#hobbitfoot

No more finger cramps.

The Elven* barbed wire that was wrapped around my forearm has gone, leaving no traces.

The feeling of torn, worn out leg muscles, like after a too-long, too-hard run, worries me no more on staircases.

The hiccoughing – stopped.

Even my famous** neuropathic condition – Hobbitfoot – is beginning to show signs of diminishing.

The indigestion – OK, well that’s still there the morning after a few too many pints of Old Codger’s Fermented Floor Sweepings Bitter. But the chemo-induced indigestion – yes, that has ceased.

In short, it’s over: I have had my last chemotherapy, I have recovered from it, the sun is shining, and all is well with the world. Well, Boko Haram, IS, and the state of the British railways aside, all else is well.

That is to say, was.

I went to Addenbrooke’s on Thursday to see my new surgeon – the one who operated on me in August was a locum (which to the uninitiated means he’s like a travelling tinker, pedaling his wares from hospital to hospital, moving every 18 months or so), and has now moved on.

I’ve already mentioned a few times the communication difficulties which seem to ooze their way into almost any communications with doctors, and so one would think I might be prepared for further such difficulties.

But I am one of those deluded individuals who refuses to see patterns, who likes to think everything is unique, nothing repeats itself. Why, therefore, should I expect any ‘communication difficulties’ this time round? I mean, it’s only a new surgeon, discussing a new operation (stoma reversal), in a new year.

I mean, what could possibly-

“… So I like to wait three months after the last chemotherapy, before operating. Just to be sure.”

“…”

“That will take us to… April… 10th. Yes, I’ll put you on the list for the 10th April. Does that sound good?”

“…”

“?”

“Uh… Well, it sounds like April.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to be obtuse, but… April? I was expecting beginning of March.”

“Yes. But as I said, I like to wait 3 months after the…”

“Does it not count that I wasn’t ill during the chemo, that I handled it very well?”

“That is of course great news, but I like to wait…”

“What’s all this ‘Like to’ business? I ‘like to’ have no stoma bag hanging off my belly, but…”

“Experience shows that it is best to let the body flush out all of the chemotherapy over 3 months, so that we can be sure it has the best chance of healing itself after the operation. I could do it sooner, but if something were to go wrong, we wouldn’t be able to discount the fact that we had not waited 3 months…”

At this point I zoned out. I understand, of course. But what bugs the hell out of me is doctors’ inability to manage expectations. I was originally told the operation would likely be in January. OK – I had some complications after the operation in August, the second round of chemo treatments was put off by a few weeks, so I can see how that January might edge into February. The locum surgeon had suggested that as the hospital is so busy with colorectal cancer operations, it might well be March before I get seen for a reversal, which apparently fits into the category “cosmetic”.

But April? The 10th?! Months and months more of living with this hateful bag of excrement stuck on my side. Months of limbo, waiting, putting things off. Hugh Grant’s opening line to Four Weddings came to mind – “Oh, fuck! Fuck!... Fuck!... Fuck!”

Except I expanded on it, and moved into the realms of “Fuckity fuck. Fuckles. Fucklesworth. Fuckification!”

Fortunately (I suppose) none of this was vocalised, and after a few more “You know, I really don’t like this stoma” protestations, I gave in and just nodded meekly. Sure, whatever, let it be the 10th of April. Five days in hospital, two or three weeks of gentle recovery, and come the middle of May, I will be human again.

After all, it’s not as if I’ve learned nothing during the course of this year. The Russians are fond of intoning, when yet another misery-inducing diktat comes slamming down onto their heads from on high, that “Whatever happens, it’s all for the best”. I think this is bollocks.

What I have learned is true, is: “Whatever happens, you can make it for the best”.

And so I shall.

* I’ve been wondering for some time how best to describe the feeling you get in the limb into which chemotherapy has been poured, and I think “wrapped in Elven barbed wire” is about right. So thin and light, you can almost forget it’s there, until you brush up against something, at which point it feels like a thousand tiny sharp metal points are digging in to your skin.

“And how does it feel?”

“Ummm… Don’t really know how to put this, but… Well, very painful.”

