Okay, I hold my hands up, I was wrong!

Before this week I had little good to say about McMillans.  My experience of them has been less than favourable.  The first time I came across them was when my father was dying of Liver Cancer some 12 years ago.  I did not like the attitude of the nurse who came around to visit him.  She was patronising to the extreme.  You know the sort, they talk to you like you are a five year old but with the head bent slightly  to one side, voice a whisper and with the merest hint of a forced smile, the occasional nod of the head.  That was when she was talking to my father.  When she talked to me, it was dismissive and abrupt and to my mother much the same as to my father.

When I first got Cancer a couple of years ago, I had the visit.  I’m sorry to say that the same patronising whisper and bending of the head brought it all back to me and I just switched off.  She even addressed me as ‘Love’.  Don’t call me ‘love’ and I won’t call you shit-head!

Then came the McMillan adverts!  “Every day doesn’t have to be about Cancer”.  Pillocks! You just reminded me!

When Emma asked my if I would like someone to talk with me about my concerns with the post-op treatment I was distressing over, I said “yes”.  After all, it was Emma asking me.  Any friend of Emma’s is a friend of mine…  When I got the appointment letter I was surprised to see that the appointment was with a McMillan Nurse.  Okay, but only because it came at the suggestion of someone I trust.

She kept the appointment on time.  That’s the first brownie point.  Hospitals seem to have a very strange understanding of what an appointment time is. Hours waiting in waiting rooms … (I digress).  She took Karan and myself into a small room that looked as if it was lived in.  Brilliant, a real person!  Sat us down, Called me Mr Nuttall; not Roger, not ‘Love’ but a respectful, Mr Nuttall. (and Mrs Nuttall).  Then she listened.  Almost without interruption for nearly 30 minutes while I retold my sad tales of woe.  No patronising weak smiles or sympathetic nods, but genuine responses that I could believe.

Then we talked together for a while.  She believed me.  She understood.  She was honest.  She was brilliant.  When she asked if I would like another appointment I instantly said ‘”Yes”.  This lady is going to help me.  Thank you Diane.

Grimshaw Sport, the sports accessories subsidiary of Grimshaw Construction Group has just had a makeover to cater for the extended range of products just recently introduced.

CBN has been working with Grimshaw’s for some 8 years and acts both as their web designers as well as on-going marketing consultants.

Working together, this Actinic based e-commerce website is proving very successful for Grimshaws.

Visit the website

This beautiful period house has just undergone a very tasteful ‘contemporary’ upgrade.  It also has just won a prestigious tourist board 4* award.

The site was designed by myself together with the owners to create a very clean looking site that reflects the contemporary feel of the house..

There is a fairly large gallery of pictures which features a selection of photographs, again, taken by myself,

Visit the site

It has been an amazing ‘free from thoughts of cancer’ week.  This despite having made the decision to go ahead with the operation, having got the date for the op, and having agreed to take some help in coming to terms with the post-op.

I went to the Doc’s at the start of the week and was put on some low dosage ‘beta-blockers’.  They work well and take that edge of anxiety away.  I don’t like drugs for the sake of drugs, but there are times when we all need a little help.  If we break a leg, we use a plaster cast to add support, so I see no problem with help with anxiety.  It exists and is not just a figment of the imagination.

Late last week I had been struggling with the ‘Quality of life’ thing and was very touched with this story from the Daily Mail, for once, without any spin. 

You may remember the story of Hannah Jones, who at the age of 13 decided she didn’t want a life-saving operation. A year later she has changed her mind and is hoping to have a heart transplant. 

The story of her change of mind and what is a heart rending story of a mother’s anguish is well worth reading.  When the story first hit the papers, it was all about whether a 13 year old was old enough to make life threatening decisions.  This article looks deeper; at the nature of those decisions, risk, feasibility, side effects, life expectancy, quality of life, the impact on others.  The very things that I and many others must evaluate in planning our course of action.  For a 13 year old girl, she made an incredibly adult and brave decision, to now change that decision is just as adult and just as brave.  The circumstances have changed and it is right that she must re-evaluate her decision.  Good luck girl.

Click here to read about One brave little lady.

