Oxford say "no!"

I've been allowed to escape for the weekend, which is cool and the gang.  I'm sat at home, watching my own TV, sat on my own settee and it's great!  No hospital till Monday, but then they want to start the next chemo (4 days early.  I liked the idea of chilling and feeling good for a few days, but hey ho).  Was a bit downbeat today when my consultant said that because I didn't respond to RICE, the cancer squad in Oxford did not consider me for the stem cell transplant and high strength chemo (which is the best shot at really blasting this thing apparently.  It blasts me too, but I get to recover, whereas it should be no more (hopefully)).  The bastards!  The good news though was that he (my cool consultant dude) rang the cancer terminator team in Hammersmith and told them my situation and they had a different plan.  They would go for a cycle of ESHAP (which is what we had in mind anyway) and if I respond at all, even a little bit, they would go for the stem cell stuff.  Hey, Hammersmith gang, I love you.  Oxford turds, you can go and university yourselves!  No, I'm not bitter.

Okay, okay, alright already!  I'll tell.  The hedge incident.  I'd better talk about it now as otherwise you'd have to wait a week or so.

Anyway, this hedge.  Well, we had this hedge and it was a monster.  It ran from the end of the garden, down to near the front "garden" (I put garden, because I couldn't think of a better word to describe the space where the cars park that sits in front of the house.  There is a little bit of grass and a few weeds there too, so it is garden-ish.).  Anyway, the headline to take from this is that it was a long hedge.  Now, not only was the hedge one long mutha f*cker, but it was wide too and as everyone knows, it is all about the girth.  It was about 4 feet wide, so it happily ate about a 4 foot chunk of our garden, for no reward.  Oh yeah, it was also about 7 foot high.  The good side of this is that it meant that we were well shielded from the mad, crazy and insane hound lady and her hounds.  All seems pretty okay so far, when you think about, we have a 4 foot barrier protecting us from infection from the loon next door.  The thing is, it was one ugly thing and after about 3pm the garden suddenly because dark, as the hedge blocked it out.  There were also rumours that various members of the faery folk have been spotted living in it and if there is one thing that I dislike, it is squatting imaginary creatures (apologises to anyone out there who believes in such things)

Nope, the hedge was a pain, not only because it was ugly but because it had to be cut every few months.  If you do it yourself it takes yonks and if you get someone in to do it, it cost a wodge.  For what?  Stupid hedge.  Also, hound lady used to constantly complain about the hedge, demanding that I came and cut it on her side (as she was a pensioner, which is fair enough).

So, here I was walking towards my house when hound lady intercepted me and started moaning about the fence.  No, not that fence, but the fence that was on her side of the hedge.  A fence I never knew existed.  She was saying that it needed repairing and some panels replacing.  Obviously, any mention of fences from her, filled me with fear.  Sam and I had been talking about getting rid of the hedge and if I had to repair a fence I never see or even knew existed, then I might as well get rid of the hedge and fix up the old fence.  I told her this plan and she was ecstatic.  I couldn't believe it, I thought she would moan.  So, on a high, I called in, you guessed it, Steve the fence man.  He was a little reluctant to do anything that was within 100 metres of hound lady, but the hedge extraction operation appealed.  Oh man, this is going to be a long post as there is a lot of ranting to fit in.  Sorry, I may have to save the rest till another day.

The Hedge Incident and the blood that never stops flowing

I tried to warn you, but no.

"We want to know about the hedge incident, blah, blah, blah!", you said.

So, the hedge incident, eh?  Well, it is quite special in that it features aspects and people from the fence incident included in yesterdays rant.  It is like the fence incident but so much more.  So much.

Lives nearly ended.  Sanity was lost and many people may never be the same again.  Also, the hedge incident hasn't official closed.  One aspect (well, more than one if you went and spoke to mad lady of the hounds and could stand listening to her bitter diatribe for more than a few seconds, before wanting to snap her dry, leathery neck like an old twig (oh! I can hear the sound of it snapping!  Ding, dong, the witch is dead.... oh well, may be one day) ) of the hedge incident remains unresolved (despite regular promptings and whinges from her majesty next door) and as far as I'm concerned will continue to do so.  Anyway, that's enough of that unpleasantness for now.

Whilst lying in bed with a nose bleed that just wouldn't stop (more in a moment, if you can contain yourself), I had an idea.  Let me run it by you.  Do you remember the card game Top Trumps?  Come on,you know you do.  You had a set of cards, related to some subject or other, e.g. cars.  Each card had a picture of a different car (or whatever) on and then there was a list of factoids, e.g. Speed, comfort, acceleration, cost.  Each of these stats had a number rating between 1 and 10 (I think).  To play the game, you would have the cards evenly dealt out and you would pick the top one (or could you choose one?) and pick its strongest stat.  The other people had to have a higher value for that stat on their card otherwise they lost their cards to you.  Probably the most boring game I ever played, as initially I inherited a top trump set from my sister and it was for flowers.  A great was to get beaten up at school.  I used to be a bit of a big time doctor who fan when I was little and my regard for Top Trumps totally turned around when I discovered a Doctor Who version.  Wow!  I could put down Cybermen and choose the stat scariness and win the card for the Krotons (a doctor who monster from years back, who looked like badly stuck together cardboard boxes (which they probably were), spoke in brummie accents (no joke) and whose nasty big weapon shot steam (ooh, scary!) ).

Anyway, back to my idea.  I was sitting here, waiting for some kind of clotting to happen, when I thought what might a bunch of miserable cancer patients, all stuck together in a room on multi-coloured drips need to brighten up their days?  Answer:  Chemotherapy Drug Top Trumps!

It's a winner!  You could have stats for:  Toxicity, Vomit inducing, cost, number of side effects, length of infusion.  I can imagine kids at school playing it.

"I've got Cisplatin.  Vomit factor 9"

"Oh!  That beats my Doxorubicin!  If you had picked heart damage as the stat, I would have won!"

Sounds a winner to me.  What do you reckon?

Yeah, last night my nose decided to start bleeding.  Not something that happens often and normally not a problem, but when on anti-clotting drugs it can prove a bit annoying (and it did).

After going through numerous paper towers trying to stop it, a nurse wandered by, saw what I was doing and told me off for not ringing them for assistance.  She then disappeared and said she had rung the on-call doctor and they would give me some clotting enhancing agent in the morning.  I mentioned I was on Fragmin (anti-clotting agent) and she went, "ooh, hmmm, I had better ring him back" and went off again.  Meanwhile I had a cunning plan.  When I was little and had a nose bleed, I might sometimes create a "plug" for it.  Basically, roll up some tissue paper into a small tube type shape and shove it up your konk, thus blocking the bloods exit.  I did exactly that.  All seemed to be good, until I could see blood around the edges soaking through.  After a while, it had slowed but was still going.  I lay back on my bed with a paper towel in place.  The nurse returned to say they wouldn't be giving any clotting agent, as I was on anti-clotting drugs.  A revelation!  She said the on-call doctor would come and see me though.  By now, I had got the bleed to finally stop.  I laid back in a position, so as not to tip my head or risk starting it off again.  I dozed off.  I was awakened by the doctor who told me my nose had stopped bleeding.  I said I know.  They then went on to ask me various questions about how often I had nose bleeds (rarely), whether I was bleeding from anywhere else (urgh!  no), etc.  They said they would check my platelet counts (the cells in the blood responsible for making clots) to see if I was low and needed any transfusing (I didn't).  They then went away and I could sleep.  So an exciting night was had by all.