Lisa Lynch, author, editor, blogger and cancer bitch, died a couple of days ago.
I never knew her. Never had a conversation and a giggle with her, or sent her an e-mail, or commented on her website, or had any contact at all. All I did was lurk in her blog, and read her posts avidly. Even then I was a Johnny-come-lately: I only started reading Alright Tit last spring, when for some unaccountable reason I went through a period of reading everything cancer-related I could find.
I love the blog. I love her vibrant, straight talking, tell-it-like-it-is style, and her extraordinary ability to relay the humour and absurdity of her situation even in the midst of utter horror. She describes situations so vividly that you're there, right there with her, through all the consultations and treatments, operations, chemo, pain, anxiety and hair loss - which she deals with in typically robust style by becoming a "wig-slag". You're with her through the good times with her much loved friends and family: shopping trips, birthday parties, holidays and Christmases and the birth of her nephew. And through the remission and then the re-occurence. With her all the way into the hospice.
Her blog wasn't about cancer: it was about life, with cancer.
I never knew her. But I'll miss her.
Carol Harding's tumour blog
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Monday, 18 March 2013
The Play Specialist
It's the middle of March and time for a post treatment clinical assessment. This will revolve around my signs and symptoms and a review of the post-treatment CT scan. Hopefully it will go along the lines of, "Everything looks OK, see you again in 6 months". The scan isn't expected to reveal anything - my thymoma was a slow growing one, and there's no reason to assume any son-of-thymoma would be different from the parent - but it might indicate the degree of any permanent scarring to my lungs and heart, and would provide a benchmark. A survey if you like, of how I am on the inside post-surgery, against which future images can be compared.
The scan took place last Monday. No big deal in itself but it was snowing, and bloody cold. I went to the cancer centre as advised, to find that the scanner there had a fault. Back out into the snow and over to the main UCH building, where because they were picking up the cancer centre patients there were inevitable delays. The staff were as always good natured and professional, despite knowing they were in for a tough day.
I waited a short while before being called, changing into one of those fetching wrap-around gowns and getting cannulated. Then the wait began in earnest. I sat in a side cubicle with the door slightly open for air, watching the world go by, for a fascinating 90 minutes. So many people walking up and down that Imaging Dept. corridor. I tried to guess the significance of the different uniforms:
Dark blue scrubs: radiographer
Light blue scrubs: radiographer, different grade?
Grey scrubs: wandered in from another local department, perhaps?
Aquamarine scrubs: no idea
White tunic and slacks: physiotherapist
White tunic with maroon piping and slacks: radiography helper
Blue tunic and slacks: nurse
Shirt and trousers: admin
Shirt and trousers and stethoscope: doctor
It went on and on. White coat: pharmacy, grey coat: porter, black T-shirt and trousers: maintenance man.....in the end I gave up. Until I saw my bete noire. My personal WTF? of NHS staff - The Play Specialist.
Imagine the scanario. 5-year-old Tarquin bangs his head. Mummy brings him to hospital. He's OK, just a tiny bit of blood from a cut which needs a stitch: but has an X-ray just to be sure. The A&E nurse says, "Follow me, let's go and see the nice man and take a picture of your head." Tarquin, Mummy and the nurse walk briskly to Imaging, get a quick X-ray and go off home.
But WAIT! UCH has a large team of play specialists, and this is an intervention involving a child. Call the Play Specialist! Little Tarquin, Mummy and the nurse wait in A&E, blocking a valuable cubicle, until a play specialist can be summoned. She arrives with armfuls of books and age-appropriate toys, then spends 20 minutes telling Little Tarquin what the nurse and his mother have already told him, that he needs an X-ray and it won't hurt a bit. Instead of a brisk walk to Imaging there is now a slow, snails-pace trail with the Play Specialist desperately explaining things to Little Tarquin, walking backwards and contorting her body so that her head is at waist height and she's tripping over her own cardigan in order to maintain eye contact with the child, dropping books, getting crayons tangled in her ID lanyard and bashing her arse into unwary and often unstable elderly patients along the way. Then she inserts herself in between the radiographer, mother and child to re-explain all the things Little Tarquin has already been told, before congratulating everyone on how brave they've been and then pointlessly accompanying the entire group all the way back to A&E.
