September 2011
1 post
I’ve been playing around with one of my...
May 2011
1 post
Up date from last time - the scan was clear -...
April 2011
1 post
Time to start again
It has been a while since I posted anything, but I was recalled for a CT Scan this past week, so thought I would start again.
A slight abnormality was seen on the scan I had back in January and they wanted to check it out. A ‘nodule’ in one of my lungs. Probably nothing, I am told such things come and go in lungs), but if it is still there in the same place after three months it...
January 2011
1 post
A long time ago I wrote a song called ‘When...
December 2010
4 posts
28th December 2010
Christmas Day was good! Church was special, lunch was delicious and the beer tasted great. In fact, the whole weekend was great!
Since then I notice that taste has returned to the point where, at meal times, I forget how hard it was just a month ago. Other things will return to normal in their own good time.
So it is time, I think, to wind up regular entries to this blog. If anything interesting...
22nd December
I don’t think I suffer from ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’, but over the years I have grown to dislike the last couple of weeks of November and the first three weeks of December. It just gets darker and gloomier (and this year a lot colder). During those weeks I sometimes find myself counting the days to the winter solstice. Wikipedia says this year the exact moment of the solstice was 11.38pm on...
15th December
Three weeks since the last treatment and things are looking good for Christmas.
I ate my first Sunday roast for five months last Sunday, and it was good - not quite tasting the way I know it should, but 90% normal, as are other things now. Last Friday I could actually get the taste of Tomato Ketchup for the first time in months.
A bottle of ale tastes 98% the way it should, and a friend gave me a...
7th December 2010
The last two weeks have followed the usual trajectory. The weekend of 27th and 28th November was bad - a real struggle. Helen and I had done it all eleven times before, but that somehow made it harder.
I ticked off the days through last week keeping as busy as I could. I actually felt less ill than I had after the previous two treatments, and the side effects began gradually to subside. We’ve had...
November 2010
5 posts
23rd November 2010
An email turned up the other day from someone I hadn’t heard from for years, and it was an encouragement to me: … I stumbled across your blog a few months ago and have been following the progress you have been making with your illness. I just wanted to send you my best wishes for the future. I also wanted to let you know that you were a positive influence on me when I was a teenager and you...
17th November 2010
The last week has been tough - a mixture of growing exhaustion and other side effects. There are days when I can hardly walk in a straight line - I feel this and think: ‘I’ve been a runner/jogger for over thirty years, and now I can hardly walk.’
Today the more disruptive symptoms are beginning to lift.
So I’m sitting here knowing that in seven days I begin the final treatment - Hallelujah!
The...
9th November 2010
A remarkable thing from yesterday:
By last Sunday evening I was still feeling pretty wretched, wondering how anyone is supposed to get over a gastric bug with no immune system, and thinking I might finally have to give up and go on the sick for the last four weeks. Mercifully, I was offered a lift to Oncology yesterday - I had to go as full blood results are needed before the next treatment...
8th November 2010
The ups and downs of this roller coaster go on.
After nearly five months, and with only three weeks to go to the end of the chemotherapy, I got a stomach bug. With no immune system to speak of it took its toll - days in bed (unheard of for me), and the abrupt loss of ten pounds in weight! Mercifully, I am through that now.
One minor (but not unexpected) disaster has been that food has tasted...
4th November 2010
Last weekend was grim, but I’ve been coming out of the effects of treatment ten in the usual way this week.
It is all getting a little too predictable. Only two more treatments to go, but I know exactly what I’m in for now and it is not pleasant.
I had the usual monthly meeting at Oncology two days ago. The Consultant was happy with progress. I was a little disconcerted that he thought it could...
October 2010
6 posts
29th October 2010
Day three of treatment ten, and so far it is going quite well. No light headedness, no wobbly legs, and no need (yet) for the usual anti-sickness drugs.