A lot of people have been asking about the band, ‘Krush’, who played at my Birthday bash.
So I have just posted an excellent video of Krush, courtesy of those nice people at ‘Furry Feet’.
Click here for the Krush Video.

It really was a very hard decision to have the operation but I suppose the outcome was always a forgone conclusion.  Let’s get on with it.

I spent a lot of time deliberating the value of the quality of life and life expectancy and so on.  The real breakthrough was when I realised the the percentage likelihood of surviving 5 years was not a ‘characteristic’ of the quality of life and and at best was only a ‘moderator’ in the calculation. 

If the operation means the removal of the four tumours, and there are no others evident at this time, then once I have got out of hospital and on the road to recovery it follows that even if the cancer where to return, the clock starts ticking again from that point.

Given that I have no fear of the operation itself and only the post-op regime, then it must be the focus of my attention.  I must spend my time and do what I can to come to terms with my fears over this aspect.  I don’t know how just yet, but I will.

Just an aside for a moment.  I was very grateful for the time Emma took out to talk things through with me yesterday and am very grateful for her support.  However, in doing so, I am in danger of devaluing the credit that should go to the one person who takes time every minute of every day to care for me, I really must acknowledge the huge amount of support that comes from my lovely Karan.  I may be the one that is sick, but there are two of us who are suffering. Without her, to be honest, I doubt if I would have a tenth of the strength to endure all this shit.  Thank you Karan, together we will beat this damned curse.

Phew! What a weekend!

I started out still reeling from the news, the thought of the post op care.

I know it sounds silly, being able to operate when it had been ruled out, but I just keep struggling with it. Of course it’s good news, but I wish that when they said 40-60% chance, they had left it at that. I could have rationalised the post-op fears with the better prognosis. But 20-40% for God’s sake, that’s not so good.

Cue another piece of crap advice, “Look on the bright side”. I have, and I have thought it through, and it’s very badly balanced against the ‘Dark’ side.

I have almost come to terms with the decision to go ahead with it, but I still need a whole load of convincing, or ‘conditioning’ might be more appropriate.

You know what, there’s loads of advice about what you should do, but nobody will give you a good rationale or a way to arrive at your decision. I thought that surely, someone somewhere would have some sound advice, but look what Google brought up. How to decide about surgery for, “sagging skin around the eyelids”, “tummy tuck”, “LASIK eye surgery”, “Rectocile”, (don’t ask), “Breast Reconstruction”, “Weight Loss” and so on. Get the picture?

So where is the advice on how to balance ‘quality of life’ against ‘life expectancy’? Try looking up “Quality of life”. All I got was a grossly inadequate definition from Oxford University which defines it thus: “Quality of life is a descriptive term that refers to an individual’s emotional, social, and physical well-being, and their ability to function in the ordinary tasks of living”. All right, but measured against what. And how do you measure it?

I’m going to try and put it out of mind until I can talk to the Mr Borley, my original surgeon. He probably won’t tell me anything different, but he has an incredible knack of putting things in a way that I can accept and feel encouraged by. After all, it is good news, just badly delivered.

I have for some time now been researching for a large feature or possibly a small book with a working title of "Truth, Lies & Bullshit".  However, I have taken a bit of a sidestep for this week’s Whinge of the Week.

Perhaps because of the research I have been doing, I appreciate that I may be a bit more sensitive to the topic that most, but recently I have seen a rapid rise in reporting that displays an ‘irrelevance’ to truth.

Perhaps because the media is rapidly running out of new adjectives to describe simple events, there is now a need to take things to a new level.  Let’s assume for a moment that there is a rule somewhere that excludes the use of expletives to supplement that adjectives, otherwise we would have been hearing, "It was the biggest f*&king downpour ever experienced at Lords", etc.  In it’s stead, there appears to be a marked increase in completely disregarding the truth. 

Recently we have apparently been in in the grip of a heat wave.  Not true.  The Met Office definition of a heat wave is 5 consecutive days of 5c above the 1961-1990 average maximum temp.  For June the 61-90 ave temp is 19.1c in SE England and 21.2c for July. Temps usually peak second half of July. For end of June average maxima should be around 20c to 20.5c in the south.  Check it out here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/#  There never was a heat wave.  The truth was irrelevant.

