Scars

I've started treatment with a new physiotherapist for a long-standing injury. The problem began a couple of years ago with a muscle tear in my right groin (acquired pushing a heavy mower out of a ditch). At first I was impatient with my slow recovery and eager to prepare for two overseas trips I'd booked (to Chile and Bhutan) so I began my activities again (walking and cycling) and built up the intensity. But soon my groin became sensitive, then painful and then intensely painful and I was forced to stop. So I rested for a while (days perhaps weeks), then began again: but each time I built up my activity, the pain would return and the unhappy cycle would repeat. I became stuck in a series of peaks (rising activity) and troughs (pain and depression) – the pattern of a chronic injury.

I ended up having to cancel my overseas trips and claim the money back from insurance. Then I became seriously ill and all thoughts of such activities evaporated. This year, as I recovered, I began to walk further and more often. Stupidly, I managed to pull the muscle in my groin again working in the garden. I rested for a while, then returned to easy walking and started to do more. But the old problems quickly recurred and again I found myself stuck with a chronic injury. I began to fear that I would be unable to do hillwalking and cycling ever again. These were activities I had enjoyed for many years; I valued them and I wanted to be able to have them in my life. So I resolved to try all available treatment options before I abandoned hope: I went to a physio, then an osteopath, an acupuncturist and most recently to a new physio.

The new physio started out my treatment in a different way, by explaining what was happening to me in the chronic injury cycle. I thought that each time I got to the point of intense pain I was re-injuring myself – and this had happened again and again. She said no: the level of pain in my groin was a warning sign (the level of tissue damage was a good way beyond). And each time I exceeded the level of pain (before backing off), I was actually lowering the level at which my groin would become painful the next time. In effect I was teaching my brain to become more and more hypersensitive about my right groin.

In her opinion the injured tissues in my groin should have healed up some while ago. Her treatment strategy was twofold:

Firstly, to get me to do gentle and regular stretching to correctly align the underlying postural muscles around my pelvis.

Secondly, to get me to do my activities at much lower levels of intensity and in a much more controlled way. I should build up carefully and slowly to the point of sensitivity and then scale back. Importantly, I should not stop at this point, but do my activity again the next day (or the day after) and carefully build up to the level of sensitivity again and scale back again. In this way I would progressively be raising my body's threshold of sensitivity and expanding my level of pain-free activity.

I've been following this new approach for just a couple of weeks – so far so good.

 

 

Moving On

I've recently returned from two and a half weeks in England visiting friends and family.

This was my first overseas trip for over 18 months (since my illness). I chose the long ferry from Belfast to Liverpool, an 8 hour crossing, because I wanted to be travelling over there in my own car.

When it came to packing for the trip I found it really hard to decide what to take. I was full of anxieties. I'd arranged to stay in peoples' houses: seven in total, right across the country, moving from one to another. Would I feel OK staying in other peoples houses for such a time? Would I be faced with food that upset my sensitive stomach? And each family I was staying with was different, so I should take particular clothes and things for this activity with these people but then I'd need some different stuff when I was at the next place with the next people? And so on.

I ended up with two holdalls full of stuff. Then I filled two carrier bags with my breakfast food and other snacks. I stared at the pile. My first reaction was pretty self-critical. The old me went on long bike trips abroad with everything I needed in just two pannier bags. Get a grip I grimaced, shaking my head.

Then I sat back and laughed. It really doesn't matter, I thought, there's no weight limit. If the pile of stuff would fit in the boot of the car, it could go. I hauled the bags outside and the boot of my old Focus swallowed them easily.

The first thing I noticed in England was all the traffic. Apparently there are 30 million vehicles on the roads there. This makes normal driving extremely stressful; during peak times it becomes overwhelming and brutal. When I lived there I never thought about all the stress I was absorbing every day (such is the power of normalisation). Irish roads are so relaxed in comparison.

England has many attractive and intriguing places to visit of course (travelling between them is the tough bit). I was using a guidebook to historical sites written by Eric Newby in 1968 and particularly enjoyed Stonehenge (after bouncing on Jeremy Deller's version, I just had to go again), The Square and Compass in Worth Matravers (a Dorset cider-house with its own archaeological museum), Stourhead (the landscape gardens, lake and exotic follies), Clifton Suspension Bridge (aesthetic engineering), The Backstage Tour of the new RSC theatre (almost in the round), Ilam and Thor's Cave in the White Peak (most atmospheric, despite the heavy rain), My Bespoke Tour of Radical Nottingham (that started and finished beside the statue of Brian Clough) and the splendid Babington Chantry in Kingston upon Soar.

