Learning to Walk Again, June 2025

Sunday, 29 June 2025. Weekend so the physios weren't taking me off doing any exercises to help me get walking again. However instead of the sack truck I was given a Zimmer frame and used that to get into my chair and onto loo or bed as required. I also used it to walk from my bed all the way to the loo and back, an achievement of which I was ridiculously proud...

Yesterday's garden party went well. We could have been back in the 1920s for a while seated on a bit of lawn - a test for my bedside chair's small wheels - under a large table umbrella with cups of tea and scones with butter and jam. Sadly no clotted cream!

Then a singer trotted out to backing tracks - lots of 60s songs that we used to play. The weather held off and it was all very pleasant. Some visitor brought a couple of friendly dogs in. They were up for being petted as much as we were up for giving them attention. It does your mental health a pile of good.

Then last night the new bloke on our ward woke us all up at midnight watching Beavis and Butthead at full volume on his phone... I mean... do some people have no brains at all or is it just that they couldn't care less about anything other than me, me, me... This of course set off the chap with the runaway mouth who never stops talking, even to listen to nurses trying to help him. It's much worse when he's complaining that he hasn't had a laxative even though he's been to the loo, when they are dealing with something far more important with another patient.

My legs are now being redressed daily but in turn so that each leg gets done once every two days. Pleased to report the large wound just behind my toes has shrunk or closed up considerably.

Monday 30 June 2025 and the start of week 8 in hospital. Light at the end of the tunnel though as I continue to improve both in terms of the ulcers and wounds are healing and in terms of my use of the walking frame - Zimmer - and the distance I can get with it.

Days here are long and repetitive and it makes you tired and dozy. I find myself Jenkins upright from the very edge of sleep - Jenkins? Jerking! - many times. It was also very hot. No physios in on Sunday but they are back this morning and have moved that tunnel opening a bit closer. More tomorrow, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself!

Tuesday 1 July 2025. I have moved again. I now have a room to myself, no one else wittering or watching noisy videos in the middle of the night.

Apparently the previous occupant stayed in his room all the time with no company and no interaction with other people. As for me, I spend most if not all of my waking hours in the Day Room so will still see my little group of friends and be able to help my friend with Parkinsons.

My legs continue to show improvement. There looked to be a huge blister on my heel yesterday but when the nurse looked it was a lump of dry skin that fell off, leaving healthy pink skin underneath. Probably the remains of a blister...

One of the physios came to talk to me over breakfast to ask what I thought I needed before going home. I still need to build up strength in my legs and have a go at coping with stairs. We would have a job to fit a bed downstairs I think.

So more light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder though, with so much difference between the style of treatment here in hospital to how the District Nurses work - would the improvement of the past few weeks continue or not? Time and eventual discharge home will tell.

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index
Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer and Emotions 2022 and Onwards

Following on from yesterday's article about me finding out that I had cancer on my liver, I wanted to say a few words about the emotions this might cause anyone with a similar diagnosis in the hope it may help or support others through a very difficult time.

First of all a slight disclaimer re the photo - I posed for it this morning. Not that I didn't have any emotional times... despite what some will tell you I am human and despite what I might tell you, I am only human! It's just that at the times when I had an emotional interlude, I wasn't quite able to think: "this would make a good shot for the blog..."

I don't tend to look on the darker side of life and after the first possibility of cancer was mentioned we took the stance that until it was confirmed then it wasn't worth worrying about. Not that it didn't cross my mind a bit and this is an important point to make. No one can tell you how to react to such news. If you need to let tears out, let them out. It's far better for you than trying to be macho. Better again if you have a sympathetic someone there with you. Either just willing to listen or to share the emotions. I'm told that the MacMillan organisation are good at that but personally I've not had the need to call them. Other people have been good at listening and most times that's all I've needed. Advice, encouragement and support I can find helpful, sympathy I've not looked for and it can actually make things worse sometimes.

You will find that all sorts of emotions and thoughts might affect you. The "Why me?" thoughts can either make you feel let down by life or make you very, very angry. It's not logical to be surprised perhaps when we are told that one in two people will get cancer and this ratio seems to keep growing. I'm not sure why, but if you try to connect to your wi-fi on your phone or computer you will see an entire street's worth of routers listed all of which are blasting some sort of radio waves through you as do Sky, Netflix, Apple and other entertainment channels whether you subscribe or not, your own and nearby mobile phones, God knows how many SatNav and other surveillance satellites etc etc. In the 1990s we wondered whether mobile phones would damage our health in any way - perhaps we are getting the answers now...? In any case logic has very little to do with you getting angry or not. I hardly ever lose my temper yet I had spells in those early days after my diagnosis of finding myself having to bottle my anger lest some poor innocent should find themselves being shouted at.

I half touched on another thing in the previous article that can make you intensely angry. That is thoughtless comments or actions by others who either think they are helping or who simply have all the empathy of a well-cemented brick... A few examples are:

No, don't get up... I'll do it...
No... you haven't got cancer, [then either] you've got all your colour in your face [or] you don't look ill.

For me the unbelievable doozy came when I mentioned to someone, within a week of being told I had inoperable and incurable cancer, that I didn't know how long I had left to live (the fact that I was low enough to broach that subject should have been a clue to be kind). No, instead I got the response (delivered in an annoyed tone): "Well no-one knows how long they've got - I could fall under a bus tomorrow!" Oh man - you've no idea how good it would have felt to smack your nose right through to the back of your head just then... Luckily I'm not that sort of guy - just don't give that response to anyone else!

If there's one main message to give in this article it is this. Emotions are very personal. And you are allowed to have them. If you need to shout your anger out then do it. Try not to make the life of someone close to you a misery though. It's not their fault. And there's a message there for partners, family and friends. A person trying desperately to hold onto their sanity after a diagnosis may act in extreme ways. Be there for them when they are able to be helped. Give them space when they are flinging blame or anger about. As I've said already: there's no logic involved in such emotions. And lastly Good Luck in holding it together.

In the next article I'll explain what to expect when having a scan - whether it be an Ultrasound, CT or MRI scan.

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index
Family Memories: Personal Index