Another classic example of this would be the current "Recession".  We were being told back in August last year that we were in a recession.  By Mid-January most of the media was reporting that we were "in the grip of a deep and long lasting recession"  In fact, a recession technically occurs when the economy contracts for two successive quarters.  This means that it was on 23rd January 2009 that we ‘entered’ into recession triggered by the previous 6 months performance.  The truth was irrelevant.

To be fair, these are easy targets for me to pick on, and what concerns me more is the less important, almost trivial items that pass us by.  Silly things.

A BBC report on a classroom built inside a converted aircraft at Kingsland Primary School in Stoke-on-Trent identified the plane as a "Short 360" Jet.  A Jet my arse! The idiot reading the news was looking straight at the plane as he was talking.  Those bloody great big spiky thins on the wings are propellers! In fact the Short 360 had two advanced six-blade propellers.  The truth is irrelevant again.

Before I leave this post, I have to include a little twist on in the tale, (sic).  I found this little snippet albeit referring to a story some time ago.  In New Hampshire, a doctor had the audacity to tell one of his patients, an obese woman, that she needed to lose weight because her health and quality of life were at risk.  Unfortunately, rather than take her doctor’s advice, she instead complained to the State Medical Board.  The Board took action and opened an investigation.  Perhaps it isn’t that the truth is irrelevant, perhaps it is unwanted.

Try viewing this full screen using the icon below right.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”.

We walked hand in hand, hoods and heads bent down against the miserable rain, in silence, each of us deep in our own thoughts.  It was never going to be ‘great’ news, but what we had just learned had shocked us.

We had just been to see the liver consultant at Birmingham hospital.  We were to hear the results of the MRI scan done at the beginning of the week and expecting to hear whether I was a candidate for RFA or not, further surgery or chemo having already been ruled out.

What I did not expect was that the Case ‘team’ had actually recommended further surgery. The LAST thing I wanted to hear.  With it, I was told by one doctor that the prognosis could be as good as 40-60% chance of a 5 year survival.  (This however, was later modified by a second doctor to a more cautious 20-30% chance).  The reason for the shocked response was that I absolutely did NOT want to go through the hell I went through the last time.  The epidural failed, I was overdosed on morphine and was in a comma as a result.  A nurse had delivered a ‘bolus’ of a substance I was allergic to, directly into a vein in my neck.  That was like being hit full-on hard with a sledgehammer!  Hospital is never pleasant, but that was sheer hell!

We were told that I have four tumours on the liver, (they have already removed four), and unfortunately, one of them is not accessible for the probe and too near the heart which rules out the RFA option.  The good news is that they are all fairly small and all on the surface, hence the option to operate.

Bearing in mind that I am attempting to maximise the time I have a reasonable ‘quality of life’, rather than just prolong it, I have some serious thinking to do.

Both myself and Karan have hearing problems sufficient for us to need subtitles on much of the television we watch.  It’s either too indistinct, too fast or drowned out by the background music, for us to catch it all properly without the aid of subtitles.  (Why must the news summary be done to the accompaniment of bloody great Kettle Drums)?

So why is it beyond the capabilities of program producers to synchronize the subtitles with the voices?  I understand to some degree that ‘live’ broadcasts cannot always be synchronized easily, but more on that in a minute.

It is ordinary run of the mill programs.  Sometimes the sync is some 10-15 seconds adrift.  It is unwatchable, not just behind, but ahead!  Incredibly, I am just watching QI and it’s sync is about 10 seconds ahead. It started just after I started this article and therefore is totally coincidental, but not only is it on ‘Dave’ and therefore a couple of years old, but it’s also on ‘Dave ja vu’ and therefore an hour later than this evening’s earlier transmission.  Why therefore is it allowed to happen?

It takes me exactly the same length of time to sync a song, karaoke style, as the song is.  It is not difficult.  There is voice recognition technology that does the job virtually instantly.  And having done it once, to then on a subsequent broadcast, adjust by using an ‘offset’, any lapse is simple.  Let’s not forget either, that these people have some incredibly sophisticated software for doing the job.

Which brings me back to the ‘live’ news.  Any subsequent transmission, it is no longer ‘live’, and therefore is not an excuse for being out of sync.  Try watching the Grand Prix with subtitles on, impossible.  So watch the highlights later on.  No good.  Same bloody subtitles!

