Thank you all for your public and private messages of goodwill for my participation in the new trial drug. I attended my first session yesterday at Leeds Hospital, which went okay. It could not have come soon enough for me, as my pain has worsened considerably over the past month and I spent most of last Saturday in more pain than I have known since my accident as an 11-year-old child when a wagon knocked me down and ran over me. Cancer in my face, neck, and throat is advancing at a rapid rate, and new cancer lumps appear daily now.
The nurse in charge of the Day Ward yesterday, prescribed me some morphine to take at home when the pain next gets too bad. It is ironic, but before my cancers started in early 2013, I had never taken a pain killer since the age of twelve years, and before I had two heart attacks in the same week when I was 60 years old, I refused to take even an aspirin. Last night when I went to bed, the pain was very bad and I took the morphine shot. It alleviated the pain initially but it came back with a vengeance an hour later. However strange it may sound to any non-Christian, I find that prayer is just as helpful as is the strongest paracetamol or even morphine dose.
What has been a Godsend to me over many years of illness, is my daily routine, which unfortunately my increased pain level has interrupted more of late. I always remember my dear friend Etta tell me how important to one's sense of good health and wellbeing it is to have a daily routine. She lived to the old age of 94 years and was so right in her observation on the merits of a routine. For years now, my daily routine and some relaxation techniques have acted as a significant help in distracting my conscious mind away from my body pain.
However, I have noticed during the past two weeks that my morning routine is now taking me twice as long to complete as I have to constantly relax back in my armchair and close my eyes until the pain has been and gone again. Each morning I put my singing post up on eight English sites and fourteen Irish sites that have followed my words and songs for many years now. What once took me two hours on average every morning, now takes me all morning.
So, if any of you message me, and I do not or have not replied to you, please understand that I do read your message sometime during the day, even if I have not had the chance to properly respond to you. I have a few dozen Facebook contacts who are also in terminal stages of their different cancers who keep in regular contact with me and I prioritise them. It is surprising how many people keep their illness to themselves! So many people who are dying are naturally fearful of facing their end, and more people than you could imagine keep quiet about their pain, and remain silent in their struggle or their loneliness (as not all people fighting cancer are blessed to have a loving spouse by their side as I do in Sheila).
My message today is to say 'thank you' for your continued prayers and support, and to explain if I do not always respond to your messages with any more than a kiss. I also want to say to all people struggling with cancer out there that not only is it okay to share your pain but it is wise to do so. It is so satisfying to feel the tangible love of another person whom you have never met come your way. It is so remarkable to know that there are many others who want to, and who are willing to share your painful journey with you. No person in any struggle anywhere or anytime ever needs to walk their last road alone. All one has to do is to show themselves willing, and to stretch out their hand in friendship, to feel the hand of another return the loving gesture.
Finally, I experienced a remarkable coincidence yesterday at St. James' Hospital in Leeds. I was in a small ward that held four patients, two receiving chemotherapy, and two receiving Cancer Immunotherapy. There have only been five people selected for this new and expensive drug trial in Leeds over the past two years since it started. I was the fifth person. The person in the opposite chair to me was one of 'The Famous Five' in the drug trial I am on. He is a few years older than me and has been taking the drug every three weeks for the past ten months. I do not know his circumstances but I would like to think that our meeting was much more than a coincidence?
Love and peace
Bill xxx
