Apple Picking, Scan and Surgery

Our house is suffused with mellow fruitfulness. The apple tree produced a bumper crop of about a thousand apples. We cooked loads and stored the fruit in the freezer. We gave bagfuls of them away to friends and neighbours. Still hundreds of apples lie on newspapers in the living room and lounge. After apple picking came two weighty pieces of medical news. Both arrived on the same day.

First I learnt that my latest CT scan is clear. Needless to say this is an enormous relief. It means that I have been clear of cancer for one whole year, as I was discharged from hospital in September last year after cancer surgery. Following months of recuperation, I was left with a nagging pain in my side. I was told by the surgeon that this was nerve damage. Over recent months the pain has slowly diminished and today I only feel it on a bad day.

Second I got a letter from the Royal Hospital Belfast telling me I am planned to be admitted next Monday for surgery on Tuesday. This was a bit of a shock. I had been expecting this call in June and when it didn’t come I put the surgery to the back of my mind and got on with enjoying the summer. We had a lovely staycation with plenty of fine trips. Now this stay of execution has been suddenly rescinded.

The surgery is to repair a hernia in my left diaphragm that was caused by the first big cancer operation I had in 2011. Since then much of my stomach has been in my thorax depressing my left lung. After a while I got used to this problem and managed to live an active life despite it. But I have been persuaded that it is important to get this hernia fixed to improve my symptoms and to guard against future problems and deterioration. I have been getting troublesome gastric symptoms (IBS) over the last year and am now on the FODMAP diet.

This is a big operation, a thoracotomy. This means that they cut between my ribs and open my thorax. Then the surgeon can see the exact nature of the hernia and the level of difficulty of the repair. This is not clear on the imaging that has been done thus far. The surgeon with then cut my stomach from the diaphragm, reposition it in my abdomen and patch the hole with mesh.

I am expected to be in hospital for around two weeks. The recuperation is long and slow as I can’t put any strain on my diaphragm for at least three months. And my rejoined ribs will be extremely painful. I hope that next year I can begin to build up my strength and fitness and restart singing, hillwalking and cycling.

Unlike each of my other operations, this is elective surgery. It is my choice whether to have it. And since the letter came I have been plagued by fears that I will be worse off after the surgery. Alongside this is the resentment that I have to go through another year of pain and incapacity just because of a mistake that a surgeon made.

As the surgery is elective, it is also the NHS’s choice when to do it. I have to ring the ward on Monday morning and check if I can still be admitted that day. A more urgent case could have come along over the weekend and I would be displaced and postponed.

There is of course a long list of things that need to be done around the house before I go in to hospital. I am steadily working my way through them with much trepidation. T is doing similarly, in the knowledge that she will have to look after me and Rex together over the coming months. It’s not going to be easy.

Rex

The old farmer down the lane got a new dog and wanted rid of his old dog, Rex. He told us that Rex was ‘no bloody good’ and he was going to shoot him. We said that Rex was a fine, friendly dog. The old farmer insisted Rex was ‘no bloody good’, but said he would give him to us if we wanted him. We thought for a while. Now Rex the farm dog is our dog.

The old farmer kept Rex chained up for most of the day. Sometimes Rex would be loose and would often walk with us when we went down to the bottom of the lane and back. Sometimes he would come all the way up to our house and then stay around in our garden until dusk, when I would walk him back to the farm.

Rex always seemed hungry. We made a point of giving him food whenever we could because we thought that the old farmer wasn’t feeding him properly. This situation got worse when the new dog arrived. Rex was displaced from his spot in the yard and shut away somewhere each evening. He seemed hungrier and thinner; the new dog was being given most of the food.

We bought Rex a large wooden kennel and put it under the bay window at the front of the house. We were told that we would have to keep him chained up for a while before he got used to his new surroundings. I got a long chain, twenty five feet, which was tethered beside the kennel. He could run onto the lawn and go as far as the front door.

The first night Rex refused to go into the kennel and slept on the doormat inside the front porch. He howled during the small hours. The next day I tried to coax him into the kennel with food, but he still refused to enter it. That night he again slept on the doormat and howled. The next morning T stroked him and sang, ‘How much is that Doggie in the Window?’ for him. He enjoyed it.

