One week later - update

I've been home a week today now. Within a few days the swelling in my legs and ankles had gone down and I was beginning to feel normal again. I've had loads of rest, sleeping in chunks of at least 4 hours at a time, waking for some meds, then sleeping again.
The district nurse comes out everyday to check up on my scar, and dress the wound. That is clearing up nicely now as well, with the worse pain being everytime the dressing gets ripped off and takes a little bit more of my back hair with it! Ouch!

I've only been out for one walk last week, which was on Friday when we went down to Polocini for dinner. I felt ok walking down, but coming back was a bit of a struggle. I mean to improve on that this week, and starting today am going to make an effort to get out for a walk everyday. On top of that, Richard is kindly lending me his turbo trainer, where I'll be able to get my cycling legs working again. I've just got to be careful with my stomach, as the amount of cutting that's been done in there means without my meds, the pain is quite acute after a while.

I'm at the Christie this week as well, to see when I can start my next (last) course of Chemo. I'm really not looking forward to that, but it has to be done. As far as I'm aware, it will be the same course as I had in the first place, so 3 x 1 10 hour infusions and 21 days of chemo tablets, 66 days of chemo in total. If I had any spare energy getting over this operation, that should wipe it out completely for a while.

Plenty of time to take it slow, don't rush into anything, and get better right. If I try to rush things I'll possibly make it worse, so I'll take my time. It is frustrating, there's no denying that, but I'm cancer free now and that is the main thing.

Take care xx

Home Baby Yeah (right, I'll stop that now)

So I last blogged on Friday 5th, by the Sunday, when Joh came to visit, I was at wits end. I lasted about 30 minutes into visiting time before the curtains came round the bed and I broke down in tears, sobbing like a fucking baby. I'd simply had enough of being in hospital, but on top of that putting a brave face on the constant pain I was in and discomfort.
Joh vowed to do all she could to get me out on the Monday, and home where I belong. She left and I was quietly hopeful that I'd be on my way home by tea time Monday.

That night, I tucked myself into bed early, put my headphones on and had a doze. I awoke around midnight with my phones still in and unplugged. I asked the ward nurse for a brew, had a piss, then went back to sleep, sat upright in as comfortable position as I could be. I awoke with a start at 4:15 in the morning, and for some reason was holding an empty cup. I thought I'd spilt it down me as all my right side was wet. I reached down into the dampness and it felt sticky, and substantially more than a small glass of water that I thought I'd poured over myself. When I switched the light on, my heart sank and the tears started flowing again. The sticky mess was where the stitches on my back had burst from the swelling that was keeping me in hospital. It was all red and mucky and I just had visions of me staying in for another week to get it sorted. I called the night nurses and they came and cleaned me up, dressed the wound and left me with a cup of tea while they called the house officer to come see. Needless to say, no-one came, and I didn't get seen until later than morning at 11:30 by my own doctor.

I'd sent Joh a text that night explaining what had happened around 5am, so when she woke she called me and promised to do all she could to get it sorted as best as possible, but to be prepared for the news that I may have to stay in for a few more days. I cried again.
I really didn't want to spend another night there, and it was really beginning to get me depressed. I lay in bed all that morning waiting for the doctor, barely speaking to anyone. The day nurses were excellent, reassuring me and comforting me knowing that I was very pissed off.
Eventually the doctor turned up and was positive from the outset, saying he was glad the swelling had burst and that if I wanted to go home today he'd get it sorted straight away. Music to my ears. He started ordering the nurses around to get him this and that to put a drain on the wound and clean it all up, consulted his underlings for my latest stats, then simply said "you can go home today" and shot off to his next patient.

AWESOME!

I called Joh straight away, who'd spent the morning on the phone to the Doctors colleagues and other nurses to ensure he knew my state of mind and came to the right decision, I have her to thank big style for getting out of there. I love you darling.

