In the last article about my medical woes we had reached the end of 2025. I will take us up to date as at time of writing in this article - some slightly gruesome photos to come but nothing like as bad as some that I have previously shown. All shots of my legs show the back of my shins.
13 February 2026. I'm still under the District Nurses care once a week at our local GP surgery. The skin on the back of my lower legs is starting to heal, but prone to peeling off and the right leg still has some scabbed areas.
6 March 2026. This is what keeps happening. The wounds close and then skin peels off leaving fresh wounds and very tender skin. This is much more painful than it looks. One session at the District Nurses left me clutching the raised bed and shaking with pain. Not nice. Not recommended.
14 March 2025. The other evening as I got undressed (steady girls...) for bed, I noticed a small blob of blood on my arm so I put a plaster on it. The morning after I pulled the plaster off, leaving this mark where the plaster had drawn all the blood to just under the surface. I can't win...
27 March 2026. Phone going bonkers yesterday. Call from Docs to say bloods had shown various infections and I am now on a 5-day course of strong antibiotics. I was encouraged to ring the hospital again as I have still not had results of last October's MRI. So I rang the hospital and got a recorded message saying there was a massive backlog of feedback and asking me not to ring again as the "service is close to collapse". It did say they would be in touch if anything was found to be amiss. 15 minutes later got a call from the hospital asking me to go for my next MRI on Monday next... Never mind anything else - my brain hurts!
31 March 2026. This week is turning into a medical marathon. MRI yesterday in Fleetwood, blood tests today also in Fleetwood, something (not sure what) about colon and bowel at Victoria Hospital Thursday and District Nurses at Blackpool Walk-in Centre on Good Friday (my usual nurse but she has to work at the Walk-in Centre instead of usual Bispham as the rules specify minimum capacity at the walk-in apparently.) It's 3 or 4 times as far and appt is 09:00am. Sheesh!
3 April 2026. The legs are showing improvement again. The wounds have almost all closed up just leaving this map of where they once were... The skin though is still very tender and delicate and can split at any hint of a bang against the front of a chair for instance.
21 April 2026. Last night I had an appointment with the gastroenterology department at Blackpool Victoria hospital. Whilst there I had a CT scan that involved a canula in the inside of my elbow. Had the scan no problems, had the canula out, lots of padding on the puncture point and tape to hold it in place. Put my coat on and 30 seconds later felt my arm and hand wet. Blood running all down my arm and inside my sleeve... Going to be a massive bruise in the morning.
Well it could have been worse - the pointy hand is pointing to the puncture mark left by the canular. So all the rest was caused by plasters holding the dressings in place either whilst the canula was in or afterwards.
2 June 2026. About 4 weeks ago I was discharged from the District Nurses, so every week since then we've been taking dressings off ourselves and washing them. This week I've ditched the wraps to see how I get on with just the stockings. (This didn't carry on for long!) Left and right legs as just uncovered...
An hour later after washing and getting rid of all the dried skin that would either fall off or come off with a gentle nudge - no pulling at any bits that were still stuck!
18 June 2026. Both legs showing definite improvement with the leg only having a single hole or blood spot. The cancer though, I am told, has spread to the stomach wall. They are not sure as yet whether it's on the inside or outside... I'm currently waiting an appointment for another MRI scan. I'm losing count, but I think that will be the 33rd... To be continued after a while.
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