NEVER!!! Underestimate the sheer power of a fry up!

Four weeks, twenty hours and five minutes after going into hospital…. AND I’M OUT!!!!!!!!   I’M AT HOME!!!!

I got out yesterday morning.   I walked through the revolving doors at 11:35am, and straight into my dad’s car.   Amazing.   It was heaven sent, freedom that I have never before experienced.    Actually getting to leave after my consultant told me I would ‘possibly’ be leaving nearly a week ago.    It’s not the first time I was told I could leave and with previous hopes dashed a fortnight ago I kept it in and tried not to believe it until it came….   A lot harder than that sounds when you’ve not got much to do other than sit in bed all day.    Which, by the by, is THE most single hardest thing I have ever done in my life and something would never wish on my worst enemy… or even Inna’s old manager…   Just!

Wow…  “I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home…….” 

That was pretty much what Monday was like for me.   Quite annoying.   I was waiting for a temperature spike or a sudden throw back to post intensive chemo slumps…  every hour was spent anxiously jiggling my feet and washing my hands in that alcohol spirit that has left my them like a pair of stripped, sand like, chicken thighs on the end of my arms.   Even our cats, so normally sleek and soft, feel like tracing paper in my hands.    A by product of over caution I suppose but its worked and IM WRITING THIS AT HOME!!!   WOO HOO!!!

So what was it like coming home then, eh?   Well… I’ll tell you…   very disappointing!    Yup…  you heard!   Weird, cold and grey!   I shall enlighten you.   Please do read on…

Tuesday morning started really well.   I was up at about 6, after a good night’s sleep.   I was obviously restless so I did some music converting on my laptop…  (vinyl to MP3…. my massive labour of love!)    that got me to weetabix and morning time.   The real dangers of getting de-mobbed from hospital are waiting around all day for your home meds from pharmacy or transit or a meeting with a doctor or specialist.    I know, I’ve seen it.   Every single man on my ward bar one, that was in care when I walked in, left before me and I witnessed their sometimes obvious saddening and frustrating occasions at being kept back for different reasons.   One guy complained because he was sent out after 9pm…   THAT’S ALL DAY WAITING!!!  And another bloke was kept in again overnight for an extra gruelling 24 HOURS!!!    He had one nurse showing him how to take a particular set of meds from home for that evening, whilst a second nurse was asking him if she could fit a new line to him to administer the same drug!   What a mess!!!   

My meds were delivered by 10am and by 11 I’d seen my registrar and house doctor’s.   My dad was on his way, I was showered, packed and ready to roll.   Even my specialist nurse, the amazing Kathryn… (hello!) getting caught up in a fire, (alarm!) elsewhere … had wished me all the best and issued my new outpatient instructions for this coming Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.   Then the call from my dad to say he was outside, rang out…. and I was off!!!   Sweet, what a great day thus far!

Rolling a long, through my beloved south London, on one of the most squally and spectacularly miserable days it think the UK could ever muster I could see life around me going on as normal but looking all so very different to me.   The cars….  They were EVERYWHERE… oncoming, behind, left and right.   Red busses towering over me and vans darting in front of our car at the lights.   The black spray washing up from the road tarnished the cars, people and buildings.   Who had taken all the colour away?   And why is everything so cramped and fast?   Whoa… slow down… Easy mate… where’s the fire? (well.. back at the hospital, obviously!)   My god, people are in a  awful hurry these days… and look at the pace we go through a  normal day!!!   Chillax dudes…  its only 12:15….   Where do you all have to be???  And why is there SO MANY OF EVERYBODY HERE???    It was like the whole of north London (BOO!) was over here visiting for the day!!!   G’wan…  bugger off you lot!!!

We got home….  ALIVE… thanks to the amazing exhibit of military spec evasive driving by the pop’s!!!   Now I’m stood in my street and looking at my house.   It’s great to see it but is some of it missing?   Where’s the rest of it?   Why are there 7,000 cars parked in the road and why is Tyson road ¼ of a mile shorter than it should be?   It was teeming down so we got inside.   If only I could…  I fought to get the suitcase through my miniscule front door…  then I plopped it into our living room…   which then instantly filled up…. With a suitcase!   Everything’s shrunk!   Where has it all gone?   It’s so small.   But nothing is missing.   It’s all here in our two bedroom doll’s house!  