Now, reading that back seems that I hated being in the MRI, but the truth is the staff were excellent and the place itself wasn't bad, it's just the lenght of time and the fact that I didn't feel that ill as such, that I needed to stay in any longer. I was ready to come home, and fight my recovery fight here with Joh's and the kids support, rather than in there. I'd like to say a big thanks to all the staff on HDU and WARD 11 who looked after me during my stay, angels the bloody lot of you xx

Which leaves me here at home, arriving around tea time on Monday night.
The dogs went mad! Toby especially. Ellie was happy to give me a big lick all over my face, but Toby wanted to jump all over me, soft dog he is. Some restraint was called for and he eventually calmed down.

I spent the first night in my own bed in 17 days, and it was bliss. I slept till about 3 in the morning from getting my head down around 10pm, the longest I'd slept in any period in hospital, then slept through to 6, dozed, slept again till 9, breakfast in bed, egg buttie heaven, then slept again till 1pm.

Feeling totally rested, I got up, showered and Joh changed the dressing on my wound, and took a few photos of my scars in the meantime:

You can see I'm having no problems with the one on my stomach, but the one on my back is where the fluid was/is leaking from still. Even today, after being home for such a short time and properly resting, it's clearing up already. There really is no place like home.

So the fight goes on. I've got some major healing to do and it's going to be a hard slog. With Joh and the kids behind me it makes it a whole lot easier, but I think I underestimated how hard this part of the treatment was going to be. That still scares me shitless, even though I'm technically cancer free now.

Bring it on. xx

Pain baby yeah!

I was transferred onto ward 11 on Monday, where I settled in quite quickly and just waited around for the last healing processes to take effect so could go home. My breathing still wasn't right though and the doctors decided to keep me under observation in the hope it would improve on its own.
It didn't.
By Wednesday night I was no better and actually getting worse. I was originally told I'd be released on Thursday but ended up on more medication to sort my chest out.
Unfortunately, taking the meds meant having a new canula fitted.
My veins in my arms have taken a beating over the last 6 months and there's not much left of them, so finding one to inject drugs into is getting very hard.
I lost count of how many nurses tried to fit one on Thursday. Eventually a doctor managed to get a slow line in, but it wasn't to last. By 5pm it was clear that nothing was going down the line and the much needed antibiotics were not being delivered.
On top of that, my scar on my back had become enflamed and extremely painful.
So now I needed two lots of antibiotics and no canula to feed them into me. I was in pain, uncomfortable and getting a little pissed off with the pace the ward was going to solve this problem.
At changeover from lates to nights, I presumed the later would have sorted something out, not quite.
We were now waiting for a nurse to come on shift who can canula the hardest cases, and also a visit was requested by the senior house officer about my back scar.
The nurse duly arrived on shift and had a good fast working canula in straight away. The house officer never showed.

I've spent the night semi-propped up in bed getting on top of the antibiotics to clear up my chest infection, which is working, but I've had no medication for my scar all night and between my normal pain meds it's been burning like hell.
Hopefully today something will be done about that, while I'm still improving on the chest front.

Don't think I'm coming home today :(

Operation Baby Yeah!

Went into hospital on Thursday 21st march to claim a bed for my op the following day. I'd spent the week eating whatever I wanted and had a few beers. We were told straight away that there was no bed available that night. I could stay in the travel lodge over the road, or go home and have a final meal there. Chinese on the way home? Why not. Nill by mouth didn't kick in till 2am so I had plenty of timeto eat any final treats. Chinese, beer and a couple of chocs did the trick.
Slept well. Up at 5am to get to the MRI for 7. Easy. Traffic was quiet.
Booked in, had a little delay with the spelling of my name, chritopher!, then we were good to go.
Joh walked down to theatre with me and kissed me goodbye and good luck at the door. Tears were shed, hugs and kising all round.

