An apology Dougie, I took the liberty of opening a current conditions thread for today.  I hope your not feeling too bad today and have improved from the past few days.  Thinking of you.

Pat, no apology necessary, to be honest opening the thread was the furthest thing on my mind. Caz, you are always my rock, the caring, encouragement, and straight forward talking is invaluable. As I exist here in an almost vegetative state, I find it very hard to justify that the end game is worth it. The fighting is hard, the suffering is hard, just existing is hard, but to have any chance, it has to be done. Yes, I do have some better days, but they seem to be less and less frequent.

I have just had a call from the house manager to inform me that I am able to go ahead and choose a cat, although I may leave it for a few days in the hope that I will be in a better frame of mind. I would need to buy a cat basket, a litter tray, litter etc, and i don't feel capable of this right now, but it will be something to focus on.

Physically, apart from the virtual loss of use of my left hand, I am in reasonable shape, but mentally I am shot to pieces. This will be the hardest thing to get back I feel, but as always I will fight.

Please everyone, bear with me whilst I go through this transition, it may take a while.

I hope you do get a cat Dougie, I`m sure it would give you some companionship. 

We have never been without cats for many years, my avatar shows Osborne and Florence, our previous two cats, both dead now.

we now have Amica, she`s very affectionate.

Regarding how you are fighting this dreadful disease Dougie, I think you deserve a medal. Not everyone in a similar situation would have the tenacity that you have, and would just give up.

Keep up the fight Dougie, I`m sure you will.

Hang in there Dougie... We are all rooting for you. Jut look forward to getting Cat. It will be happy with a bowl or dish for water and food. Cat will sleep on blanket your your bed....  We look forward to your posts no matter how brief they are.. 

Evening Dougie.  I don't really think you have more bad days as such.  I'm sure every day is a challenge because of the intense chemo you're having and the different side effects.  I think generally you've improved since you had the stent and your med team obviously think so too otherwise they wouldn't be giving you the full chemo dose.  

I don't believe that you genuinely feel the fight isn't worth it.  You're finding it mentally draining and you're questioning your own strength, which is understandable and it shows you're human!  Stop beating yourself up and save the energy for fighting the cancer!  Take a break and catch your breath Dougie.  Then give yourself a bit of praise and credit for how far you've come.  

You won't give up whilever there's hope and you know there is hope!  Just try and relax a bit and regain some strength.   There are going to be good days.   X

You say that mate, but every time you go on a low, you come up scrapping. I tell you (and I believe this), soon the demon that's nipping your butt is going to give up. Too much like hard work.

Look forward to this thread becoming a memory on TWO Dougie, with you forgetting to post on it because you're too busy posting other stuff.

Thanks for the posts and thoughts guy's. I have nothing to add right now except nothing has changed.

Morning Dougie.  It's great that you've been given the go ahead to have a  cat and I hope it's not too long before you feel up to going shopping for the necessities.  They do need a few bits especially a litter tray and litter if they're indoor cats.

I'll hold your chin up for a while to take a bit of the strain and I'll be willing you to get back that mental strength.  Have a steady day with no pressure and get yourself steadily back on an even keel.  Catch you later. X 

Hang on in there, Dougie. You'll get through this, of that I and everyone else in this thread am all sure of.

Hi Dougie, it must be hell to go through what you've been through and still facing. But battle through - you have a bunch of people here, not to mention the medics and everyone else, willing you to come out the other side.

It might not help but when I've been ill - nothing like you're suffering - I focus on a point in the future when it'll all be over. Sometimes that has helped get my focus right: 'in the moment' with treatments and uncertainty and worry eating at you it can be hard.

Fingers crossed.

Have you thought of a name for the cat yet?  Stokoe perhaps?  

Thankyou for the posts guy's.

I have had a slightly better day today which is most welcome. Earlier I went to see the house manager to sign the form regarding the intended arrival of the cat. A game of bingo was about to start, and I was dragged into it. This is a weekly feature with 12 playing,  but it's the first time I have ever taken part, even though I have lived here for 7 years. I won't say I enjoyed playing, it cost me a fiver, but it did at least help my mental state for an hour or so. Maybe I will do it again.

The constant, what I can only describe as a heavy head, lifted slightly, and has remained so, and I am beginning to take an interest in the outside world once again, watching a couple of films tonight for what seems like the first time in ages. I am not eating in the quantities of before, but I am trying to make up for that with quality and variation, but bodily functions remain adequate.

The next chemo session is later today, but I am not sure how that will pan out, nor what they will make of the now quite severe loss of the use of my left hand, which has become worse over the last couple of days.

Gandalf came up with Stokoe as a name for the cat, and is worthy of some thought, and for those who wonder why he picked such a name, Bob Stokoe is a legend on Wearside by leading Sunderland to their last FA Cup win in 1973, and will never be forgotten, so a good choice. Thanks for that. Focusing on a timeline may also be of some help, and with the information received from the medical team quoting a 30% chance, Xmas would be an obvious start point, but if I can get back the fighting spirit, I would need to go far beyond that.