On the first run past my cubicle, she was sounding a bit tense (not suprising given her posture) which is why she attracted my attention. She said "So, as I said before, there's nothing to worry about at all". Then her tissue fell out of her pocket and she had to put all her books and toys down on the floor to retreive it. Little Tarquin didn't look worried: he was gazing about him with interest. Mum didn't look worried. The nurse looked bored. On the way back, I hear her before I saw her, saying in a tight and high voice "Oh what a clever boy, you can jump!" If he'd been me, I'd have said, "Of course I can sodding well jump you dozy cow, I'm five years old! How do you think I hurt my head in the first place?"
But I'm 56 and don't qualify for a play specialist. Which is probably for the best, all things considered.
We see Dr Cornell next Monday, and hope she's going to say all is well. Although I do have alopecia, which is annoying.
The scan took place last Monday. No big deal in itself but it was snowing, and bloody cold. I went to the cancer centre as advised, to find that the scanner there had a fault. Back out into the snow and over to the main UCH building, where because they were picking up the cancer centre patients there were inevitable delays. The staff were as always good natured and professional, despite knowing they were in for a tough day.
I waited a short while before being called, changing into one of those fetching wrap-around gowns and getting cannulated. Then the wait began in earnest. I sat in a side cubicle with the door slightly open for air, watching the world go by, for a fascinating 90 minutes. So many people walking up and down that Imaging Dept. corridor. I tried to guess the significance of the different uniforms:
Dark blue scrubs: radiographer
Light blue scrubs: radiographer, different grade?
Grey scrubs: wandered in from another local department, perhaps?
Aquamarine scrubs: no idea
White tunic and slacks: physiotherapist
White tunic with maroon piping and slacks: radiography helper
Blue tunic and slacks: nurse
Shirt and trousers: admin
Shirt and trousers and stethoscope: doctor
It went on and on. White coat: pharmacy, grey coat: porter, black T-shirt and trousers: maintenance man.....in the end I gave up. Until I saw my bete noire. My personal WTF? of NHS staff - The Play Specialist.
Imagine the scanario. 5-year-old Tarquin bangs his head. Mummy brings him to hospital. He's OK, just a tiny bit of blood from a cut which needs a stitch: but has an X-ray just to be sure. The A&E nurse says, "Follow me, let's go and see the nice man and take a picture of your head." Tarquin, Mummy and the nurse walk briskly to Imaging, get a quick X-ray and go off home.
But WAIT! UCH has a large team of play specialists, and this is an intervention involving a child. Call the Play Specialist! Little Tarquin, Mummy and the nurse wait in A&E, blocking a valuable cubicle, until a play specialist can be summoned. She arrives with armfuls of books and age-appropriate toys, then spends 20 minutes telling Little Tarquin what the nurse and his mother have already told him, that he needs an X-ray and it won't hurt a bit. Instead of a brisk walk to Imaging there is now a slow, snails-pace trail with the Play Specialist desperately explaining things to Little Tarquin, walking backwards and contorting her body so that her head is at waist height and she's tripping over her own cardigan in order to maintain eye contact with the child, dropping books, getting crayons tangled in her ID lanyard and bashing her arse into unwary and often unstable elderly patients along the way. Then she inserts herself in between the radiographer, mother and child to re-explain all the things Little Tarquin has already been told, before congratulating everyone on how brave they've been and then pointlessly accompanying the entire group all the way back to A&E.
On the first run past my cubicle, she was sounding a bit tense (not suprising given her posture) which is why she attracted my attention. She said "So, as I said before, there's nothing to worry about at all". Then her tissue fell out of her pocket and she had to put all her books and toys down on the floor to retreive it. Little Tarquin didn't look worried: he was gazing about him with interest. Mum didn't look worried. The nurse looked bored. On the way back, I hear her before I saw her, saying in a tight and high voice "Oh what a clever boy, you can jump!" If he'd been me, I'd have said, "Of course I can sodding well jump you dozy cow, I'm five years old! How do you think I hurt my head in the first place?"
But I'm 56 and don't qualify for a play specialist. Which is probably for the best, all things considered.
We see Dr Cornell next Monday, and hope she's going to say all is well. Although I do have alopecia, which is annoying.
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