The anesthetiser went to work, tubing me up and prepping me for the various drugs and chemicals about to go in and come out.
Lay down on the bed, start counting down from 20. 19,18,17,16


Woke up in ICU. Joh was beside me holding my hand. She told me they'd taken all my stomach out, a third of my oesophagus, removed my lower right rib and made a stomach out of the join between oesophagus and upper bowl.
I felt a bit rough.
Eventually I was moved to the HDU where I've been till today.
This is a specialist unit where patients need high dependency care. 1 nurse to 2 patients in my case. I'd had an epidural fitted for my pain relief, with button access to increase the dose if I needed to. That came in handy. Joh and the kids came to see me on the Saturday but I was well out of it. Spaced!
After a few days of the epidural, it was time to move on to others as that's not supposed to be in too long.
Removing any of the many tubes coming out of me the last few days hasn't been any problem. Removing the drug associated with that feed was though.
When that came out, I was in agony. The epidural had been hiding a very painful and irritated left lung that was now restricting my breathing. Damn that really hurt bad. I spent the next few days in agony. In the search for replacement meds, a drug was finally found that nearly did the trick.
Unfortunately I was on a very strong dose and couldn't stay on that for too long. The key was to remove all my lung drains and reduce my physical pain.
This was finally completed on Friday, my final, of three drains, came out, and the central line into my jugular was also removed.
All I've got left is a catheter, a feeding line directly into my stomach and a canular on my hand. Easy.
I'm not on any solids, as I'm only allowed liquids through my mouth atm.
I'm not on any antibiotics as I've no infections to fight.
I'm healing well.
I'll be out on the bike as soon as I safely can.
A big thanks to everyone who's visited, and anyone else who wants to come along, get in touch with joh or myself to coordinate.
I should be going down to a ward today.
Hope to see you all soon

Belgium Baby Yeah!

I told you on the last update that we were headed to Belgium over the weekend, well, we made it, and here's our little story in pictures:

It's a long drive down to Dover, I've done it a couple of times before with my car buddies heading for the Swiss Alps and the Nurburgring, so it's essential to get an early start to avoid rush hour traffic, or head off around midday to limit your time losses. We were on the road for around 1pm, which should have given us plenty of time for the ferry.

Richard was driving us, and a top job he did too.

John and Richard getting friendly at the stop for services on the way down.

We finally made it over to France after hitting bad traffic and missing our original ferry crossing. Fortunately we got a later ferry at no cost on the way out, it was not quite the same on the way back.
We stayed the night in the cheapest hotel Al could find, which was fine for a quick nights sleep. Onwards to Nokerne in the morning.

Once in Belgium, we headed straight for Oudenaarde which we used for our base for the next two days. Working out of Richards van meant we didn't have to go from the hotel to get to the good cobbles.

Bikes were assembled, kit was put on and we headed on our first epic ride of the weekend to........

.....the museum cafe, and breakfast. Come on, give us a break, we'd had nothing to eat since the night before, and breakfast in the hotel we stayed in was bread and coffee.

The cafe was excellent, and we all had the same cheese and ham toasties. A perfect start to the day, washed down with white coffee.

A few more shirts than at Polocini, or maybe just a bit more wall space to show them all.

Chill out area to watch your favourite shows on tv while drinking coffee or Belgium beer.

The first time we were there, the place was very quiet, it was to get a bit busier on subsequent visits.

John and Al carbo loading for the day ahead.

Finally, we were on the road, or to be more accurate  the converted railway line.
As a warm up for the day ahead, this was perfect countryside to start off with.

Nice easy pace. It was a wet start, and a little chilly, but what the hell, we're in Belgium, you don't want sunshine do you?

The first cobbles of the day. God knows where this is, I'm sure Al will know, or I could pour over my Strava file and see if I can work out where it is, but suffice it to say, it was bumpy! Very bumpy.

But bloody great to be there, in Belgium, riding cobbles that the greats of cycling have ridden over throughout history.


Awesome.

As well as the cobbles, and the great company, the countryside itself was actually quite nice too. They're big on churches in Belgium, bit like our small towns and villages really. Very picturesque.