Oh my god… what do I do now?   Dad said goodbye and left us to it.   I saw the cats, inspected the upstairs and admired our great garden, by far and away one of my most favourite spots in the world.   Evergreen and capacious… that would NEVER disappoint… AND YET IT DID… in the bleak murk…  what the hell?   It was chewed… bland and washed out in the drizzle…  it looked like a plate of hospital veggies… with the very real possibility of tasting just like said hospital veggies, too!   (it was sometimes like eating different coloured, watery shapes… uuurrkk!)

I was hungry…   and (to myself) fed up.    Why was I feeling so down… I should be hitting the ceiling… I felt physically great… and very alert…  I should be out there in the rain, running around shouting that I’m home and trying to light our bloody Bar-B-Q!!!   Stuff it…  my stomach is empty for the first time in 4 weeks… “shall we go to the café, babe?”

Inside our local “proper” café, the steam rose from the giant urn at the head of the queue.   The noise was deafening…  there was more day glow nylon than wall paper on the walls and if I thought an NHS ward was a subatomic all out personal bacteria assault then this place must be an extremist camp!   Look at THAT GUY’S PLATE…  it’s above his head!!!   And  WHAT is that on there???   An upturned pie swimming in green stuff… with chips!!!   Stroll on pal… do you want some food with your brown sauce???    These people are killing themselves and paying for it!!!   Most of them haven’t even washed their hands…  ooh… a scary loner in the corner… don’t look!!!

This was supposed to be my breakfast treat for the next morning.   A full café fry up… with no stone unturned…  THE LOT!!!    But because the was nothing in the house and my 3 weetabix had already stared to wain at 10:30 there was nothing else for it…   “hello…  I’d like a no1 please for the missus and I’d like to build me own breakfast… eggs, bacon, fried slice, black pud, mushes, (hungry?) bubble, plum tom’s sausage…  on and on and on I went, ticking everything off of the green board above my head…   and 2 round’s of holy ghost, love!   Um bongo… Banjo… Bingo!!!   The job lot!

The Russian and I found the last table (Near the bloody door too!) and squeezed in…   EVERYTHING IS TINY!!!   THE WORLD HAS SHRUNK IN 4 WEEKS!!!   Good Café’s are never quiet but on the other hand always have that magic power to accommodate everyone even if 3 of the 4 space tables are taken up by one grimy looking nutter in a torn Millwall jacket and perusing a well thumbed copy of the racing post!

There was a bit of a wait…  it didn’t help… but my sweet tea did… and some of the banter in the room did too.   I started feeling a little more at home…   the house had been chilly, god knows the streets were too.   But I was warm and comfortable and I caressed my white mug in my hands…   The Russian and I started making plans for the week.   Got chatting and having a laugh.   Eventually, her no1 showed up…   mmmh,  it looked good.    In fact it looked better than good…   I wonder if she’d notice, or mind for that matter, if I ate the lot?   Then from the other side of the shoe box, sorry café, came a woman… no ordinary woman…   she looked strong…struggling with what looked like the rear quarter panel of a 1978 white Ford Cortina… and she was heading our way!!!   There you are, darling…  one purpose built breakfast!!!

It was TINY!!!!  Not really……   IT WAS MASSIVE!!!!   It was bigger than massive… how big?... huge… humungous… vast… expansive… mega.. (thesaurus anyone…?)…  it was big!!!

Holy cow I’m never going to finish that, batman!!!   Holy pig more like….   Lots of dead, holy pig lavishly draped over the side of my white Ford Cortina!!!   Get stuck in Ivin!!!    One of the very few things with being really quite ill, is the freedom of guilt that one can maintain during a 17 minute, fully silenced, disposal of fried dead stuff…. That tastes better than…  anything I have ever tasted before….   I think…   I’m sitting here now…  trying to think of a previously more unconquerable meal, …   occasions do spring to mind but on reflection after what happened to me from that point on, yesterday…  I think this could be it!   I would say I love a fry up and in the past there could be a surmountable case against me possibly having the one to many.   But…   this was outstanding…   in the top 3 meals, I dare say!  

