"No time for love, Dr. Jones."

First let me just say this will be a practical blog entry, updating you with the latest on my 'none-tumor,' and not the whimsical wallowing of a meandering mind you've all become accustom to over recent weeks.

Alliteration aside I went to see my oncologist yesterday. Or rather my new oncologist. The one I was seeing left and passed my case onto the top dog of all things cancer related at Coventry Hospital. He was over an hour late for the appointment and when he did see me he clearly hadn't read my notes. I'm surprised he knew my name. It meant having to go through the whole story of the second fit, and blood tests, and more steroids and blah, blah, blah. All over again.

He shined a torch in my eyes, got me to wave my arms around a bit and do the Times crossword. The usual stuff to check for brain tumors. I'm now, according to the blood test, on enough drugs to stop me having another fit. Which means I can come off the steroids. Again. Of course I have to be weened off them, dropping 1mg every three days. I should be off them by the end of the first week in September. If all goes according to plan.

That's about all I can report from that meeting. I'll be seeing him again in three months time. With an MIR scan in six months. The whole appointment lasted no more than ten minutes.

And then, today, I met my with my surgeon to discuss my latest MIR scan. Which I'm not having until next week. Yes, another administrative folly has led to me having a doctors appointment before the actual scan that the doctors appointment was set up for. Still, he said I looked well. And he did some more lights in the eyes and waving my arms around business. I think to just to make me feel like the whole trip was worth while. So I'll be have my scan next week as planned and he'll call me if there's any problems. And that should be the last I'll hear from him.

So that's us up date pretty much. I'll let you know how the scan goes next week. My first week back at work full time as well. So back to the whimsical wallowing of the meandering mind.

J

Because I'm Worth It

It appears my hair is growing back.

Now don't get too excited. It may be some time before my luscious locks return to their Samson like powers, but there is hair there where there wasn't before. It's still patchy and I'm going to have to stop shaving it for a while just to see exactly where it's coming back. Some of it looks a little finer than before, if that's possible. So I may still need to keep shaving it. My plan is to grow it out for the next week and see what it looks like. I shall post some photos. No matter how ridiculous I look.

In other news I may actually have some other news by the end of the week. I've got two doctors appointments this week. One with my oncologist and one with my surgeon. I should get my blood results back, meaning they can put me on the correct dosage of the anti-fitting drug. And more importantly can start coming off the steroids. Again. Other than that I don't think there's a lot else they can tell me. My next MIR scan's due next week, so it's going to be the appointment after that which will be more telling. I'll let you know how I get on.

Until then.

J

Normality

Not a lot is happening. Work is going fine. Three days a week now. Still cleaning, cooking and ironing my way out of boredom for the other two days. Everything appears to be getting back to normality. And that's becoming a bit of a problem.

Now this is going to sound stunningly perverse, but I'm starting to miss the drama of the last seven months. If you'd have asked me back in February if I'd have liked a brain tumor I would of course said 'no,' but in a weird way, and now I'm not in any immediate danger, I do miss being miss being centre of attention. As I write this I realise how ridiculous it sounds, but imagine every time you spoke to someone the first subject of conversation is about you. It's a massive ego boost.

I'm convinced we're all secret ego-maniacs. Selfish and self centred. It's just some of us are better at hiding it than others. Just look at Facebook and Twitter. How arrogant is it to assume that we need to know what you're doing at any one time. (He says writing a blog.) Yet millions of us do it and millions read them. Be honest. When was the last time you posted something witty or interesting and you sat waiting for a response. And when you don't get a response after ten minutes you're disappointed. Or is it just me? Rest assured I'll be waiting for a response to this blog, so if you could at acknowledge it's existence that would be great. Begging for recognition. Pathetic.

Obviously I don't want to have the cancer back. I fear it wouldn't have the same impact the second time around, and it could kill me, which would defeat the object. So I need something else. There's my job, which is something of an ego boost. Speaking to literally tens of people every hour, telling them what's going on in the 'Oak FM area.' But that's the problem. I'm not talking about me. So what then?

I've already said I'm not, faced with the very clear signpost of my own mortality, going to do parachute jump, or climb a big mountain, or run a marathon. That would require some kind of effort and/or bravery. But I don't want to slip back into normality either. So I guess I need something that requires very little effort and no nerve. But makes me important, the centre of attention and gives me buckets of standing-out-from-the-crowdness.

Any ideas?

J