Back To School

Well, that flew by. I know you all think teachers' holidays are far too long but it's all a matter of perspective. The week in Keswick whizzed by. We still had two days of school left on the Monday and Tuesday, and then on the Wednesday I went with the girls to see Kylie (purely as a means of transport, you understand.) Then, by the time we had spent Thursday trying to glue the outside metal light Joel broke in the Keswick apartment we were renting, it was back to a few weeks of torrential rain in York. Cornwall was good, if damp. We met up with some really good friends and managed a few days on the beach. Peranporth beach is very crowded, but Joel's game of "100 Loud and Noisy Ways of Falling Into A Hole In The Sand" is always good for clearing space. So the Greenbelt Festival followed Cornwall, and after that Dublin, London and ... back to school. You see, shorter than you think.

I have started the next three months of chemo. It has once again been an easier than expected ride. I have managed to work full time this week and so should hopefully be at work more or less throughout the period. I can already sense concerned furrows of the brow, but I promise to take time off if I need to. Martha has started Year 9 and Naomi has just started secondary. (She is prepared to take time off for education between productions, but only just. The Railway Children received huge critical acclaim nationally , but I suppose it's possible this isn't SIMPLY down to her appearances. Joel is back at his own school, which is a great place for him, and he counts off the days at the weekend until he goes back. Lazy, selfish Mary is quite prepared to see us destitute ... I apologise. Mary has stopped working on Fridays which means that her working week is much more manageable and she now has some space (which she well deserves.) So that is more or less how we are at the moment ... getting on with things. The 'white knuckle' moment will come in December when I have an MRI and a CT scan to assess the impact of the treatment. At the moment we are unsure how things have been affected, BUT my tumour markers are slightly down (I heard last week) and my pain levels are still reduced overall. This certainly gives cause for hope, but I just have to keep heading in this direction. It's all very week to week.

I hope you have all had a good summer. I really enjoyed seeing many of you over Greenbelt. Thanks again for checking the blog.

More Chemo

I suppose any compliment has to be taken and treasured these days, and so to be told by the phlebotomist that I have lovely veins was a pleasant start to yesterday's chemo. I seem to be into a fairly standard response in terms of side effects, which is that I have a two-day slump when I come off the steroids and pins and needles in my hands, feet and face for the first week. That said, I have been given magnesium and calcium this time in an effort to combat that and thus far it has reduced the tingling. We are still very grateful for my tolerance of this regime and as a special treat the oncologist has decided to repeat the whole course back to back with the one I have just finished. I will therefore be on treatment until the start of December. Not ideal, but treatment number 3 has started to palliate the symptoms -some tumours have reduced in size (the ones I can feel through the skin) and thus I hope the internal ones have done likewise. I am also completely off painkillers and no longer hobbling, which has to be a good thing.

The school term ended well, thanks to the devotion of my hard working staff who have taken many burdens from me. Even sports day had an eerie calm ... no tears, tantrums, swearing, biting or scratching and their offspring were also very well behaved. So, summer is here and we are off to Cornwall mid August and then I go straight to the Greenbelt Festival. The Greenbelt publicity has described the subject of my workshops as showing how poetry can help us talk about illness, death and dying. Perhaps I should break out the Leonard Cohen albums, bring in the Samaritans and have Schindler's List screened on the back wall! (Actually, looking at one of the poems below, you can't really blame them. I hope I have corrected it in time for the official programme)If you are coming to the festival, it is actually about writing out of any emotional extreme - happy, sad or exciting. Don't be put off!

Enjoy the summer and thanks again for visiting the blog.



Flying In For Lunch


When I last took you onto a plane
you dropped heavy tears,
shrunk from the loud engines
into my arms.
But you have no memory of that,
and this is a first for you.
Taxiing, accelerating, taking off,
rising to where there are no clouds or rain …
I watch it all soak in
like light onto film.

So … we’re flying to Dublin for lunch, I say.
There and back in a day. You laugh, thinking it’s a bit daft.
And you’re right.
So daft, it will become the story you tell
anytime your children ask
if you have ever been
on a plane.

for Martha




Chemo Room


The final step proved too high.
Seven minutes you stood beneath
a fifteen centimetre cliff,
at the edge of the ward,
eyeing the gleam of its floor
as a child might the surface of a deep pool.
We look a similar age.
You might have been someone I knew
beneath the cotton wrap,
behind the hand wiping
fast tears from lashless eyes.
But I tried not to stare,
busying myself in the ritual
we all know -
trickling warm water down skin,
coaxing veins to the surface.

Update ...

On Wednesday I am going in for the third infusion and after that there will only be one more to go, on 30th July. Thus far I have been mercifully spared the many side effects I was promised. The pattern seems to be that I am a bit jaded for a few days after the treatment and I have a very slow day when I come off the steroids but thereafter – fine! I am trying to be sensible, but at times still overdo it a bit and get pretty tired. However, there is no broken skin, or mouth ulcers, or nausea, or vomiting, or exhaustion, or breathing difficulties, or laryngeal spasms … and of course only I could go the extent of shaving my head and then not lose a single hair. What I do have is pins and needles in my hands and face and this is brought on by any slight temperature change … but I am absolutely fine about that. It’s the least of my worries. Thank you for the many prayers that I know have been said.