“Like passing shards of glass?”

I winced. “Yes. Yes, that’s about the best description for it I can imagine.”

“Right. Well, I’m sorry you’re experiencing that, but it’s perfectly normal during and for some time after colorectal radiotherapy, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

“OK. You say ‘some time after’ – what, umm… How long?”

“Well, for the next two weeks after the radio finishes it’ll get worse. Then it’ll get gradually better. Say a month or so.”

“Oh. So, worse before better?” I asked. The nurse nodded. “And this is because the area is all inflamed after the radiation?” She nods again. “Is there anything I can do to… You know, help the healing along?”

“Well, you can use E45 cream on the area, but that’s about it.”

“I’m using an organic aloe vera cream.”

“You know that we don’t advise that because it’s not proven?”

“Yes, well, I prefer the idea of it, to some petroleum jelly or other. Not that I know what’s in E45, but it sounds poisonous. But is there nothing I should eat more or less of to help with the inflammation?”

She looks at me slightly pitifully and shakes her head. I didn’t expect anything else, of course, but I do enjoy goading them on this subject. Some of the doctors will concede that eating foods proven to have anti-inflammatory properties will not harm the situation, but they never volunteer the information themselves, and despite numerous research studies, they won’t actively encourage anything. Fortunately, I know better (or so I like to think), so I continue omega 3 loading, and taking curcumin supplements, among other things, all proven to reduce inflammation.

The result? Instead of the pain worsening over the last 10 days, it’s actually lessened by about 95%, so that ‘opening my bowels’, as they like to call it, no longer feels like passing shards of glass; it is just mildly uncomfortable. Is this because I’m superhuman? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s because I’ve been actively trying to consume things which will help reduce the inflammation. Of course, without a clinical trial (which no curcumin or omega 3 producer will ever be able to fund), this will never become standard advice given out as part of the “what you can do for yourself” approach, so people will have to continue to try to find these things out for themselves.

What hasn’t yet gone away, however, is a condition I call ‘Hobbitfoot’. No, my feet have not become as hirsute as my chin; nor have they grown disproportionately. They have merely lost a certain degree of sensitivity, so that walking on sharp gravel no longer makes me bend at ungainly angles, wave my arms about, and look desperately for a patch of soft grass. I imagine Hobbii have similarly desensitised feet, how else could they trudge barefoot across mountain ridges and into Mordor?

I’m told it’s a side effect of the capecitabine, the pill-form of chemotherapy that I was taking at the same time as the irradiation. I’m also told it’ll go with time. I’m looking forward to that. Although, perhaps I should attempt walking on coals before it does pass…?

Next up is 6 weeks of recuperation. I intend to spend most of it at Glemham, basking in the sun, inhaling the amazing array of scents from the incredible rose garden put together by my mother and Steve the gardener, and playing some tennis on the grass court. Oh, and writing. I have set myself a strict rota of work to be undertaken daily, including many overdue blog posts, a smidgeon of translation, some creative stuff, and other odds and ends.

And then? The operation. The one part of the process which I am still having difficulty accepting. Which is silly, really, because it’s been explained to me numerous times how all the other stuff – the two types of chemotherapy, the radiation, the further chemotherapy – are all simply supportive of the main thing, the surgery. I know that. Still, it doesn’t make it easier to accept that a piece of me will be cut out and incinerated. It’s a partial, premature cremation; Mark Twain’s “…the report of my death was an exaggeration”comes to mind.

I have repeatedly brought up the possibility of the cancer having disappeared with a variety of doctors, consultants, and nurses; but they all say the same. The main course of this delicious medical meal is the surgery. Perhaps the best explanation for me, what with my penchant for plants, was one offered by the top chap in the department who put it thus:

“Think of the cancer as a weed in a garden. We can mow the weed, to cut it down to size, with radiotherapy. We can then spray the weed, to kill off the shoots, with chemotherapy. But even these two actions will allow the weed to grow back, for it still has its root. So we must dig out the root with surgery to be sure that we’ve cleared the garden of weeds.”

That made sense to me. I guess what I’m really bothered about is living with a stoma for 6 months. It’s when… No.