During the course of the weekend, I got plenty of practise taking pictures of the group riding off in the distance. With my current condition, I'm crap on anything that goes uphill, so they kindly waited for me at every opportunity. Big thanks chaps.

More cobbles, and this time a lot steeper. Certainly steep enough to have me walking it anyway.

Here's Rich showing us how it's done. Showoff :)

Cobbles as far as the eye can see, and a climb too! Perfect :)

By this time, John was truly embracing the concept of the cobbles, and was telling us all, constantly, how much he loved them. :)

Richard and John off the front again.

 Finally on our route, we made it to the infamous Koppenberg.
Do you know Swiss Hill in Alderley Edge? Imagine that, longer, steeper and much more slippy. Lovely.











Look, there's the boys off up ahead again :)


Although Al did go back down for another try, and managed to get less of a distance than his first attempt.

Walking. That's what you do on the Koppenberg. Believe me, this thing is a killer of a climb. It's only short when you compare it to say, cat&fiddle or long hill, but the steepness and severity of the cobbles really take it out of you.

To see the Pros cycling up here in the classics, really gives you a renewed respect for their power and ability. I'll be watching the classics with a keen eye on their technique for future trips to Belgium.

Al trying to lift his ridiculously heavy Cannondale Caad 10. He nearly fell over here cause it was so heavy! :)

Group photo on the Koppenberg.

Me, Rich, Al, John & Richard.

After all those cobbles and climbs, where else are we going to go?

Beer and risetarte of course.

Went down very well I can tell you.

We were back at the museum coffee shop, and it was a little busier.

Still great service, atmosphere and food (beer) though.

Tired, happy and a little pissed :)


You did this Al, massive thanks for this trip.

Here's a great shot of John, very happy, telling us all to raise our glasses to the wonderful cobbles that he's enjoyed so much. Cheers John. :)

Al's just pleased he didn't get too lost today. I'm sure he did, he just made it look like he knew where he was going. :)

Hang on though, the day is not over yet!

What is the staple diet of all Belgium's?

Frites and Mayo of course. Rich goes for a double helping there, he's a hungry boy :)

Richard tucks in. This was a medium portion!






We should of ordered small. No-one finished the chips & mayo. Very filling and delicious.





Time to return back to the B&B in Nokerne. Time to unpack, get settled in and shower and change for upcoming dinner.

This is not how Stefan, the B&B owner envisaged us storing our muddy & wet cycling kit. He didn't complain though. Top bloke.

Dinnertime!

All the restaurants in Nokerne were booked up (2), so we went a bit further afield for a gorgeous place a few villages away.

The prices were a bit steep..........

........but the steak was "to die for"







A few more beers at the bar next door to the restaurant and finally off to bed. What a great first full day in Belgium. Loved every minute of it.
And so to Sunday, more of the same? Yes please.

Oh dear. Not what you want to see in the morning on a cycling break.

Still, getting our priorities right, we first headed to the beer warehouse to stock up on essential supplies.

Camp pose Al :)

Beer packed away, and it's back on the road. Rain, sleet & snow, all within the first hour or so. Perfect Belgium weather. This place just wouldn't be the same if the sun was shining.

Richard plodding along trying to warm up for the day ahead, while keeping me company for a while.

Windmill!

Windmill & Cyclist.

Not much sign of the rain easing off just yet, but it was set to get better later in the day.

We were heading for the Muur today, and stopped off at this famous roundabout, with its cyclist sculpture, on the way.

You can just make out John holding his bike aloft, shouting "MY TREK IS HEAVIER THAN THIS SCULPTURE YOU KNOW"


yes John, we know :)

Nearly at the Muur, in Geraadsbergen. Lovely town. Brutal little climb.

Proper cobbles this time.

A pause halfway up the Muur, no, we didn't cycle up those steps. The road is up to the right.

