll cross that bridge at that point.

Mary and I were both very aware that the doctor mentioned my death for the first time, during his explanation of the treatment, and although we have known for over a year that my demise is a foregone conclusion for the medical staff, it still felt a bit raw. Our faith is still there, however, not in any triumphalist sense, but we have always accepted that I can survive this if God chooses. I think I have said in the past that we would never say it it is certainly going to happen, and I think all Christians are allowed a degree of doubt. However, we do believe that it is one possibility alongside all the other grim ones.

The list of side effects runs from inflamed hands and feet, through to mouth ulcers and vomiting and finally ends with death! He emphasised that this was a list of possibilities and not expected effects. For those of you who believe in prayer, as well as praying for the obvious, I really want to get off lightly as far as the side effects go, because if I don't it is going to lead to all manner of questions from Naomi, who worries that every sneeze and cough is caused by my illness and is therefore a sure sign of deterioration. I really don't want the children to know at this point what the stakes are.

We are just quietly taking all this in for the moment and I am sure we will surface again soon. That said, we are not hiding away and we will be very happy to see/hear from you as usual. I am pretty determined to keep life as normal as possible and who knows, perhaps in three months things will be looking much better. I feel a poem starting from somewhere, so watch this space.

Climb Every Mountain ...

Now, I'm aware of my tendency to 'go too far' with things, but I can explain about the photos. It was Children In Need and the school staff were in need of being cheered up, so we all decided to go in fancy dress along with the pupils. The theme was ... someone famous! So, who more famous than the Mother Superior from the Sound Of Music! Hopefully the second picture puts my outfit in context and allays your fears. I had two very strange conversations whilst clothed in habit and wimple. The first was with a parent. She rang the buzzer at the hatch of the school office and I immediately dropped to my knees and prayed that the secretary was there and able to speak to the parent. When it rang for the fourth time, I knew I had to appear. I boldly walked into the office and up to the hatch and the parent said, "Oh hello. I am just dropping off Tom's lunch box. He left without it. Also, have you got a copy of the sports club letter that went out on Wednesday?" Not a word about my appearance! No acknowledgement that the headteacher was dressed as a nun...
My second conversation took place with one of our dinner ladies. She came in and said, "Have you come dressed as any nun, or did you have a particular nun in mind?" I quickly replied, "Well Mary is dressed as Maria Von Trapp ... " The dinner lady looked relieved and said, "Oh, you're THAT nun. Okay." With that she left. However, at the end of lunchtime, she came back into my office again and asked, "Have you based your outfit on the real historical character, or on the Mother Superior as portrayed in The Sound Of Music?" I explained that I was unsure of the appearance of the real nun and thus couldn't help but be influenced by the strong yet tender, fierce yet gentle, woman that sang "Climb Every Mountain" so beautifully by the open window. With that she just nodded and left. It clearly answered a question that was troubling her. I have no idea what that question was!

Onto safer topics. We are fine at the moment, although I have been struggling with the pain. My painkillers tend to wear off about 4.00am and I start waking up at regular intervals until the alarm goes off. I think the increase in pain is inevitable but it shakes confidence, to be honest. The trump card is the fact that I can have a major dose of localised radiotherapy that is predicted to have a significant impact in the short term. However, I can only ever have one (two at an absolute push) and so I want to delay this if I can. I have a blood test on 7th of December that will inform another consultation on 14th December. This will be a much more informed update than the last one and so inevitably we will be more anxious. I have to say that our faith remains intact, but it is much more difficult to be consistently hopeful when you are just going further and further down the inevitable road and we do find ourselves struggling with a sense of the inevitable. We have also realised through conversation that our daughter Naomi, in particular, has little sense of what might be looming. She thinks that this is an illness like other illnesses she has come across ... it is taking longer than expected, but people eventually get better. However we don't feel it right to load her up with our fears and therefore while day to day life continues fairly normally (give or take a day or two when daddy dresses as a nun) then we will just keep going.

Lastly, highlight of the month ... dear friends Rachel, Anne and brother Simon coming down from Glasgow to cook us a meal in our house last Saturday. The food was of a disturbingly high standard. You should hire them ... honestly.

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When It's Spring Again, We'll Bring Again ...

Mary and I are just back from a child-free weekend in Amsterdam. What joy! My brother Phil, his wife Rosemary and their family came over to look after our cherubs and off we flew on Friday evening. It was our first visit to the city and we weren't disappointed. As the photos show, the people of Amsterdam very much took us to their hearts, even if they were a tad reserved.
(It is amazing what you are prepared to do when far away from home and responsibility. Mary had to be talked out of jumping up to sit in the arms of one of these fine men, and those of you who know her will realise that she was very serious!)

Now ... the lastest trip to the consultant. There have been no further scans, so in a sense they were just seeing how I was. That said, so as not to disappoint they managed a disturbingly thorough examination and said that there didn't seem to be obvious developments. I always find some of the questions alarming, such as "Have you started having difficulty breathing?" and "Are you managing to work?" It is an indicator of their expectations for me. However, I am still living day to day life in a normal fashion thanks to my pain killers and so at the moment it is still a case of 'just getting on'. Even life at school seems to be fairly smooth ... it is quite unnerving. Maybe I should try and introduce something wreckless and radical, such as a theory that there might be meaningful life outside the village, or I suppose I could try and persuade the community that 'National Bullying Week' isn't the opportunity to practise and thus become better at it!

I am starting regular blood tests so that the doctors can monitor my tumour markers. The first set of results and the next consultation is due on 14th December. This will guide them as to when to re-scan or start treatment. I was thinking today that on 7th February 2003 I officially had a 40% chance of being alive on the same date in 2008...

And so a poem, as it has been a while, on the theme of determination and persistence:



Knocking
One of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray.” … He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' I tell you… because of the man's persistence the neighbour will get up and give him as much as he needs.” (Luke chapter 11)

My memory guides me through the darkness
to my neighbour's door.
.
It is tight in its frame,
trapping warm breath from mouths
dry with wine and words,
now slack with slumber.
.
A guest waits in my home,
distance burning in his joints, hunger eating his belly.
.
I beat a pulse into the dead wood,
strain against bolts,
shake rust from hinges,
force words through cracks and gaps.
.
This door will stain my fist black and blue
until the skin swells up and cracks,
as if warm and full of yeast.
.
Bread is what I need ...
even dried out, crumbling,
cut up and thrown for sparrows.