It was great to catch up with lots of people who hadn't seen me since I was ill. I offered my thanks for all the support they'd given me (last year in particular) and I gave each of them an Ash seedling from my garden. Everyone said that I looked very well. I responded that I felt very well - physically recovered, fairly fit (20 pounds lighter) and mentally pretty good. Several later admitted they feared they would find me somewhat incapacitated, and were very pleased to encounter the opposite. I was given great hospitality wherever I went.

Some of the friends I caught up with I hadn't seen for many years. There was lots of reminiscing and taking stock. Their children had grown up and were now away at college. I had undergone immense change over the past decade. We were reconnecting through and beyond who we used to be.

And my anxieties? Well, they evaporated. I felt pretty relaxed wherever I was and I never needed my comfort food (despite losing a filling en route). I also managed some very tough days of travelling (longest 13 hours) and drove 1200 miles in total.

My envelope was extended and I realised that I was much more robust than I thought I was. Thanks again to my friends and family for all your help.

 

Nephew Andy and his son Will.

 

 

Lance Armstrong

Today's revelations are truly shocking. The case against Lance Armstrong as a serial doper seems to be overwhelming. And he has chosen not to contest the allegations.

Lance's story of his recovery from cancer (with a bad prognosis) to become a professional cyclist again and then to achieve success in the Tour de France meant a great deal to me. I read 'It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life' as I was recovering from cancer. And Lance's story became a talisman to me. I empathised with his ordeal of treatment and I was enthused by his story of recovery and success.

In 'It's Not About the Bike' Lance describes his path from cancer patient to winner of the Tour as not just a victory of determination and courage, but as a triumph of self-knowledge and reconstruction. At the core of his journey is an intense personal transition (wrought by the ordeal of cancer) and through this renewed understanding of himself (strengths and limitations) he became a better person and a better cyclist: better able to focus, do the hard work, make the right strategic choices and ultimately to succeed.

All cancer patients know that story. How you are suddenly removed from the life you lived before. How all the things that used to make sense to you are changed. And how all you can do is to feel your way forward, rebuilding yourself and your life with whatever resources you can find.

Lance's story offered me hope at a very dark time.

Since I read his book I've made huge strides on my own journey. I know myself better than I ever did before. I've become more fully myself, more complete, more self-assured and more capable.

I will never ride the Tour de France. But I think I'm ready for whatever may come.

After the severity of his illness, it was a magnificent achievement for Lance to finish the Tour - let alone to win it seven times. I also recognise that Lance appears to have done what most other professional cyclists were then doing (taking banned substances to improve their performance), as many have since confessed.

But I still feel hurt and betrayed because my talisman turns out to be tarnished.

The Pond

Not the Atlantic Ocean, but an actual wildlife pond in my garden.

This pond was originally dug out some years ago (by the JCB that was preparing the foundations for my garage). It filled invitingly with water. But then my life became more dramatic than I wanted and like many things, the pond was neglected.

Early this Summer I decided it was time to sort out the pond. The first step was to remove the old water, which had become a soupy dark green. I tried to siphon it out through a hose pipe. This worked at first, but the pipe kept clogging up. After plenty of mouthfuls of putrid water, I gave up. The pond was still half full.

I put my wellies on and waded in with a bucket. The remaining water was stinking and thick with debris - mainly decomposed leaves, I think, but who knows what else could have died down there. I started to sling bucketfuls out. It was heavy work shifting this putrid slurry. With sore arms I heaved and a jet of slurry landed with a filthy slop on the lawn. I started to think of the night soil men that removed the contents of Victorian chamber pots and the horrible diseases I might now be going down with after my ill-advised siphoning. I smiled nervously and began shouting 'gardeloo!'

Next I hired a power washer and blasted the neoprene liner. It took several goes to shift the slippery but gummy deposits that were stuck all over the surface. At the same time, the washer was filling the pond with water again and I had to stop regularly to bucket it out or else my wellies would have been overflowed. My arms ached, but at least all this water was diluting the dark sludge on the lawn.