Al gives it his best shot. It is very steep at this point, and gets a little better round the corner to the left. I walked this bit, Richard fell off cycling up this bit, and John fell off cycling down this bit. Rich cycled up and down without falling off. Showoff :)

The top of the Muur, with Edmond Hilary in the foreground :)

Time for food. Here's John once again smiling his little head off. He's so happy he's managed to cycle his enormously heavy TREK bicycle up the Muur.

He's also happy to be riding on cobbles again.

He loves cobbles :)

Camp pose please Al. Thanks. :)

Mushroom omelette's x 5 please, with mayo and frites. Lovely jubbly.

Back on the road, and heading back to the B&B, Al takes a slightly different route back. Taking in the last of the climbing cobbles for my trip.

You see some weird and wonderful things when travelling by bike. I spotted this bike and motorbike in the garden. The motorbike had a load of shopping in the back holder! God knows why. Quirky.

The final set of cobbles I rode on the trip. And what a set. They were long, bumpy and slightly uphill all the way. I've got to admit to seeking refuge on the pavement when I could. It's just so brutal riding on the cobbles.
John can be seen almost creaming himself at the thought of yet more cobbles. God he loves them :)

The days cycling done, it was back to the van to pack the bikes and wet kit away, quick change of footwear and head over to the cycling museum for a proper tour. Firstly the film show, and the boys get cosy. (No Rich here as he'd opted to get a few more miles in (showoff)) :)

The museum was good. Although none of it was in English, so we just guessed our way around. There was plenty to see and do though, here's a taster:

                                                                          WINNER!

And back to the Coffee Shop, for beer. Time to catch up on Twitter Richard.

Back to the B&B and Al & Rich plan the next days early morning ride. I'd already decided to stay off the bike as I was tired after 80 miles in the last 2 days. I didn't want to spoil my trip with a bad ride.

Time to order dinner.

Pizza. Al kindly went over to the local Italian and picked up the pizza. Bloomin delicious it was too. Although I think he dropped mine off the bike on his way back :)

Stefan, our host and B&B owner. What a top bloke. His place is amazing. If you want to stay in Belgium, stay at Stefans.

Link here: https://plus.google.com/117057210507156013519/about?gl=uk&hl=en

3 blokes sharing a room? Of course it's going to look a mess :)

John woke in the night thinking these two were big blokes in the room :)




The final day. Plan? Quick ride round for the fit lads, spot of chocolate shopping, head for the ferry.

Rich is up and raring to go by 07:30. With driving snow, high winds and freezing temps, I'm glad I decided to stay in for this ride.

Al was first back, a little later than planned after a broken chain and a puncture. The other three were nowhere to be seen. Al had "smashed it" back. I think the boys were a bit surprised by that :)

Eventually the boys made it back, in high spirits despite being dropped :)

John loved the last cobbles he rode today. :)

 Chocolates! Shopping done. 

Home time. 

The journey home was a little fraught to say the least. High winds, snow, freezing temps yet again. Richard got us safely out of Belgium into France were we hit the mother of all traffic jams. At least an hour wasted stuck on the motorway, or no apparent reason. When we finally made it to Dunkirk, we'd missed our 2pm crossing and got stung with a £120 surcharge to cross on the 4pm. Ironically, due to the weather, the boat was delayed on the other side in docking, so we didn't land in Dover until nearly 8pm. 

Off the boat, and the weather was worse on this side. The roads were untreated and it was carnage. Trucks and cars slipping all over the place, getting stuck and generally not being able to drive in a little bit of snow. Richard followed a rather large dumper truck out of Dover, which helped clear the road and onto the clear motorway home. The rest of the trip was uneventful. John took over driving duties later that night to complete the trip back to Polocini in Romiley. 

What a trip, what great rides, what great friends I've got. I feel so lucky to have been part of the trip. Big thanks once again to Al for organising the trip, showing us around Belgium, and introducing me to the delights of cycling in that region. I'll definitely be back, hopefully with Johanna in the near future. 

10 days till my operation, and what memories to go with. :)