“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology,
in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
Carl Sagan
When I started my chemotherapy treatment six weeks ago I
wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I didn’t expect a week of normality followed
by a week in hospital and four weeks at home managing my pain and discomfort as
best I can. After six weeks of it though, it’s time to go back to the Oncology
Department at Southampton General and see how they think I’m getting on.
I know the procedure now when I come into the oncology
centre. The coat hook next to the scales is still broken so I take my tweed
jacket off before I’m called for my weigh-in. After my weight has been taken I
take a ticket for my blood test and await the nurse to call me in. My veins do
have a horrible tendency to collapse so the nurses often take a few attempts to
get the blood out of me. My current record is seven attempts but thankfully the
nurse is able to draw a suitably sized sample of blood on the second attempt
today. After my mandatory tests I take a seat in the waiting room and await my
consultation with Dr. Wheater. After ten minutes though I’m summoned into Dr.
Killick’s office instead. Dr. Killick asks me how I’ve been getting on with my
chemotherapy so I reel off my list of side effects to her. If I had been
playing side-effect bingo I suspect I may have won first prize, alas there are
no prizes awarded to patient who has clocked up the most side effects. I talk
her through my list of miserable maladies which include: diarrhoea, nausea,
vomiting, loss of appetite, taste disturbances, sore mouth, tumour pain, lack
of energy, loss of skin pigment (everyone comments on how pale I look),
bloating, flatulence, mouth ulcers, chest pain, hot flushes and changes in hair
colour (my hair is now turning white). I’m not too bothered about my hair
turning white though, my beard is now completely white and the roots of my hair
are also coming through snowy white too. White hair is at least preferable to
balding which I seem to be escaping everywhere except in my nether regions. My
ball bag has completely shed it’s clock-spring cloak and is now as smooth as a
silk purse. I’ve offered many people to have a stroke of my silky smooth
scrotum but as yet know one has been keen to take me up on the offer. If you
believed in such things, I’m sure some people might consider it lucky to stoke
such a silken sack. I don’t however offer Dr. Killick the opportunity for a
cheeky rub and she seems quite content to take my word for it.
Dr. Killick agrees that my list of side effects is more
extreme than usual and her recommendation is to lower my daily dosage of
pazopanib from 800mg to 600mg. I’m all for potentially easing my side effects
but I’m a little concerned that 600mg wont be enough to combat the cancer. Dr.
Killick assures me that 600mg will be enough to have an effect on the cancer
and that there is often a balancing act in order to find the right dosage for
each patient, and 800mg is clearly too much for me. I’m prescribed some
additional 200mg tablets so I can take one 400mg tablet and one 200mg tablet
from now on.
Over the next week I do seem to be getting a few more good
days and the discomfort of the chemotherapy seems to be easing off somewhat
although its far from disappeared completely. On the day the new iPhone 7 is
available for pre-order, I’m having a good day. It would be fair to say that I
am a bit of a sucker for Apple products. My first proper job back in 1984 was
as a computer programmer on an Apple IIe microcomputer. Before going to college
and university I’d been on a YTS (Youth Training Scheme), where I learnt to
code. Like every Brit at the time I leant to program in BBC BASIC on the
seminal microcomputer of the age, the BBC Micro, Model B. The BBC Micro
featured a MOS Technology 6502 processor also used on the Apple IIe. When I was
eventually sent on a work placement to the industrial engineering department of
a large textiles plant I was able to make the Apple IIe microcomputer in the
corner of the office sing, much to the delight of the departmental manager.
Looking back on my code now it was pretty inefficient, Applesoft BASIC did not
have the concept Boolean variables for simple true or false arguments so I used
write terrible lines of code like IF PINK$ = “FLOYD” THEN GOTO 10 which not
only used the dreaded GOTO statement but also wasted several bits of precious
memory by using unnecessarily long strings rather than a humble pair of
integers to define a simple binary condition. Despite my often inefficient code
I was asked to stay on and remained in the job for three years until the
factory eventually closed and I was forced back to college and then on to
university. During my time at the textiles factory I was however, not
especially popular with the various staff that also worked there, mainly
because of one particular program I designed and wrote. I created a small
database (using two 5¼ inch floppies, the computer did not have a hard drive),
that stored the identification of the looms in each set and the weavers,
overlookers and shift managers assigned to each set covering all three hundered
and twenty three looms in the factory, across each shift for every day of the
last two weeks. I didn’t have the disk space to go back more than two weeks.
Every time a fault in the cloth was detected in the scanning department my
program was able to trace it back to the relevant yarns, shift, loom, weaver
and provide a weekly fault report that would identify trends in faults and see
if they were related to specific looms, warps, wefts, weavers or overlookers.
This enabled the shift managers to be more cautious of particular looms and
yarns but also to retrain or reprimand the more careless staff, hence my
unpopularity.
Despite being extremely fond of the Apple IIe, when I
eventually went to university I abandoned Apple and, like everyone else at he
time, bought a PC. It wasn’t until 2006 that I finally went back to Apple and
bought myself an iMac and was instantly converted back into the fold. Being a
rather enthusiastic Mac user I watched the Apple 2007 conference with great
anticipation while Steve Jobs demonstrated the revolutionary new iPhone that
incidentally used an ARM processor that had evolved directly from my beloved
6502 microprocessor. Keen to get my hands on the new iPhone I left London early
on release day and headed to the Carphone Warehouse store in Basingstoke. I was
first in the queue and can confidently claim to be the first iPhone owner in
Basingstoke. If Douglas Adams had still been alive and just happened to live in
Basingstoke, I’m pretty sure he would have been just ahead of me in the queue. Since
then I’ve upgraded to every major new iPhone on release day.
Today is the day the new iPhone 7 is available for pre-order
but for the first time ever I’m hesitant about ordering it. I’m not hesitant
because I’m concerned that the new iPhone won’t be a suitable advancement on
the previous model, I’m hesitant because I will need to sign up to a new two-year
contract, three months after being given a life expectancy of eighteen months.
They’ve never asked me in the past if I think I’m likely to die before the end
of the contract so I’ll probably get away with it. What happens though if I do
sign up for a new two-year contract and then die after a year? I suppose in the
worst case Tori will have to either take the contract on herself or pay the
appropriate fee to terminate the contract. It won’t be a problem buying herself
out of the contract but it’s yet another piece of red tape for her to sort out
after I die that I’d rather not lumber her with.
After much thought however I decide it’s not wise to simply
stop buying things and booking holidays for the future because I might die
soon. I have decided to live the rest of my life as if I’m not going to die
just yet. I’m going to book some holidays and some trips and most importantly,
I’ve ordered myself an iPhone 7 Plus in Jet Black with 256 gigabytes of memory.
Fuck you Eighteen months life expectancy.
Yes, "Fuck you Eighteen months life expectancy".
ReplyDeleteGo for it.
Looking for the 4 Aug update -- and worrying a lot about your health. Hope you are not back in hospital.
ReplyDeleteI am back in hospital actually. I had another operation on Monday, but I should be back home and writing about it again by the end of the week.
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