I finished it!!! I did and I never thought I would on its first inspection.    I had a history with this café, too…. Many years ago I’d waddled down the hill after a particularly spectacular night, to order a “load up”, not make a dent, pay, make my excuses and leave.   But this time it was easy!   I felt great!   During the dismantling of my food the room must have slowly resized itself... to how i remebered it used to be…   some of the lesser, umm, shall we say “intense” looking gezzers became less threatening… in fact a couple of  grimy bright orange lads, having a laugh over a received text message made me chuckle.  

Outside, the still grey drab high street, had grown back in size a bit, most of the cars had driven away…   the good people of north London looked to have cleared off back over the water and I was walking back to our car with a slight spring in my step and on the balls of my feet… albeit with a rather congested midriff!!!  

We went out shopping straight away and then returned to fill the house with enough comestibles to turn it back into our home.    The fridge was now full, including enough fresh rib eye steak, rocket and parmigiano reggiano for tonight’s dinner.     (yet another belter!)    Through out the afternoon the house got back to normal size, the central heating worked its magic and by the time it was beddy bye’s the great big slump into our ‘oh so light yet oh so warm’ goose down duvet and feel of the absolute sheer soft touch of the sheets and mattress against me was ecstatic!   

It was down to the efforts of the maximum potential of the 110 horse power of my parent’s family car that got me physically home yesterday, with three of us and all our goods and chattels…  but what really bought me home was the unbridled raw power of 2,000,000 kilowatts of hot, robust food, exquisitely conjured into a supercharged, life freshening square meal!

IT’S GREAT TO BE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

X

Steroids??? S*?T THE BED!!!!

…….. I didn’t….   I didn’t really…..  honest….. it’s just….. y’know…. a saying….. a phrase…..  a colloquialism…. Northern originality I think…  like…. Person ‘A’ might comment… “Newcastle came back from 4-0 down against arsenal at half time, last week” …. Whereas person ‘B’ might respond… “S*?t the bed….  Y’don’t half say!!!!”

SEE….? LOADS OF PEOPLE SAY IT!!!!   BUT I DIDN’T REALLY DO IT!!!!!!!   HONEST!   EVEN IN THIS 2011… MY YEAR OF FIRST’S!!!

Anyhoo….

Steroids then, eh?    Its my second consecutive day on them, tomorrow…. And it looks like I’m heading into another very late if not second all nighter on these bad boys.    My 3^rd passage on this blog innocently started out life as a series of notes I had wizzing around me noggin over the course of a Monday night.    I stated by making a few gentile notes but time slipped past as the narrative was sewn together gradually.   More and more of the tale came to my mind, in a more chronologically distorted fashion than a string of Tarrantino movies that was edited by a monkey…. on steroids…… who was still training at film skool!!!!         “yer heard my word?!? das, right….. I’m getting all Blackadder all up in here, shamone!!!” (That  impersonation is the king of pop from bo ‘selecta!)     

So………… as I posted that particular blog, some what very neatly at 6:00 am on the dot… (check the stamp…. Wot can’t speak can’t lie, Rodder’s!!!  (that one’s detective Jack frost, innit?!?…. no its that  Bloody monkey again!)   I sat back on my fancy bed and looked around as the ward started to spring into life…   Blue curtains were slowly drawn back… the sun started to stretch into the ward… early morning observations for some of the blokes sprung up…. One of the nutters started booing at the nurses again… and finally a couple of hours later….  My weetabix arrived at my table….  Lovely.

Hang about… As proof…..   here’e the sunrise taken from my window opposite looking at the clutter of  office space that is canary wharf and surrounding towers….

Nice eh?   It’s great when you fill up space in a school project with loads of pictures innit?    It beats typing!   

I finished my 5 day intense chemo course on Friday and so this weekend I started a 2 day course on these steroids to err… to help my… help the body with…umm… I’m can’t remember why I need them but as this picture will illistrate I had a lot on my plate Saturday morning…. (Literally!!!)

ELEVEN OF THE BUGGERS!!!  ELEVEN!!!    I though they’d severed me Brian bloody Harvey’s morning dose!!!    The steroids are the yellow little monsters and also note my own personal initialled pill I get to scoff!!!! The NHS is well bling, tho???  NOT REALLY! One of the nurses told me that the ‘C I’ really stands for  “Coincidence, Innit?!?”