To be honest, the broadcasting companies just don’t give a toss.  Now if it where a website, they’d have the ‘Accessibility’ people all over them!

Those who know me will have heard me say that I went into Cheltenham Hospital with a ‘needle phobia’ and came out 9 weeks later with a ‘needle fetish’.  Sadly it did not last long and my terror of needles returned almost immediately and has plagued me ever since.

My MRI scan this morning was not a problem except this stupid fear of needles.  It’s illogical and totally in my imagination.  I know that.  But it’s like the old faith healer who said that, “Though pain isn’t real, I dislike what I fancy I feel”.

So, sitting in the Scanner ‘Anti-room’, I was going through my usual, “don’t call me brave, I’m a raging coward”, routine to the radiographer with the needle. “What’s your name?”, I asked. 

“Damian”, he said.
“Oh for f*&ks sake!”. 
“Don’t blame me”, he said, “blame my Dad.  I can give you his number if you don’t believe me”.
”I think I already know it”, I responded, “666”.
“No, that’s mine!”, he smiled.

In the meantime he had quietly slipped in the cannula needle.

If you have not been inside an MRI scanner, it’s quite an experience.  The first time I was stunned by the volume of the noise it made.  A bit like standing next to the main speakers in a nightclub on ‘Bad Trance’ night!  I have to say I was a little disappointed that this machine, a later model, was a lot quieter.  I had built myself up to coping with the noise.  In fact, I had taken my iPod with me and was listening to ‘Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scotts’ throughout the whole procedure.

Nothing to it!

Almost from the moment I got up this morning, I was not on top form.  Too much time wasted thinking about my MRI scan tomorrow.

As ever, it’s not the scan that bothers me, but the implications of it.  (Alright, the needles piss me off too)!  It gets me all wound up worrying about what might or might not be.  The thought of getting back into that regime of hospital visits, the smells, the travelling, the waiting.  Your life takes on a whole new dimension over which you have no control.  And I’m sorry, but I don’t have the confidence in the admin staff as I do in most of the nurses.

What really got me going today though was a bloke at lunch.  I had gone down the local to deliver a birthday card to one of the barmen.  I wasn’t stopping long and when he asked why, I said I was going for an MRI scan tomorrow.  “Good luck, I hope it goes okay for you” he said.  Fair enough.  But then a bloke turned around from the one-armed-bandit and said, “You have got to stay positive”.  Sorry, but I don’t want strangers giving me advice and certainly not that!

I don’t know what people think they are saying when they say that.  I very much doubt they understand what they mean.  I am a person who goes through life looking at the doughnut and not the hole, but there is a time when you have to be pragmatic and understand the reality of a situation.

Being positive therefore becomes more than a state of mind, it becomes a state of being.  You have to engage yourself in doing what is best, changing diet, changing work patterns, working while you can, but preparing yourself and your work for a time when you will not be able to continue.  Remember, ‘terminal’ cancer is just that, terminal.  How long the inevitable can be postponed is the name of the game.  It might be 6 – 18 months or given successful treatment, it may be delayed for 5 –10 years.  But you can’t be positive.  And that’s my point.

You can ‘hope’, and indeed is vital to dealing with the situation, but planning your life on hope is like factoring the National Lottery into your business plan.  You need to be looking at how best to deal with the time you have left, acknowledging the parameters in which you can be confident, and maximising that time. 

“You have to be positive” is a mindless, empty statement that has no place and is totally out of context with reality.  “I hope that things go well” is far more meaningful.  It shows you care.

I hardly blinked and the week went by.  I can’t believe it’s Friday tomorrow!

Monday, the hospital called to rearrange the MRI scan for Sunday, a day earlier.  I am a little apprehensive at the moment about it, and the results!

Nonetheless, I can’t understand why I am so up-beat at the moment.  I am enjoying everything.

I was even considering a ‘long-haul’ holiday later in the year.  We’ll see how we get on with the MRI.

A new commission for me as a Marketing Consultant for Cheltape Precision Engineering is targeted at attacking the recession head on.