On the other hand, last Monday my hemoglobin reading was only 9.6, the lowest so far (normal range 13 - 17). The nurse who started my treatment on Wenesday had to check with Oncology before going ahead with it, and she told me to discuss the...
24th October 2010
We were able to have a couple of nights away at the end of last week - the last chance this year. It was a good time and helped us both. We were just outside South Cerney in the middle of the Cotswold Water Parks.
We walked on Friday - it is the one bit of exercise I can still do. We probably walked six to seven miles through some of the lakes and then along the tow path of the Severn - Thames...
17th October 2010
I slept eight hours last night - wonderful - the most I have slept in one night for weeks! But strangely, I have far less energy this morning than I had yesterday.
Helen has gone off to the 9.30am Parish Communion. I shall go round to church a bit later to play guitar at No Limits! (11.00am).
So far, this treatment has not been as bad as recent ones, and reminds me more of the first one or two I...
11th October 2010
Treatment nine is just two days away.
The big problem I have each time now is what goes wrong in my mouth. My tongue goes through varying degrees of numbness that take most of the two weeks to subside. My tongue also feels as though it has been smeared with cement dust - horrible. That is, I think, partly caused by the Oral Thrush I have to contend with every time now, and partly the direct effect...
5th October 2010
When I left school (long ago!) I became an apprentice at Filton working for the British Aircraft Corporation, as it was then called. I, and hundreds of other apprentices, followed a programme of training. We worked with countless different craftsmen (very few women in those days) doing a whole variety of different things all related in one way or another to building aircraft.
I spent time crawling...
September 2010
7 posts
30th September 2010
It’s the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit tomorrow and Saturday. I had been looking forward to it since the Spring, but this is the wrong weekend for me, so I am unable to attend. I have to have the chemotherapy pump disconnected tomorrow at 1.00pm and all day Saturday will be too much for me straight after a fresh treatment cycle. Church leaders need moments of inspiration, and the ‘GLS’ is...
27th September 2010
We had five nights away last week. We stayed at a friend’s place right in the middle of Exmoor. Nick and I got to be friends at primary school. Then we were in the same ‘gang’ together as boys, and went to the same secondary school. Quite independently, we both ended up committed Christians, and hung out for a while in the 1970s. Then after many years we got back in touch when Nick let...
19th September 2010
Well, treatment seven was easier. I’ve got the usual foul stuff going on in my mouth, but the rest - energy levels, breathlessness, tinnitus etc. are better and I feel good for today. Yesterday Helen and I did a walk along the Bristol / Bath Cycle way for a couple of hours. That was a measure of how much better I am than last time.
Two weeks ago, as I was coming out of treatment six, the Sunday...
14th September 2010
It all starts again tomorrow. I’m apprehensive that it will be bad again, but am working at trusting my consultant, who said “It will be easier - you will notice the difference.” I hope I do.
I know I’ve done my very best to get through the last six treatments as I have. I don’t think I could have taken bigger hits, and I know that means they were doing their job. She did say that we can probably...
10th September 2010
This week, for the first time I can remember, I was too unwell to do a funeral. My colleague Jenny stepped in and offered to take it over and do everything in my place. On Wednesday I was still too unwell to preside at our mid-week Communion - I rang Sandy that morning and he stepped in straight away. I am very fortunate to have some great colleagues..
Liz and the others have being running things...
7th September 2010
Treatment number six came, and has now begun to go. Every time is subtly different, but I am noticing that, while the three days of treatment are pretty consistent each time, the aftermath and side-effects are not. I’ve had four really tough days this time, and could say that for the first time I’m a little scared of what is still to come. But at least I know I am half way and I’m coming out of...
1st September 2010
I am waiting for the nurse to arrive for treatment number six.
I’m wondering if this one will be as hard as the last. I have no way of knowing what to expect. Nearly half way, but still a long way to go.
Some of the side effects are very unpleasant and scare me a little in anticipation.
I’m sitting here with the door open behind me and the sun is shining, but it is now September, so there is a...