I would just like to add that they don’t serve you pills on a plate!!!   It’s just for illustration purposes, kids!   And I really like the baby blue NHS crockery they have here… I would nick some but I’ve paid for it already, no?   You know… tax payer and all that…  ohi… Cameron Where’s My share!?!

So…. After an early morning of relative normality I find myself sitting in the relatives lounge somewhat emotional and a bit sensitive on the phone to the Russian at about 9.   She wasn’t due in for a couple of hours but I wanted to call her (I KNOW! 9:00 AM ON A SATURADY BLOODY MORNING!!!  HOW ANNOYING IS THAT!?!? RUDE???   I’VE WELL AN TRULY TAKEN THE BISCUIT THERE!!!)

I found myself getting a tad upset about the fact that the Russian and I both know that Monday evening… right in the middle of West Indies… sorry… east enders… that my tv package deal will expire.    We know this because we bought a weeks tv package for the measly sum of £15!!!!   (ARE THEY HAVING A LAUGH??? THE PICTURE IS WORSE THAN ON A 30 YEAR OLD 747; THE SOUND BUZZES ‘MAINS’ BUZZ AND IT ONLY HAS SOME FREEVIEW CHANNELS!!!!   HOW IN GODS NAME CAN YOU HAVE SOME BUT NOT ALL, FREEVEIW CHANNELS???  

BUT!!!  You can’t go swaning around, blaming the NHS (or ‘nnnhhhuuussss’ as the phone jacker would call it!)  for fitting these 15 year old dixon reject units.   They have been installed by the private sector.   A (no doubt!) dragon funded tight arse who can’t even be bothered to re tune sick people’s ‘custard and jellies’ from time to time, so they can enjoy top gear on ‘Dave Ja Vous!’ (my mate charlie’s idea, to call the channel that, apparently!)  

So I get suckered in for the telly… what else can I do?    So as I’m sitting in the relative’s room, on my own with just my thoughts.   The tv cutting out during West Indies has sprung into my mind.   ‘oh no.   the Russian loves the show.   What will she do?   Should I pay another week’s fee to let her watch?   God know’s she deserves it.   But how much longer will I be in here.   Lets check the tarriff… one day…£5!   S*?t the bed!!!   (see?)… 3 days… £10… bloody nora… I’d pay if it was really worth it but its all fuzzy and buzzy!!!   12 days… £20.   Nah…  I don’t know what to do’… and then I laughed about my little snooker situation and thought ‘how trivial’… and then I broke down into tears!!!!!!

What the eff was going on???

After a comforting chat with the Russian (I’d told her I was emotional but I didn’t tell her what set me off until she got here!) I slept for a hour or two.   Then it was time to try and enjoy the 6 nations egg chasing on my buzzy white box.   Two matches today… England v Italy and Scotland v Wales.   Great.    Halfway through the second half the England match was all but settled, so I decided to jump in the shower.   I admit I was a bit funky but the strop I was in this morning meant I sulked in the residents room or on my bed, for most of the day rather than preened myself!

As I was washing myself down in the ‘David Gower’ I started to come back to life….   The steam arose, coursing up my nostrils and aiding the clearing of my head.   The lavender scent (that’s right, I like lavender and I’m not even a grandma!)  from my shower gel (original source, naturally! Oh and mind the mint one on yer bum hole!) helped lift my mood and the heat from the water washed over me.   I suddenly noticed a rush in me… a feeling of repair and good in my chest…. As if cancer itself was having the absolute S*?t kicked out of it and I was on top!!!    “YESSS…..  GET IN THERE….  COME ON IVIN…. YOU’VE GOT A LIFE TO GET BACK TO!!!!   SORT YOUR SELF OUT….   BOOING AT THE TV INDEED….   SORT IT OUT…. COME ON MAN, IM GETTING BETTER!!!!  AAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

……….yup……….. out loud…. And quite loud too…….

What a day!..... I’ve been up and down like that over most things… I welled up when the Italians were singing THEIR national anthem… (but that could be because I drive an Alfa!)    I got stuck into a big mac (I’ve only had 3 in 4 weeks… not bad considering the school dinners I’ve been served!) like that mac was the first of my life!

HOW THE HELL DOES ANYONE LIVE WITH A WRESTLER OR BODY BUILDER???

