Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "surgery"
Timmy the Tumour
After two weeks in limbo I finally get to see an oncologist this week. Said doctor will outline my coming chemotherapy, two cycles of which I will have over a period of six weeks. Roughly five weeks after that (July) I will have surgery to remove a tumour from my osophagus.
I was diagnosed with cancer on March 12th. It wasn't a total surprise. You don't get referred to 'a team of specialists' at a major hospital for no reason, although the guy who carried out my endoscopy spoke only of scarring and ulceration and his 'concern'. It's a consultant's job to deliver the bad news. My arse was barely on a waiting room chair a minute before a nurse took me to be weighed. Another minute seated and I was ushered into a consulation room and left alone for ten minutes listening to mumbled voices through the wall. Then came the handshake, followed by a frenetic fortnight of tests, a CT scan, more tests, endless needles in my arms, swabs, ECGs and finally a PET scan, where they inject you with radioactivity and instruct you not to move for thirty minutes. All this is free of course. It's called the NHS and it's a marvel. I'm lucky enough to live in the north east of England. The Royal Victoria Hospital, along with the Freeman Hospital, have taken very good care for me. In the near future the latter will shoot me up with drugs and the former cut me open, and I'll be extremely grateful. Cancer care in this region is amongst the best in Europe and my plan is to welcome it with open arms.
The chemo is to shrink the tumour and knock out any lurking bad cells on a micro level. My tumour measures about four centimetres but hasn't spread, so the prognosis is good. I should be okay. This is a curative scenario. The surgery will involve using part of my stomach to fill the gap left by removing the affected area of my osophagus, thus shrinking it somewhat, having first opened my chest and deflated a lung. There will be tubes coming out of me I'm told, but I won't complain. And yes, I have given the tumour a name. It's personal.
Timothy is a psychotic robot in the book I'm currently writing, THUMP vol. 2. Volume 1 is available to download/buy; also currently the subject of a Goodreads giveaway, six PB copies up for grabs to anyone in the UK. I went global with my last giveaway but this cost me a fortune and the retruns weren't great, and frankly I'm skint, although Smashwords did just pay me $28.
To conclude. I'm not dead yet. What more can you ask, eh?
Buy a book!
I was diagnosed with cancer on March 12th. It wasn't a total surprise. You don't get referred to 'a team of specialists' at a major hospital for no reason, although the guy who carried out my endoscopy spoke only of scarring and ulceration and his 'concern'. It's a consultant's job to deliver the bad news. My arse was barely on a waiting room chair a minute before a nurse took me to be weighed. Another minute seated and I was ushered into a consulation room and left alone for ten minutes listening to mumbled voices through the wall. Then came the handshake, followed by a frenetic fortnight of tests, a CT scan, more tests, endless needles in my arms, swabs, ECGs and finally a PET scan, where they inject you with radioactivity and instruct you not to move for thirty minutes. All this is free of course. It's called the NHS and it's a marvel. I'm lucky enough to live in the north east of England. The Royal Victoria Hospital, along with the Freeman Hospital, have taken very good care for me. In the near future the latter will shoot me up with drugs and the former cut me open, and I'll be extremely grateful. Cancer care in this region is amongst the best in Europe and my plan is to welcome it with open arms.
The chemo is to shrink the tumour and knock out any lurking bad cells on a micro level. My tumour measures about four centimetres but hasn't spread, so the prognosis is good. I should be okay. This is a curative scenario. The surgery will involve using part of my stomach to fill the gap left by removing the affected area of my osophagus, thus shrinking it somewhat, having first opened my chest and deflated a lung. There will be tubes coming out of me I'm told, but I won't complain. And yes, I have given the tumour a name. It's personal.
Timothy is a psychotic robot in the book I'm currently writing, THUMP vol. 2. Volume 1 is available to download/buy; also currently the subject of a Goodreads giveaway, six PB copies up for grabs to anyone in the UK. I went global with my last giveaway but this cost me a fortune and the retruns weren't great, and frankly I'm skint, although Smashwords did just pay me $28.
To conclude. I'm not dead yet. What more can you ask, eh?
Buy a book!
The World's Least Popular Author
I have to admit this is largely my own doing. I don't write books people want to read and I'm terrible at self-promotion. Not that I write bad books; it's just a matter of taste, or rather convention, for folk are impossibly conservative when it comes to their likes and dislikes and most won't travel off a given path unless persuaded (by recommendation) or pushed.
Self-publishing has opened a can of worms over recent years. Some have made a great success of it, whilst others have merely added to the growing pile of worm sloughings. I like to think I have something original to offer, but originality is no guarantee of readers; indeed, the opposite might be said to be true. And round we go again. So what's the answer? Clearly there isn't one. One, in fact, must simply persist, laughing off the one star reviews and smiling at the £0.14 Amazon now and then drops into one's bank account. Years of hard work and effort are besides the point. Conform or die, publishing says. Well, publishing, fuck you.
I had major surgery to remove a tumour four weeks ago. First they cut open my belly and remodelled my stomach. Then they opened my chest under my right shoulder and cut out my osophagus, along with the offending part. My stomach was then joined to what remained of my gullet and I was glued back together again. I had drains in my sides, tubes in my arms, nose, belly and winky. I only spent eight days in hospital, however, which was pretty good going, and now I can drink wine and munch crisps again.
Life has never been particularly kind to me: my true love was lost, I've only ever received rejection letters from publishers and agents, I've been bankrupt, have no pets or kids, not had a holiday in decades, and in the fourth year of junior school I wasn't made a prefect. Some of these things still rankle. I'm fifty next year. And you know what? I don't give a shit. And neither frankly should you.
Self-publishing has opened a can of worms over recent years. Some have made a great success of it, whilst others have merely added to the growing pile of worm sloughings. I like to think I have something original to offer, but originality is no guarantee of readers; indeed, the opposite might be said to be true. And round we go again. So what's the answer? Clearly there isn't one. One, in fact, must simply persist, laughing off the one star reviews and smiling at the £0.14 Amazon now and then drops into one's bank account. Years of hard work and effort are besides the point. Conform or die, publishing says. Well, publishing, fuck you.
I had major surgery to remove a tumour four weeks ago. First they cut open my belly and remodelled my stomach. Then they opened my chest under my right shoulder and cut out my osophagus, along with the offending part. My stomach was then joined to what remained of my gullet and I was glued back together again. I had drains in my sides, tubes in my arms, nose, belly and winky. I only spent eight days in hospital, however, which was pretty good going, and now I can drink wine and munch crisps again.
Life has never been particularly kind to me: my true love was lost, I've only ever received rejection letters from publishers and agents, I've been bankrupt, have no pets or kids, not had a holiday in decades, and in the fourth year of junior school I wasn't made a prefect. Some of these things still rankle. I'm fifty next year. And you know what? I don't give a shit. And neither frankly should you.
Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life
...there may be lumps in either or both.
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