Whilst many are standing back and complaining of the recession, Cheltape have grasped the bull by the horns and are looking at the opportunities that come from a much more focused and discerning market.

Cheltape’s position as an innovative deliverer of very high quality precision engineering is seen as a positive niche for them.  Visit the Cheltape Website

Not a lot to shout about this weekend.
Spent most of the time playing guitar and gardening, (in between the weather).
Didn’t even go out for a drink.
Just starting to get a bit nervous about next week’s MRI scan.

I’ve got a new toy that displays, karaoke style, the words of any tune playing in WMP or iTunes.  It’s called ‘MiniLyrics’ and can be found here.

Just download it, install it, and it pops up whenever you listen to music. You can take my word for it, there’s no adware, spyware, or anything like that.  It’s free and apart from a nag to register when you run it, there’s no restriction.

What makes it so good for me is that it comes with an editor which allows me to change the timings for ‘cover’ backing tracks.

A bit of tweaking, and I can add the chords and any notes to display as the track plays.  Because it scrolls,  I don’t have to keep turning pages or balancing the book.

Love it…

Clean-a-Carpets was a pleasure to work on taking little more than a week from start to finish.  

It’s a simple ‘brochure’ site that is designed to support traditional advertising. 

It demonstrates that an effective website does not have to be complicated or expensive.

Great day today.

A new commission for marketing consultancy has got me really fired up.  Nice company, honest chance of success and right down my street.  Interested to learn that one of the directors had been diagnosed in 1994 with a brain tumour and following five years of treatment, (“a bloody miserable time”), he has had good health since.  There’s always hope!

Also got a small ‘brochure’ site signed off which was good news.  Nice comments too.

Despite all this, we decided to have a quite night in and watched telly.

I playing with a new toy for lyrics.

I’ve just found something that really takes the piss. I was doing a bit of research about the law relating to car alarms.  You know the ones I mean, they go off in Tesco’s car parks.  I entered ‘car alarms law’ and could not believe the first entry. It was this http://www.tescolegalstore.com/car_alarm_complaint.asp.

Did you get that? Tesco’s Legal department’s form for complaining about noisy car alarms.  Having an office that backed onto Tesco’s car park for four years and listened to the Tesco Car Park Symphony Orchestra every 10 minutes every day, this is irony one step too far. 

I can understand the need sometimes to alarm the car when you’re popping into Tesco for a few minutes, we live in villainous times. But what possesses someone to switch their car alarm on with a couple of kids or a dog in the back.  The bloody alarm is going to go off!

Even the sensible ones could do with a bit more thought.  It’s raining hard, the bloody alarm is going to go off! It’s very wind, the bloody alarm is going to go off! You’re parked next to another car, the bloody alarm is going to go off!

Who the hell does anything about it when one goes off?

Just to round this bit off, this is where the law stands.

Under the Noise and Statutory Nuisance Act 1993 the local environmental health officer (EHO) can serve an abatement notice on the owner or driver of a car with a faulty alarm to remedy the fault. If the alarm goes off and after an hour the owner/driver has not been found the officer can immobilise the alarm or remove the vehicle.

Cat Burglar

The trigger for this whinge actually wasn’t a car alarm, it was a house alarm.  the advert could have read, “Probably the most powerful alarm in the world”!  At one point, a small crowd were stood outside in the lane looking up at the offending siren.  The next door neighbour sat forlornly on her doorstep with head in hands, her dog frantically running round in circles on the lawn.

Eventually the sound ceased and the small crowd moved on, the dog staggered dizzily to the backdoor and attempted to console the woman with great wet licks.  I came home to write my blog.

For the record, by law, alarm owners have to do two things:
1. Register the details of two keyholder details with the Police, (they must be available to allow police etc into the premises within 20minutes.

2. Make sure the alarm has a working cut-out device. (It must switch off after 20 minutes).

This is the bit I like:

If your burglar alarm causes a noise nuisance, the Noise Team may decide to prosecute
you. If you are found guilty, the Courts can impose fines of up to £5,000 (£20,000 for
businesses). This is in addition to you being invoiced for the costs of breaking into your
property.

The stupidity is that if the alarm is ringing persistently, it advertises the fact that on one is in, and no one had been informed of the situation, except of course a potential burglar.