And the fact that someone might, once in a while, be a pregnant woman in the same house as a steroid loopy maniac!   Now THAT would be the ultimate in scary see saw relationships… IT MUST BE!   Can you imagine?   S*?t the bed!

As the odd football team mate and friend might tell you, I’m known as a bit of a ‘grow’-er not a ‘show’-er too.    I might as well tell you because I would think, right now, someone’s bloody thinking it…. But it true…. And yes it has… and yes it is… and yes it is a bit like swimming in very cold water!!!!!!!   My goodness….   It enough to make you cry!!!!

C.

Ps...   Thank you to Fefen and Alison and family for their present of a lovely cake today!   Delivered all the way from Liverpool to 'Dat Dere London!'    Thank you, it is amazing!   only one problem....   you didn't slip the file into it!!!   x

PPs...  Seriously, thank you to everyone for gifts, cards and support...   i can't do it all now but the'll be a shed load of personal thanks when i'm out on the other side!

Terry Nutkin, anyone???

well... here as promised...  and a few days late is a set of photo's that are an up to date likeness of me,  "blog master swift!".... or.... at a push.... terry nutkin....?

then my pop's turns me into... er... dave goreman???   with one of his face hair stunts maybe??? 

"woah... look at me....  i'm dave goreman... and i'm a bit crazy... woo woo... bleep bluurp.... even with my facial hair, i'm just a maniac... waap waarp!!!"

After the Russian told me i look like Lenin i was not best pleased because she fancies the back side off of Jason Statham.... AND he lives in Dulwch sometimes... AND he's got a quid or two more than me... AND worst of all he didn't like me much when, a few years ago i he came up to me and said, "what do you think you are you doing?" when i was sat in the crown and grey hound, in Dulwich, drunkenly pointing at a geezer that looked "just like him!"  IT WAS HIM... sorry Jase...  no harm meant!  

Anyhoo...   the final product...  tahh dahh.......

I like Jason startham cos he's got a lot of dosh... but i like Milton cos he's got a cool blog  ....SO WHO IS BETTER?.... STATHAM OR MILTON.... THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT........   FIIIIIIIIIIGGHHT!!!    see you after the break.......  (or if you prefer... after he breaks me!!!)

ner ner ner ner na ner ner ner na ner nerrrrrrrrrr..... BOOWWWAAARPP!!! (Theme tune!)

x

The realisation of change in me.

About 3 days before being admitted to guys, I was coming out of the Lewisham ultra sound room and caught a flash of a queue of about 6 to 8 grey, withered people in NHS green, ‘us army fatigue’ gowns… a fair spectrum from Lewisham society… but all uniformly waiting for a go on the jelly pushing machine that can decide their fate…

A machine that is normally associated with TV shows, innocently showing babies hearts beating and proud parents ooohing and aaahing at the badly tuned telly set!… You don’t normally get to see tiny troublesome lumps in yer left nut as the doctor reveals…“Mazal tov” mr ivin… these could be your primary tumours!  

As for the people in the queue, waiting outside, I’d only managed to flash my eyes over them on my way out.  For them, this is very much the norm to be utilising the scanner in this way, of course.   And now being here, at guys, sat in bed 19 for 3 weeks, looking back, showed me a realisation that sparked my brain to jump back to those people.      I can clearly see them now in my minds eye, lined up, most in wheel chairs, waiting for their turn.   Waiting for the answer to their news or finding out their fate…  some bad, some good…mostly good I wish!

I suppose you could say I’ve adopted the coming to terms with what is to happening to me with a ‘strong attitude, a smile and quick fire pun ready to launch’ Its my method of the “I know I can beat this thing, type attitude…GRRRGH!”   But being shown that immediate and unexpected identity parade, was like a very brief show and tell of just a few of the various ways in which I can turn and tumble.  

What did I look like to them?   No clear tubes out of my nose…I was not clasping a little trolley with an intravenous pump that beeps once every 2.3 seconds solely to remind you you’re permanently attached to it…all bleeding day/week/month!... I was also not in a wheel chair…I was walking quite briskly…  looking back and most probably lame joking to the radio therapists something about my nuts that she had, not so long ago, been rubbing gel into. 

