I have been doing a lot more thinking lately than usual.

Some of it on my own into the long dark hours of night, a lot with Daughter who has been more than a rock of common sense, but sadly none with Herself due to limitations of infirmity and geography.

A few of those thinking sessions have even led to quiet emotional outbursts of choking which is a new experience for me.

Maybe the time has come to say what all this thinking is about, and probably what’s more important are my arguments for and against the motion?

Some of you may be aware that I have been having some minor health problems for the last year. The general consensus is that physically and emotionally I have been through a lot, probably far more than most in their lifetime. I have endured pain, disfigurement and endless trips to and from various hospitals. I might add that in the course of all those hospital visits I have built up a very impressive list of teams, disciplines and expertise.

The question – Where do I go from here?

I tried out the question on my various teams of experts. The first thing you learn is that none is an expert. I would get various degrees of positivity [or negativity] while sadly the positive side seemed to be gradually losing the argument over time.

Over time, my choices seemed to narrow down to two. One choice which was a forerunner for a while was to go into hospice care whereupon i would build up my strength to face into chemotherapy. The other choice was to bow to the inevitable and just let nature take its course. This would also take place in hospice care where the entire focus would lay in making my life as comfortable and pain free as possible.

I know there are going to be arguments from both sides.

I finally decided on the second option. My reasons were simple. I chose my Oncologist as my primary expertise and asked him in all honesty to lay out his thoughts. He said that yes, it may be possible to build up my weight and strength a bit [I have now lost about 5 stone in weight] but that I would be then entering a period of chemotherapy which would probably kill me anyway.

By chance, Daughter visited early today and again, by chance, I had a visit from my Palliative Care team at the same time. The Gods were indeed smiling on us. Already they are making moves to check on availability of beds and hopefully there will be word in the next few days.

The Wicklow Hospice is everyone’s choice. I know websites can be glossy [just look at this one?] but theirs is really impressive.

They even allow smoking and drinking on the terraces!

I have been trying to write this for some time now, but each time I start, it comes out all wrong.

There has been a somewhat cataclysmic change here at the Manor. It’s hard to describe in some ways but easy in others. Basically everything I took for granted has been turned on its head, so what was normal yesterday is suddenly alien today.

Recently new words have cropped up at an increasing rate in conversation with the medical profession – palliative care, DNR and rather scarily “end of life”. This seems to stem from a meeting with one of the hospital teams where there was casual mention of the spread of the cancer. Apparently they now reckon it has spread to the lungs. They haven’t actually done any biopsies but the unspoken words are that there is no need for tests.

I have now been assigned my own Palliative Care Nurse. She’s a lovely woman and very apologetic. She arrived here the other day and spent the afternoon asking such trivial questions as to my preference to being cremated or buried. I said I didn’t really care at that stage. In fact that was the answer to most of her queries which made conversation a little easier.

I’m not sure where I go from here. I am sitting here dosed up to the eyeballs with painkillers. The one thing I have made quite plain is that I do not want to go back to hospital. I have had enough of those places.

Going back to the first sentence in this little monologue, it has come out all wrong.  I knew it would.  There is a lot to say but I don’t know how to say it any more.  Anyhows I’m not going to bother proofreading or any of that crap. 

Take this for what it is – a sort of excuse for my absences.