Then it was digging, and plenty of it. I had planned a bog garden along the one side of the pond. I worked the spade, filled my wheelbarrow with earth and trucked it up the lawn to the edge of the drive. After a couple of barrowfuls, I mopped my brow and began to regret the idea of the bog garden. After twenty or so I crawled into the house, lay down on the carpet and almost went straight to sleep.

Thankfully the rain came and I sought advice on plants for the pond. The very knowledgeable Sally calculated the volume of water in the pond, some 1200 gallons, and told me how many plants of which type I would need to create a healthy environment. I wanted a natural wildlife pond in which the plants would make the oxygen and keep it in balance.

I also wanted the pond to be edged by natural stone. I'd been collecting flat stones from beside the gates of local fields, where they'd been left after ploughing. But I found I didn’t have anything like enough, for the circumference of the pond was some fifty feet. Thwarted, I was chatting to my neighbour who told me that he had demolished an old byre some years ago and had dumped the stone in a field. He said I could have all the stone from there that I wanted.

I went to the field but found it hard to locate the stone. Then I saw the mounds of earth covered in thistles. There were about eight of them. I dug into one a little and hit stone. It was a quarrying job. With pickaxe I levered stones out of the dirt, selected the ones that were flat enough and stacked them into my trailer. After working through five large mounds, I had a trailerfull. At home I washed the stones, cleaned the old mortar from them and trucked them down to the pond in the wheelbarrow.

As a kid I always liked jigsaws. Making the stone pavement around the pond was like that, only you didn’t have a picture to work to. You picked up a stone and set it down in place, wedging small flat stones under it to keep it stable. Then you picked up another stone and tried it next to the first. Then you turned it around and tried it again. Then you tried another. Then perhaps you changed the first one. And so on. Eventually you got a feel for the stones that would fit together.

I really enjoyed this work. It brought me back in touch with rural skills and crafts that I recalled from my childhood. I'm sad that these are now being lost, like hedging and dry stone walling.

After this craft-work, it was again back to graft. Although the end was in sight. Digging through the large pile of earth at the end of the drive, I cleaned the stones from it and added in sharp sand and horse manure. Then I trucked another twenty barrow-loads down to the pond and filled up the trench of the bog garden, first having lined it with gravel. To finish off, I joined the stone pavement to the lawn with cut turf.

And so to the plants. Water lilies and mares tails for the deepest part of the water, flag irises and crimson lobelia for the shallows and astilbes and hostas for the bog garden. A fantastic display (thanks to Sally and Avril).

I sat in a chair beside the pond. It felt very peaceful and restful. It was a good place. And I had made it myself. Newts, water boatmen and diving beetles had already found their way to the pond. Next year I would introduce some fish.

 

 

 

Sacrilege

It wasn't an auspicious opening.

A dingy part of North Belfast. And a gang of teenagers stealing paving slabs at the park entrance. They pause, sneer a little as I walk past, then resume work.

I ascend the grassy slope. A familiar view from atop the rise, huge grey stones standing in a ring.

Screams and howls. Many people careering about.

Not a neolithic sacrifice to a pagan god. But the fun of running, jumping, tumbling and bouncing back up - on an art work.

Jeremy Deller's life-size model of Stonehenge as a bouncy castle had come to Belfast.

Shoes off and I join in. Me and my inner child race helter-skelter through the stones. Different generations from divided communities are happily larking about. The masts of Black Hill above and the great yellow cranes of Harland and Wolff below.

And why shouldn't public art be fun? There are some particularly stodgy examples locally. The dull geodesic globes at the roundabout on Broadway and the turgid maiden with the ring beside Queen's Bridge. Afraid of causing any offence, committees of public officials seem bound to choose the most boring and least memorable designs.

Well done Jeremy Deller. Unleash that inner child.
 

www.sacrilege2012.co.uk

Living Now

Some time ago a good friend sent me a postcard. The front of the card contained just two words: in bright and bold letters it said 'Enjoy Now.' I smiled and put the card on the office wall, beside the door, and turned to some mundane task or other.