What was that particular ID parade Thinking?   After only 3 weeks of seeing them in my minds eye have I now started to think what they might have been saying with their eyes.   I think the eyes are the last part of a human to withhold life when the rest of the body desperately can’t. They are the last things to go out.   They also can’t help but convey true expression when the body and mind are at its lowest ebb until; either the life force or the eyes are separated away from their owner’s soul!  

My thoughts for just some of the glimpses I managed to swipe have built in my mind into something like… “look at him, poor bugger, he’s at the start of the marathon… or… flash b’std, I bet he’s not even that ill!

Or was I being too selfish?   Of course I was…   they were naturally more worried about themselves, not me… They might be absolutely crapping it to even walk through that door.   They might have been thinking… “look at me, look how I’ve changed”…  “I was like that once”…  “It wasn’t so long ago that I wasn’t attached to this Chinese water torture beep machine at all”…  “What the hell am I doing here?”...“I had hair and colour in my cheeks and lots of life in my eyes.”

Or just maybe with a slice of reality check they were all slagging off my dubious dress sense… “Yeah, I was wearing bomber jackets in the late 80’s mate, proper raver, me!!!”  

All I did was flash through their eyes and dub my thoughts over theirs.   

Its amazing how your very own, rather natty/snazzy pair of striped day lounger  jim-jam bottoms, a shaved head, a clear tube connected to a torture pump and a canular residing in your arm can physically transform your look into, tired, withered, grey and suffering for what seems weeks, if not, nearly months…  its obviously the Chemo having most of the affect but the look can change me in a day with the trousers and shaved head and that can alter your mental state.

I just said hi to Fee, my nurse for tonight…  I was talking to her  a few days ago about how the hair in my Weetabix was really upsetting me much more than I ever thought it would.   Sure I’ll get better and yeah it’ll grow back (but if it comes back Ging… its all coming straight off again!)   It bothers me because I saw it happen to my sister…  it must be so much harder for an 11 year old girl being bald… as for me… being a fair weather, Millwall geezer-ish bloke, coupled with the fact I’m 34… one would merely assume it was a home from home, really.   So why does the baldness bug me so?  

I Think the answer is 2 fold… A, my parents having to see another offspring go chemo bald again!!!   And B, much more personally; getting physically one cancer step closer to my oppo’s back in the Lewisham line up.    Most times since the start of my stay in guys, I looked and felt as close normal by being off centre by only a degree of two.   But when I catch myself in the mirror in the loo after only 4 days of looking as close to Harry Hill as I’ll ever want to come… the shock of seeing that image still makes me flinch and shudder.   Even if I bowl into the ‘Khazi,’ pee jug in one hand... rubbing my stubble topped noggin with the other.  Then I stoop and gaze into the wheelchair mirror… I still get the… BLUURGH!!! WHO”S THAT!?! …  Effect!

When a new prisoner… no, hang on… patient… comes into our block… no, ward... sorry… you can sometimes see the dude swaggering down the hall, whistling, bomber jacket on, totally unaided and ready to fight anything, I think… easy pal… you’ve a very uncertain way to go…   and because I’ve now been here the second longest on this is my ward…  I’m the daddy.   Your bed, pal, is right over here… on the end of the row… bed 19!......  

and here I still am…. Only 3 weeks and a day later… feeling miles from being strong… independent… happy… healthy… useful!    Strolling around whistling, wearing my bomber jacket is a while away yet!

x

The blog master and his 7.5 meter blue curtain.

Deutsch Heute!

Hello Again,

Blog part 2........

After a few days to let my brain cool, having typed more in one sitting than all other typing... er sittings,  that I've ever undertaken in my life...  ever... really.... no messin'... dot co dot uk!!!!!   i am back... and this time so that i don't;  A, overheat again and B, have to put up with more of one's very own hair in one's very own morning weetabix....   yesterday afternoon, Friday, one's pater and one's girlfriend, shaved one's noggin!    now I'm as bald as a billiard ball....   now my poker career is over...  because you can see the cogs going round... (as my head CT scan showed!) and the Russian is shocked as to how much excess fat there is on the back of my swede!!!   she thinks i look like one of those ugly little puppy buggers... you know... the ones with too much skin... who slobber 6ft up the walls... who chew your stuff... stink... (NO INNA WE CAN'T GET A DOG!).... the name escapes me but I'm sure the comments box below will furnish you with an answer later on!

i have the before, during and after shaving shots too.   Some in particular where i look like terry bloody nutkin!   i want to put up pictures of me so all can see that I'm doing ok and haven't changed too much, honest.   I will up load some piccies of me in my lux bed looking 'surprizingly healthy and nothing really wrong with me' as someone who popped in said after also adding they were expecting worse....   nice!...  I suppose many mates are now thinking...  " yeah but you're still ugly, ivin!"    Ta muchly for that!

