A reprieve

The core biopsy I had last week showed that my cancers are of a type that is susceptible to immunotherapy. My oncologist has recommended a drug which should cure me -- no certainty of course.  The cure will be a rather long road requiring at least 4 months so no early results can be expected.  There is however now hope that I could be back to my old form until something else gets me -- JR

The fentanyl kid

I am now a fentanyl kid.  I had a dose of it a few days go. It was originally a powerful surgical anaesthetic but is better known these days as a very risky drug of addiction.  The sainted George Floyd likely died of it.  I have never used ANY drug of addiction so my dose was legitimate

It first came to widespread notice when Kristin Rossum used it to kill her husband Greg de Villiers in the year 2000.

In my case It was used in conjunction with Midazolam to knock me out while I was having a core biopsy on the cancers in my stomach.  The biopsy was to find out if my cancer type was amenable to any further treatment. The chances were dim but you never know. I am in constant but low level pain so I just want a way out.

Mothers' day

I had breakfast with two mothers:  Jenny and Suzy. Jenny cooked it and served it on my verandah.  Also there were Kate and Joe.

Jenny made everyone scrambled eggs plus small pieces of tomato and avocado. It looked very nice. I decided to cook my own brekky in the form of savoury mince boosted up by a couple of flavour sachets. The boost really worked.  The mince was almost TOO tasty.

Anyway it was great to have Suzy there and we heard a lot about NZ generally and Invercargill in particular.  It's surprisingly expensive to live there. Russell's large new shed also got a mention.

Then that evening, Jenny, myself, Joe and Suzy had dinner together. They had a Thai chicken dish and I finished off my  mince. The mince was pretty brown by then so as I entered, I said, "My dinner looks like poo"! That cracked everyone up and lightened the mood generally

A surprisingly good day

Yesterday (Friday) was a shocker. I was a zombie for most of the day, barely able to walk and to talk. It was probably because I had gone off the Tramadol. So I took some last night and woke up after a lot of sleep feeling relatively well. Once again being able to walk and talk.  I was even able to abandon my walking stick for most of the day.

The rebound in my form came on a good day. Saturday was, as usual, my morning with Anne.  Anne had cooked some savoury mince for our brekky and brought it over. So breakfast was fine and I kept it down, unlike last time.

After that we had our usual nice time of lying down together and listening to classical concerts.  We discussed her finances at some length. She has a small amount to invest.  My suggestion was that she buy shares in the banks

Anne left at 1pm.  My present to her that day was a can of Brasso, which she wanted for her oil lamp.

An ersatz day

<i>Ersatz</i> is a German word meaning "replacement" and today (Tuesday) was a replacenent for what Anne and I would normally have done last Saturday.  Anne and her sister wanted to go to Currumbin for the weekend. So I was happy to replace that day.

It started badly. Jenny had made Anne and me some nice scrambled egg and bacon for brekky but I chucked mine up half way into it.

We shrugged that off however and went on to the next item on our normal simple agenda: Lying down and listening to music -- which went well, despite the bad start to the day

I skipped lunch and managed to keep my dinner down.