So, on into summer! During late July and most of August Naomi is involved in the Theatre Royal production of The Railway Children, which is being staged in the National Railway Museum with a real steam locomotive! She is one of Perks’ children and, as you might imagine, is pretty excited about it … you know, just casually hanging about with cast members of The Bill and Life on Mars. As a family we will be spending time in the Lakes and Cornwall, so it is going to be a busy time, but great fun I am sure. I hope your summers are good and that we are all blessed with sunny weather. If you are going to be at the Greenbelt Festival, let me know so that we can meet up. If not, why not? You are missing out on a really good weekend!

The First Of Four

Just a quick update. Thank you for the many texts and messages that I received as I went for the first of my four infusions on Wednesday. There were a lot of old associations and memories flying about on that day from my past chemo (not happy ones I'm afraid)and so sensing that I had a community of supporters out there really made a difference. I was plastered in EMLA cream, which has a numbing effect on the skin, in the hope that having a needle pushed up my vein might be more comfortable. In the end, however, they wouldn't allow it because I wouldn't have known if the needle had gone astray. Oh well, nice try. I will just have to be grown up about it!

I feel okay on day number two, with the help of the steroids and anti-nausea medication. I will struggle more as the treatment progresses, but for the moment all is well and I feel happy to have started it.
I will keep you informed. Thanks again for dialling into the blog and for the ongoing, invaluable support.

Joel

Smoke On The Water

You are wrapped in a fog
that your cold days can’t disperse.
Words huddle together
and burrow through,
arriving soggy,
sliding across your shell
like my hand through your hair -
unnoticed, leaving a trail
that the breeze will erase
as it shakes the night’s weave
of knots and tugs.

But today we hold hands and dance,
jumping as Ritchie’s guitar riff
shakes the windows,
laughter spilling from your open throat.
While the band search for Lake Geneva through smoke,
we crouch beneath the billows,
playing in shallows
as cool and clear
as rain.


For Joel

Here We Go, Here We Go, Here We Go

Well, what a great night I’ve just had! I went to Manchester for the first gig of The Willard Grant Conspiracy’s tour. A great event. Afterwards, my arrival at the railway station coincided with that of about 3000 Rangers fans. On platform 3 I joined a group of about four hundred, all of whom were waiting for the 22.42 to York. Sadly, as it arrived, they got there first and sardined themselves into every carriage. Do you know, I’m not sure that all of them had a ticket! However, despite the fact that I had my seat reservation in my pocket, I thought it best not to issue a challenge …
This happened again at 23.19! Thankfully at 23.52 I managed to get to a carriage early, due to a sudden change of platform; I even got a seat. Once the next batch of football fans had pressed themselves into every available centimetre of the train, we eventually left. In a carriage awash with hot breath, eau de armpit and cider, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the next ninety minutes. However, some lovely community singing broke out almost immediately. There were several songs although lyrically, the themes were quite limited … someone called ‘Pope’ (must be the poet …) was being given some quite frank advice and there were also some kind offers of food to a man called Bobby Sands. Now, for some people, endless hoarse, raucous bellowing and ranting would be a nightmare. Luckily for me, our regular church pew on a Sunday is quite near the choir and so I quickly found that merely closing my eyes made me feel closer to home.

On a serious note, I met with the consultant earlier in the week and I am starting the ‘big guns’ chemo on Wednesday 28th May. It is going to be tough, I fear, but Mary and I are going to try very hard to keep a veneer of normality for the sake of the children. Prayers to this effect, and for me to ‘get away lightly’ with side effects, would be greatly appreciated. The side effects are many and not pleasant, although I will be pointing out to my brothers this weekend that, although I am the first of us to undergo reasonably extensive hair thinning, there still isn’t a grey hair in my head! They are beginning to look as if they are attending an Alistair Darling Convention.

Thanks for visiting the blog and for your support and encouragement. I will, of course, update again when the chemo starts.

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Mixed News

Well, it's mixed news once again. On the positive side, tumours in my lungs appear slightly smaller. On the negative side, the main tumour in my pelvis is larger. The consultant has decided that my current regime has run its course and will be of no further benefit. So, I will be going onto the next 'combination' regime, which is much stronger, as and when there is any further growth in the pelvis. I am back in five weeks to have this checked out. If the pelvic tumour stays as it is, then I will stay off the chemo for now. However, as soon as it changes ... on I go. It is probably worth me upping my gym attendance to try and get as fit as possible in the hope that I might tolerate the new regime more than the doctor anticipates. He thinks it might help.

Mary and I are absorbing this latest news and in the meantime are getting on with things as normal. Little choice really. I have had a radically short haircut so that my children ( at home and at school)get used to me having next to no hair well in advance of the treatment. I think it's safe to say that my daughters hate it! (I'm willing to guess you don't like it either, mum ...) So I guess the next step is to leave photos of Right Said Fred about the house. (Martha stopped me on the stairs the other day as I jogged heartily down wearing shorts and sports vest, on my way to the gym. She eyed me for a moment and said, "I need to tell you dad ... that isn't a good look." Oooooh, she's such a tease!)

Thanks for visiting the blog. Stay in touch.