........ right....  having just pulled my little area upside down and inside out, due to a technical hitch i can't upload the photos just now.   The camera lead that is still residing at home means transfers will take place tomorrow and photo's will be uploaded then......   oh bum!

never mind.....   tomorrow is my last day of 'fattening up the goose' before Monday's plunge into round 2 of chemotherapy...  5 days solid...  its a bit of a ball breaker ...'scuse the pun... but they'll hit my cancer again.... hard.... but the good news is, although I'll be ill again the doc's have all said that my tests prove there is less cancer in my body and so there might be less of a ding dong, punch up going on in me.    The specialist nurse said i could feel bad because of the internal bar room brawl but also there might be an accumulative effect having been hit with chemo last week and not being fully recovered.

Since the start of feeling ill i have lost 16 kilo's in 2 weeks (2 and a half stone in old money)    and its only the beginning of last week that i have managed to put some podge back on.   My parents and the Russian are really stuffing the cal's into me as vigorously as a weird 'feeder' type psycho nutter that you'd see on one of those channel 5 programmes.   But A, I'm not complaining and B, its for me own good!

The big 5 day dose on Monday will start at about 9am and should be fully administered by 3pm latest.  
The chemo regimes come in a 3 week pattern.    To start there is a 5 day course followed by 6 days rest then a single treatment in one day, then 6 days rest then the last single day dose.    For me there are a grand total of 4, 3 week regimes like this.   The hope is that i can have rounds 3 and 4 as an outpatient but as all my doctors say... time and time again....  we're on a day by day process.... so we're taking it a day at a time!

just before i go...  i just wanted to say again about the tricky subject of visits... because I've had so many people ask me to pop in...  that i would really appreciate just to be with my girlfriend (the Russian) and my ma and pa for now.    between them they really have got a well oiled machine running.   Catering for me and at the moment I'm just happy to while away the time, lucky not to be in any pain or suffering, until I'm allowed out for good behavior.      The worst effects of my treatments are nausea and absolute fatigue.   Last week i was almost sleeping a very lion like 18-19 hours a day... so there really isn't much to see anyway... other than a dribbling 34 year old bald male in an old obscure indie band T shirt with his hairy derby hanging out over his rather swish Ralf Lauren natty bed troo's!   (Thank you, A + A + A1/2 for said troo's.)   That's not a math's formula by the way... unless anyone knows the answer to it!

As i said, i can't wait to get out of here and see everyone in better places rather than my mega de-lux automatic all singing all dancing electrical bed!    (Yeah... pimped up with fat wheels and tinted...er... windows?)...  And when people come to see me it can feel a little like that dream you used to have at school...  you know the one... when you realize you're in a Maths lesson, sat upright in your bed, with all your class mates looking at you!!!   AAAHH!!!  How did this happen!?!?... I'm in me PJ's... at school... in the middle of the day... in maths... with Mr Patrick.... and every ones looking.... what's going on???    That's what visits feel like to me...  for some mad reason.   That's even worse than calling one of your teachers... DAD!!!   I did that twice.   Once in primary and once in secondary school!   Gutted!

Well... must dash...  I've got one more day of relative normality before i get the hospital equivalent of double German on Monday morning!   Thank god I've got my copy of Deutsch Heute" (German Today) text book.... with 'Franzi the pig', getting into all sorts of scrapes and stories!    Ja... har har har...  look, Franzi, at zur crazy Englander mit his sher kleiner brot worst!!!  har har har... like das pet shop boys, ja?

That last bit is only funny if you studied German at school in the late 80's!

ta ta....

Ivinski! x

ps... please feel free to spread the address to anyone who might be interested in me.   please and thank you. x

umm.... Hello!

Right...  my very own blog.....    a lot of firsts for me this early 2011....   as you might expect, i suppose.   God what a crap year!