I have been waffling a bit here, but at least I have written a few words which is an improvement over the last few days, so thanks for hanging in with me. I will try to do better later.

Morning Dougie.  It's good to see you've rallied and I think you need to give yourself a bit of credit.  You can't expect to be on top of the world when you're putting so much effort into fighting.  It's bound to exhaust you.  So stop beating yourself up.  Go into your chemo session with an open mind and let the medics make the decisions and stay overnight again if need be.  It'll put your mind at rest and take a bit of pressure off you.

The constant heavy head!  Make sure you're drinking lots of water!  

I'm glad you explained Gandalf's cat name suggestion because I wondered what the significance was.  Although I suspected it was football related, hence my ignorance!  

Bingo!  It cost you a fiver, so I take it you didn't win then!  Well there's always next time.  Yes it's a good opportunity to get you out of your four walls without having to travel too far and you'll get to know your neighbours better.  You'll be telling us you've been to a Tea Dance next.  

Good luck for today.  I'll be thinking about you and I won't worry if you don't post later.  I'll assume you stayed at the Guys hotel overnight.   X

I was not offered the Guy's Hotel tonight so I am home now. I need to organise some food, but will post later on.

So it's home comforts tonight then Dougie!  Enjoy supper and have a restful night.  I'll catch up in the morning.     X

Sorry I did not post earlier, but I ended up back in Central London to eat, this was a place called Ferraris which I had not been to for over three years. It's a bit of a greasy spoon type cafe in the Smithfield meat market, and used to be a regular there in my working days. It's one of the few places I have been to recently, that's every bit as good as I remember it to be. It's basically a Chinese cafe, but you can get a really good fry up as well, I'll leave you to guess what I had.

Well now, at Guy's earlier I caused a bit of a panic when reporting the situation with my hand. I was dragged from the chemo area for a consultation with a doctor, then had scans, blood tests, etc., and they decided that although I am injecting some 12,500mg of Fragmin daily(blood thinners) a massive clot had formed in my shoulder area, caused probably by the chemo. This can be a dangerous area because of the proximity to the heart, not that a blood clot is particularly good anywhere, the danger being that bits can break off and lodge in places like the heart, brain, lungs, etc., not desirable. It was further decided that I should increase the dose to 15,000mg. Eventually, the chemo session took place, but at a slower rate than usual, so I was quite late getting home. Their policy was that the impact of not administering the chemo today was greater than the problem with the clot, or to reduce the treatment back down to 75%, would lose the impedance gained over the last sessions. How long before I get full use of my hand again is in the lap of the gods. I did sneak in to check my weight, and was a bit disappointed to find that I had lost half a kilo, but that is the least of my problems I guess.

All other bodily functions are working well, and I hope this continues, as it's one less thing tom worry about, so now, maybe, I can give some thought to the cat which I am looking forward to. Any advice as to gender, age etc. I would be gratefull for, but I am thinking of a female, middle age, perhaps, any name might fall into place once I see the animal, but Gandalfs suggestion is still a good one.

OK, that's it for today, hopefully I will still be in a decent frame of mind tomorrow, and will update then.

G'nite

Morning Dougie.  Thank goodness the medics listened to you this time and you finally got to the crux of the problem with your hand.  That the chemo is continuing is also positive news.  The best news is you sound more positive in yourself.  

Good for you, getting out for supper.  I thought you were going to say Farraris was an Italian.  

I agree that a middle aged female cat sounds a good option.  Tomcats tend to want to roam, although they do settle better when they've been neutered and I think you'll find all the cats from CPL have been neutered and spayed.  Go and see them all and let a cat choose you.  As for giving it a name, I think you'll have a better idea once you get it home.  Arrange your visit to the cat centre.

Our local centre sends someone out to check your home, to make sure it's safe and suitable for a cat, so it may take a few days to complete the adoption.  Your centre may have a different process though.  

Right, I'm running on go slow this morning.  Need a kick up the bum to get me off to work but at least I'm on a nice steady job once I'm there.  

Catch you later and keep smiling.  X 

I am quite partial to a bit of Sheba

Is it the meaty chunks or the smooth, tasty jelly that does it?

A bit of both Saint. Do you have a preference?

Ewww!    That's enough to put me off my fish, well no actually, nothing puts me off my food.  Salmon steaks with a few prawns, salad and new potatoes tonight.  Tomorrow hubby and I are at the Clumber Park food and drink festival.  It's become an annual day out for us and we always enjoy it, especially when the weather behaves.

Talking of cat food, we always have dried food down for Meg and then she has a pouch of wet food at teatime.  I always tell her it's fish time, although sometimes it's meat but she doesn't complain.  

Just to add to today's fishy tails.... I had mackerel kedgeree for dinner. Keeping up with fish on Friday.. Hope the day is going well for you.. Watching Bournouth and Brighton playing at the moment on Sky Sports Mix. Bournemouth 2-1 At the moment....