Well-known blond, Irish warbler Ronan Keating famously sang in his big pop tune of May 2000 that life is indeed a roller coaster, and you do just have to ride it. In many ways, I feel that this is also an apt description for handling my own personal journey with cancer and the associated challenges that have accompanied me on my six-year and one-month journey since my initial diagnosis in September 2018. It seems like a long time ago now, and it’s easy to forget just what you go through. Indeed, I find it helpful sometimes to remind myself of all the amazing, weird, painful, scary, and occasionally wonderful experiences that I have endured and survived. By reading blogs, old and new, and watching the videos and podcasts that my dear friend Yvi, my co-conspirator for the Bag for Life blog site, has been kind enough to create with me.
This week I went back to chemo after a seven-week break, which Doctor Peter allowed me to have so that my immune system would be stronger, enabling me to recover quicker after my hip replacement operation. This should have taken place on Friday, 11th October, at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham. Sadly, the operation was cancelled after my ingrowing toenail made a guest appearance when I took my slippers off on the operating table, just as I was about to have the anaesthetic injected. I was lying there dressed in my gown, with these funny paper pants you have to wear. I was, as they say, “oven-ready”, and then suddenly I was not. My surgeon, a really nice guy, told me straight that there was no way the operation could go ahead because of an open wound and my already greatly reduced immune system due to cancer. This would leave me with an especially high risk of infection.
Now, when we say the word infection here, we are not talking about a high temperature and feeling a bit groggy. Oh no, we go straight into the Champions League of infections because we are talking amputation and death, and as my surgeon said – and his words I will not forget – “Austin, I will not have your death on my conscience.” Now, call me old-fashioned, but when I hear words like amputation, death, and conscience, then it’s time to cancel the operation, hand back my gown and paper pants, and grab the nearest Uber to get the hell out of Dodge. There was, of course, a sense of mutual frustration for all of us. I had been waiting nearly 40 weeks for the operation, the pain had become increasingly more debilitating, and some days I could hardly walk. Stairs were like Mount Everest to climb, both up and down. The problem is that the soft tissue that lubricates your hips gets worn away over time, not helped in my case by over 50 years of stretching and staying flexible for Shotokan Karate training, along with over 113 doses of chemotherapy – and God only knows what that does to your hips and everything else.
So, we shook hands. He told me to go away, get the nail fixed, then ring his secretary, and he would put me at the front of the queue. I told him that at every meeting I’d had with the orthopaedic teams, I mentioned my ingrowing toenail and that I was receiving treatment for it at the Podiatry Clinic in Kidderminster. Not once did anyone ask to see the infected member, although I did offer to show them. Ironically, when I went for the pre-op consultation on Tuesday, I told the very nice and funny nurse, who said, “Oh yes, I had one of those.” Then her friend came into the office, overheard the conversation, and proudly announced that she, too, had been the owner of her own ingrowing toenail and how painful it was. Now, don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with swapping war wounds, but in hindsight, I should have just popped the bad boy out and been done with it.
One of the challenges you face when preparing for major surgery (and I’ve had two major life-saving cancer surgeries that literally saved my life, making a hip replacement look like a walk in the park – well, that is, if you can walk to the park in the first place) is coming to terms with something that you know will be painful and need careful recuperation to get yourself back to a pain-free life and full mobility, to enjoy a better and more normal quality of life. However, I must admit that, for a short time, I started stressing about the operation. What if I suffered a heart attack, especially as I have two major heart conditions, atrial fibrillation and heart flutter, and I have to take beta blockers daily and inject myself in the stomach to thin my blood? This stress manifested in a string of upsetting dreams where I found myself repeatedly dreaming that I went into the operation and suddenly woke up sweating, having seemingly died in the middle of it. Frankly, not very nice at all, but then the dreams just stopped. I think it’s a subconscious reaction, where the brain tries to manage the risk by acting out the worst-case scenario. But as I’ve said before in these blogs, it’s important to share both the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I had processed the disappointment and frustration within 24 hours. There’s absolutely no point feeling sorry for yourself or angry about what-ifs that you can’t change. No, there’s only one thing for it – regroup and ‘man up’, as they say. So, back to soaking the nail in hot salty water twice a day, then arrange a visit to the podiatry hospital to work out the quickest plan to get it fixed, and then go back and get the job done. And that, my dear chums, is exactly what I will do. So, huge thanks for all your kind wishes, my dear reader chums – they mean a lot to me. And remember, no matter how close you get to making your dreams come true (in my case, getting to wear paper pants), if for whatever reason it doesn’t happen at the last minute, all you have to do is remember: do not give up, do not give in. Fight on, because the gift of life is too precious to give up without your best fight.
Comments