August 2010
7 posts
29th August 2010
I have indulged in a little nostalgia today. It occurred to me that forty years ago today - at this moment to be precise - I was sitting in the middle of around half a million hippies at the last Isle of Wight Rock Festival. In fact six hundred thousand people more than usual went to the Isle of Wight that weekend.
Those of us who were into such things know there were three rock festivals there:...
23rd August 2010
This has been a tough ‘treatment’. I was completely exhausted through the second part of Saturday and then Sunday. I got to church yesterday for 9.30am Parish Communion and sat with Helen (makes a change!). Then I did my best to video the 11.00am No Limits! climax to the church Holiday Club. (I’ll put some highlights on You Tube, if they are good enough). By the end I was flagging and needed to...
20th August 2010
Just coming out of treatment number five. One more and I am half way. Then I shall be able to count down to the finish. A few weeks ago it felt like a really long haul, but less so now.
This time the treatment started with a big ‘hit’ physically, for some reason - on the first day of it (Wednesday) I had bad side effects, felt really unwell, and was very tired by the evening, so an...
14th August 2010
I have learned that waiting in faith is a discipline. It is not ‘hanging around wondering if anything will happen’, but a positive state of expectation. The Psalmists and prophets waited on God in a positive and hopeful way. I have learned to try and do the same.
So I waited at Alton Abbey. And something completely unlooked for happened at the Wednesday Eucharist.
I know one of the...
10th August 2010
This last treatment was mostly easier. There was still a very unpleasant effect on the back of my mouth, throat and nasal passages - very sensitive to cold, a foul taste in my mouth and one or two other little variations. But all that is pretty well passed now and I still have a week left before treatment number five!
I am at Alton Abbey - a Benedictine Monastery in Hampshire - for just a few...
5th August 2010
I feel as though I am coming to the end of all the introspection about cancer and the future.
I remember watching a TV series years ago called ‘A Gentle Way With Cancer’. It featured the Bristol Cancer Help Centre. It was interesting to me that one of the founders of the Centre was Penny Braun.
I had met Penny around 1971/2 when she was on the staff at the old Bristol Polytechnic in the Ashley...
3rd August 2010
I’ve had a few good days, so I’m feeling ready to get the next treatment started tomorrow.
Last Sunday I preached for the first time since April, and it was good to be back doing that bit of what I do. Interestingly, the Gospel reading was Jesus’ parable of the wealthy man who has bumper crops and decides to make more storage so he can keep it all to himself, put his feet up,...
July 2010
7 posts
29th July 2010
I’ve been thinking a bit more about ‘suck it up, get out there and make the next play’. I think everyone has to deal with that. Years ago Scott Peck began his hugely popular book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ with the words: ‘Life is difficult’. Later in the book he told the story of a client of his who struggled to get on with her life effectively. One day...
27th July 2010
Last time I was just tipping into the effects of the chemo, now I’m glad to be emerging! It was a little easier than the previous times. Sunday was a tough day, but there were things I had on my heart to share with people at our 6.30pm HEART evening, and I managed to do that. In fact, it was a great evening and I was feeling better at the end of it than I had been at the beginning!
Now I...
21st July 2010
Helen and I took our children to Alton Towers years ago and had a great day there. I still remember the spine tingling moment on each big ride when you’re been carried up to the top of the first big drop - and you hang there for a moment before starting down the other side. It is a moment beyond control, whatever is going to happen is now out of your hands.
I’m sitting here at home...
15th July 2010
Seven days on from the last treatment and I am mostly back to normal. That still gives me a week to enjoy myself!
Last Monday I went to the Oncology Centre (Bristol) to give blood samples - they can take it straight from the ‘picc’ line rather than sticking more needles in me. From my point of view that is a better option. On Tuesday I was back down there for a...