I quizzed several local dog owners about why he wouldn’t go into the kennel. The first said that he was bound to go in, just give him time. The other said perhaps he was scared of it because he had been locked up in a small dark space. This seemed most likely, and probably happened after he was displaced by the new dog at the farm.

The third night he again slept on the doormat but didn’t howl. Rex seems to have rapidly got used to us and his new home. He is only 18 months old and seems eager to learn. We take him on walks on a lead as, whilst at the farm, he developed a bad habit of chasing cars. When a car comes by we make him sit and when he tries to leap up and chase it we say firmly no and push him back down to sitting. After the car has gone and he remains sitting we give him a treat.

Yesterday, I let him off the chain and he happily ran around our large garden and didn’t try to run back to the farm. He went into our neighbour’s garden, but came back when called. I patted him on the head enthusiastically. His head was wet and sticky. He had been rolling in fox shit. Ah, the joys of dog ownership.

Revisiting Donegal

To mark the end of summer we headed to Dunfanaghy for a short break. T was keen to revisit places where she had holidayed as a child. And my first holiday after moving to NI nineteen years ago had been a cycle-tour of Donegal. The weather forecast was for rain, but we struck it lucky. On each day of our trip the sun shone brightly, the sea sparkled and the hills gleamed. Whilst there was the occasional rain shower too, they soon passed and the sunshine was restored.

We stayed at The Mill in Dunfanaghy, an award-winning restaurant with well appointed rooms. It was formerly a flax mill and then the home and studio of Frank Eggington, who painted acclaimed watercolours of Donegal. The Mill is run by the grand-daughter of the artist and her husband is the head chef. Paintings line the walls throughout, many by Frank Eggington himself, alongside collections of oriental pottery. Our room looked out over a reed-lined lake towards Muckish.

Building on a succession of awards for its food and hospitality, The Mill won the prize of best restaurant in Ulster this year. It offers a six-course menu. You relax in armchairs in the lounge and make your selections, appetite whetted by home-smoked olives and a small glass of gazpacho. For my starter I had goat from Horn Head on a bed of finely chopped bacon and potatoes. After a sorbet, my main was local lamb, served three different ways: a chop, a steak and a croquette, garnished with samphire and kale. My dessert was lemon tart with lime sorbet coated with meringue. Afterwards we struggled back to the lounge for coffee and petit-fours. And after a sound sleep we went  down to an indulgent breakfast, with home-made carragheen, preserves, stewed fruits and breads, followed by the best fry I have ever tasted, with organic meats, duck eggs and home-made potato bread.

No wonder The Mill has won so many awards, every course of each meal was extremely well prepared and presented. After such luxurious repasts we needed to be active. On the first day we went to Ards Friary and walked around the coast and into the Forest Park. It is a very unspoilt peninsula: just sea, sandy beaches, rocky outcrops and trees. Across Sheephaven Bay you could see the long strand of Tramore and the developments around Downings.

On the second day I went cycling, as T searched for the old haunts from her childhood. She drove me to Creeslough and I cycled to Carrigart then across the new bridge onto the Fanad and around the coast to Fanad Head. As I arrived a rainstorm began, just as it had nineteen years before, and I ended up sheltering under the same trees. After half an hour it cleared. I then returned via Milford and around Mulroy Bay back to Creeslough. I had forgotten how hilly the roads of Donegal are. I had climbed to the top of Slieve Donard in the 52 miles I covered. By the end I was so tired that I had to rest on the bed before I was able to summon the energy to go down for the evening meal.

On the third day we went sightseeing. T delightedly showed me the places she had visited the day before. We drove and walked around Horn Head, got fantastic views out to Tory Island, climbed to the battlements of Doe Castle, had lunch in McNutt’s Cafe at Downings and went walking on Tramore Strand. After we did the Atlantic Drive and then went over the new bridge to Fanad, ending up at the lighthouse. As the sun began to slide down towards the shining sea we had to set off for our return journey. We had packed plenty into our break and we were pretty tired. But it was good to know that all these riches were only three and a half hours drive from our house. And the past was not such a far country.