Still, how are all you lot, out there in the normal world?   alright, still?    I'm sorry that i cant reply to one and all.  I've had many, many messages of support and some fantastic and very thoughtful preses and parcels.    it feels really great to know that I'm well thought after and i can really feel the weight of every one's concern.   Which is why i thought a blog would be the best way of conveying my story to all my friends and family in the best possible way.    (that and the secret desire to make it such a wow of a blog that i get famous and wind up on top gear ((before it gets crap)) and set the fastest celeb lap!)

A mate of mine texted me today telling me that I'd best be funny, on this blog and should i require any assistance i should contact him and he'd gladly furnish me with some sterling material!!!   thanks pal... but i think I'll be ok on this one....   that top gear spot will be mine!!!   AND maybe a slot on never mind the buzzcocks...  and i fancy a crack at Qi too....    and, at a push, sat next to Merton on Have I Got News For You...  (possibly)

i thought I'd start off by updating everyone with what's happened to poor old me in the last 2 weeks.   well, not a lot if I'm brutally honest.   a lot of staring at the big blue curtain that surrounds me (7.5 meters wide, fully unfurled by the by...   yeah, thanks dad!)    a bit of looking out of the window,   a few tears,   some laughs too believe it or not,    some pretty doctors and nurses....   YUP...   and a finger up me bum!  (year of firsts, eh?) oh and... sheer, 100%, stone wall, iron clad, 360 degree, solid gold, brick lined, limitless amounts of BOREDOM!!! (as one would come to expect)   especially from a London twit who finds it hard to sit still in any normal given moment.

I feel like the narrator in a school nativity....   the story so far...

i was admitted here at Guys way, way back on Monday 17th of January.   as my early round robbin e-mail explained.    The doctors were convinced by the results of my 3 CT scans and 2 chest X rays i had that i had a spreading form of testicular cancer that has spread to my lungs and liver.   Not the cutest of school narrations, so far, is it?

Fortunately for me the CT scan of my head showed my head was all clear (but for, ooh, dozens of smart arsed chums, at this point, YES THERE WERE SIGNS OF PINK STUFF IN THERE... HAR HAR HARRRR!!!)   so the Chemotherapy treatment was due to begin asap.    but not before the team had a chance to er... well... as the french would say... "ow you say...?" but i guess I'd say...  stash some "little Milton's" to one side in a deep freeze somewhere.   There's a story over some beers for that one too, one day.   I suppose In the technical side of the telly industry we would call it future proofing.   (i trained as a TV engineer y'know!)   As i said earlier, its been a year of firsts for me....   and now i can announce to the world, without strapping to my chest; a pastel coloured, criss cross, over engineered, Eco friendly 'my first stab jacket' with baby slumped inside....   and cry out in full confident double negative....   "NO JAFFA I AIN'T!!!"  WOO HOO!!!

right so...   i think I'll wrap up there for today, on that subtle note.   I shall let the rest of the story ebb and flow over the next few chapters...  when ever said chapters decide to reveal themselves.    The fundamental news is that the big chief wig wam, Dr Simon Chowdhury (nice guy, very serious and likes cricket) has told me thus far that my response to the treatment is going as well as expected and 'couldn't be going any better.'   that said i am at the very beginning of an extremely long course and at the start he gave me odds of 50-50!    Which scared the living S*?t out of both me and my parents.    he is a very cautious man and many other nurses and doctors under Dr Simon have said how very treatable my case is and it is by far the best of a very bad cancer bunch to pick!   those are the very positive points and the hard facts i am desperately clinging to.

its worth bearing in mind that it is not only me that is in a position of hope and anxiety.   For the few of you that don't know, for my parents, this is child 2 of 2 to suffer with the big C and them having to go through all this again, after the 4 years of suffering that my sister went through, before she was taken from us, is just the most desperately unfair thing to happen to anybody...   let alone my wonderful parents, Margaret and John.   Please spare a thought for them instead of me every now and again.

Right, I'm off to wipe my nose and dry my eyes.    please don't worry about coming to visit me, I'm ok for now and my second regime of chemo is due to start next week, which does tend to wipe the floor with me.   i hate to say it but i find visits hard and a little tiring.   i really want to see everyone but in a normal and familiar environment.   



speak soon...

Chris 'Milton' Ivin. x

Ps thanks to larry for setting me up on the blog!   Nice one. x