Had someone then challenged me – are you really enjoying now? I would have said (without thinking too much) yes, of course. If pressed I would have added, I'm trying. Then some setback or disappointment would occur and my gaze would linger on the postcard. It stared back at me implacably, posing a tough question about how I was living my life that I didn't know how to answer. So I would look away, sometimes with a sigh, and get on with things.

This situation persisted for years, during which I finally left my job (with an early-exit package) and became a full-time writer. On leaving the office I took the card with me. It got bundled up with other things.

Several months ago I found the card again and put it in my bedroom, on the chest of drawers facing the bed. Now it is the last thing I see before going to sleep and the first thing I notice upon waking.

Actually doing what the card advises isn't so difficult anymore. I am learning to live in the here and now. With short-term horizons, my path seems clearer. Either I do things or I dont. I avoid maybe's. This brings a focus and an intensity to my living.

'Take care of today, and tomorrow will take care of itself.' This derives from Matthew (6:34) and I now feel its truth. In the past, I spent a huge amount of time and energy trying to take care of tomorrow

The change in me has of course been wreaked by the illness. When your longer-term survival is actively in question, everything becomes different.

Yet the big question of life is posed for everyone – and truly, nobody knows. So most people go around avoiding thinking about this challenge (with real determination), like I did for all those years.

Perhaps you're wondering whether I've become a Buddhist? Despite spending several nights in a temple on top of a holy mountain in Japan, going to sleep as if it was my last day and rising as if it was my first remains beyond my reach. As does living with no possessions other than saffron robes and a begging bowl (I'm glad to have the comfort of my home and the financial package I left work with).

What seems to have happened is that the traumatic power of the illness broke down the edifice of the old me. It left me in pieces. But unlike Humpty Dumpty, I have put myself back together again. In this process I did need some help (from local cancer charities, instead of all the king's horses and men). And through doing so I've become more truly and fully myself.

The All Clear

I've just come through another series of medical tests, examinations and reviews. These have ranged from the simple (various blood tests) to the more onerous (collecting all my urine for 24 hours in a large plastic container - to test my kidney function). At first I wondered why they had given me such a big bottle, but later I began to be concerned that I would fill it to overflowing. In the end it reached the brim, a whopping three litres.

I have most of these medical tests every six months. They are all mentally and emotionally troubling, especially when you are waiting for the results: each test could signify that an important part of you is not working properly (after all, I only have one kidney now).

By far the worst is the CT scan. This is to check whether there is any evidence of the return of the disease.

The scan itself is no real problem. You come to the hospital an hour before the appointment and steadily drink a large jug of clear fluid. It has an aniseed taste. The fluid is called contrast, it contains metal particles and helps to clarify the images taken of your soft tissues. Then you lie down with your arms above your head on a slim bed in front of an enormous white ring doughnut. This is the scanner. The radiologist goes to the control room. Suddenly the bed slides into the centre of the scanner. It feels a bit claustrophobic. Then a strange mechanical voice tells you to hold your breath. The scanner spins and whirrs like an aero engine. A little panel at eye level counts down in seconds and the voice tells you to breathe. You go through this procedure several times and then the scan is over.

The weeks leading up to your scan are filled with anxiety. And afterwards it gets worse. The stress is intense, until you hear the results. For you know that if the disease did return it would most likely be fatal.

After the scan is done the images are assessed by a consultant radiologist and a report is written for the medic who requested the scan. The report is usually done within 24 hours and uploaded to the hospital information system. It is the responsibility of the medic requesting the scan to relay the results to the patient.

The result of my latest CT scan was all clear. A fantastic relief. And all the other test results were normal too. That means I'm out of the clutches of medics for the next six months.

But I didn't receive this news from the medic who requested my scan, my Urology consultant. Indeed, I still haven't been contacted by him. And I had the scan almost four weeks ago.

By chance I found out through a short-cut. One of my GP's has special access to the hospital information system and he logged in and downloaded the scan report for me a few days after it was posted. Such access for GP's is under trial in Belfast, I believe it is intended to become the norm.

If I was still waiting to hear the result of my scan (by letter from my consultant) I'm sure I would by now have become very ill due to prolonged stress. And of course this would be highly detrimental to my longer-term health.

Communicating with out-patients is a big weakness of the NHS. Last year, when I was an in-patient in the same hospital (Belfast City), I was given the results of each of my scans within 24 hours.