11th July 2010
Well, we had a good time this morning. The ‘world premier’ all live performance of the Rock Communion “Margins of Eternity” was great. I set out to write and record all three Rock Communions to be celebrated using backing tracks, with live lead guitar (me, I hoped!) and live vocals. That way it was always going to be easier to guarantee the sound quality and the clarity of...
4th July 2010
Today has been a good day, and we had a great ‘No Limits!’ service this morning. Well done to everyone involved. We’ve recruited an extra guitarist into the ‘No Limits Band’ and that gives me a little more freedom to do bits of lead guitar where they fit. We are on the way to being a good solid rock band that leads worship in church, and I love it!
A bunch of our...
June 2010
5 posts
27th June 2010
Being a vicar is a fascinating life. Over the years, whenever people have asked me what exactly I do, I’ve never been quite sure how to answer them. (Children love to ask this question when they have school visits to church, and it stumps me every time!) What I know is that I feel a deep sense of call to live this life, and I also know that the Church of England has always been happy to...
23rd June 2010
Things are now moving forward again.
We had our first appointment at the Oncology Centre behind the Royal Infirmary yesterday. It felt very different walking through the doors as a patient. I was there to have a ‘picc line’ fitted in my right (upper) arm. It was fascinating - an ultrasound scan guided insertion into a vein and a good length of plastic pipe up the vein to within a few...
13th June 2010
One of the struggles I have with bad news is in the sharing of it. Saying it over and over doesn’t get any easier. So this blog is great, as friends read this (and some are a very long way away) and get the gist of where we are on this journey with cancer. I’ve had phone calls from USA and New Zealand just in the last 24 hours!
So where am I this morning? I’m seeing very clearly...
9th June 2010
Well, today was the day we went to meet the oncologist and hear about the chemotherapy. We went along expecting to find out more about all that, but had no thought of any big surprises. I had a list of questions to ask, the last of which was to re-assure myself about where all this was heading.
The question was: ‘Now that you have seen the pathology report on what was removed (by the surgery),...
2nd June
Helen, bless her, is maintaining our routine of an early morning jog four days a week. I’m being good and continuing to rest and recover.
I am no athlete, but I have tried to run regularly for years - at least twice a week since the 1970s. I was doing well again once the anaemia was put right. In fact before the surgery I had got back to nine minute mile times on the treadmills at our local gym....
May 2010
10 posts
30th May 2010
We were able to have a few days in Dorset last week - hence the time lag since my last blog entry. We were helped and encouraged to go by a friend at church - a special thank you to her (she knows who she is!). It was a good chance for us to get away and also do a bit of walking in the sunshine on the south coast path. I got the chance to check out how I coped with strenuous exercise with all the...
23rd May 2010 - Pentecost
It is Pentecost, I got to church this morning and it was very good to be there.
Once again I was not doing any of the things I would usually expect to be doing on a Sunday morning, let alone a major festival. (For me, Pentecost is the third great festival of the Christian year - celebrating the gift of God’s Spirit) It was, in fact, enough just to be there.
I went to ‘No...
20th May 2010
I once heard Bill Hybels (founder and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, Chicago, USA) say that church leaders need to be ‘endlessly optimistic!’. That is true, and not only church leaders.
We had the founder of the Bristol City Centre Soup Run at our church a few weeks ago being interviewed about his faith and Christian service. He leads a remarkable organisation that...
18th May 2010
I have learned a new word: histology, or the microscopic study of tissue. Today I got verbal feedback on the pathology of the tumour and the eight/ten inches or so of my large intestine that was removed two weeks ago. There was good news and not so good news.
The good news was that everything was removed that needed to be removed, and tests on the blood vessels confirmed it had not spread to...
16th May 2010
It is Sunday, Helen has gone to church and I am at home. It’s an odd feeling.
A lot of people here say that the church community at St. Stephen’s is like an extended family. We feel as if we ‘belong’ to (and with) each other. That, of course, takes nothing away from the deep emotional bonds we each have with our own natural families, but it does mean we feel even more...