Update on oggbashan's health

[TarnishedPenny]

Dibs on opening night tickets!

 

[oggbashan]

I am pleased that I am not going back to the oncology unit soon.

I was very unpopular with most other patients because I had no side effects from chemotherapy apart from losing some of my hair. I still kept most of my beard and fuzz on top of my head. Both are now regrowing including on the bald patch I had had for a decade. Many of the other patients went completely bald especially the women who were distressed by their hair loss. Seeing my beard was a reminder that not everyone lost all hair.

Radiotherapy was similar. After the first session, all I felt was some bloating as if I had eaten too much of a medium-hot curry. After the next ones - no reaction at all but most of the other radiotherapy patients had a sore throat and difficulty in swallowing. They had to live on invalid preparations and ice cream while I was eating anything and everything. Even after the first session we stopped off at a cafe for a full English Breakfast. Maybe that, not the radiotherapy, caused the bloating. I am supposed to lose my chest hair where the radiotherapy was sited. Nope!

The nurses and doctors can't understand it. They were expecting more side-effects. They had to reassure me that despite my lack of reaction the treatments were actually working.

 

[fifty5]

I was very unpopular with most other patients because I had no side effects from chemotherapy apart from losing some of my hair. I still kept most of my beard and fuzz on top of my head. Both are now regrowing including on the bald patch I had had for a decade. Many of the other patients went completely bald especially the women who were distressed by their hair loss. Seeing my beard was a reminder that not everyone lost all hair.

Radiotherapy was similar. After the first session, all I felt was some bloating as if I had eaten too much of a medium-hot curry. After the next ones - no reaction at all but most of the other radiotherapy patients had a sore throat and difficulty in swallowing. They had to live on invalid preparations and ice cream while I was eating anything and everything. Even after the first session we stopped off at a cafe for a full English Breakfast. Maybe that, not the radiotherapy, caused the bloating. I am supposed to lose my chest hair where the radiotherapy was sited. Nope!

The nurses and doctors can't understand it. They were expecting more side-effects. They had to reassure me that despite my lack of reaction the treatments were actually working.

I have to live on soup, yoghurt and medicines (things I can swallow), but my GP has had me checked me for cancer and nothing was found.

Keep on going Ogg, you'll outlive us all!

 

[oggbashan]

I have to live on soup, yoghurt and medicines (things I can swallow), but my GP has had me checked me for cancer and nothing was found.

Keep on going Ogg, you'll outlive us all!

My wife gets annoyed with me. I have to take pills for my diabetes. Some of them are larger than any she could swallow and I take two at a time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The nurses and doctors can't understand it. They were expecting more side-effects. They had to reassure me that despite my lack of reaction the treatments were actually working.

Can you fit into a black and red suit with a mask and climb smooth surfaces? Once this shit is over, they'll be wanting to make another Spiderman sequel. Captain Doom's off writing the script. You'll be fine, provided he stays away from beaches .

 

[JamesMiehoff]

Your story brings to mind a long standing theory of mine, "The length of a marriage is directly proportional to the number and severity of the catastrophes that occur during the wedding."

My favorite example of this was at a friend's wedding, as the minister asked if there was any objection to this union, the church was struck by lightning. 40+ years later they are still happily married.

James

 

[oggbashan]

Your story brings to mind a long standing theory of mine, "The length of a marriage is directly proportional to the number and severity of the catastrophes that occur during the wedding."

My favorite example of this was at a friend's wedding, as the minister asked if there was any objection to this union, the church was struck by lightning. 40+ years later they are still happily married.

James

This story of mine was based on a real event affecting my father's friends.

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/golden-wedding

They have now been married for twenty (or seventy!) years.

 

[oggbashan]

I have just received two letters from the NHS.

One was the expected "You are at severe risk" letter.

The other was a reminder to attend IN PERSON a consultation at our local hospital on Wednesday. I had already had a phone call changing that to a telephone consultation.

Even more stupid was that the reminder letter contradicts the 'severe risk' letter AND states they don't have a current telephone number for me when they telephoned me yesterday. Doh!

 

[Handley_Page]

I have just received two letters from the NHS.

One was the expected "You are at severe risk" letter.

The other was a reminder to attend IN PERSON a consultation at our local hospital on Wednesday. I had already had a phone call changing that to a telephone consultation.

Even more stupid was that the reminder letter contradicts the 'severe risk' letter AND states they don't have a current telephone number for me when they telephoned me yesterday. Doh!

Could this be a case of the left hand not talking to the right ?

 

[oggbashan]

Could this be a case of the left hand not talking to the right ?

Yes. When I rang the appointments clerk he sighed.

Yes. they have my phone number. No. I shouldn't attend. ALL appointments have been changed to telephone consultations. He was pissed off because they had sent standard letters, including the part about not having telephone numbers, to everyone having an appointment next week.

Every time I have been at hospital this year they have checked my name, my date of birth, my address and telephone number at least three times on every visit.

 

[fifty5]

A choise of evils

Yes. When I rang the appointments clerk he sighed.

Yes. they have my phone number. No. I shouldn't attend. ALL appointments have been changed to telephone consultations. He was pissed off because they had sent standard letters, including the part about not having telephone numbers, to everyone having an appointment next week.

Every time I have been at hospital this year they have checked my name, my date of birth, my address and telephone number at least three times on every visit.

I guess this is the result of trying to economise:
1 - Employees should follow instructions instead of thinking (standard letters)
2 - The administrator who devised the rules didn't anticipate a case like yours

The way to avoid this sort of thing is to allow staff to think for themselves

The problem is that that breeds megalomania, a different problem but just as bad as the unthinking need to economise.

 

[oggbashan]

This afternoon I went out into my front garden overlooking the sea.

The wind was blowing my hair - the first time that has happened since chemotherapy reduced the hair on my head to a fuzz. It is growing back.

It was only when I reached the front wall that I realised that I had left my walking stick in the kitchen. That is the furthest I have walked for months without a stick, and I hadn't even noticed!

 

[TwinkleStars]

This afternoon I went out into my front garden overlooking the sea.

The wind was blowing my hair - the first time that has happened since chemotherapy reduced the hair on my head to a fuzz. It is growing back.

It was only when I reached the front wall that I realised that I had left my walking stick in the kitchen. That is the furthest I have walked for months without a stick, and I hadn't even noticed!

Way to go, tough man!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Way to go, tough man!

The Ogg rocks!

 

[SimonDoom]

Glad to hear the good news!

 

[oggbashan]

Thanks, people.

I was told that the chemotherapy might take a couple of months to improve my symptoms. It seems to be true - but it would be great to lose my double vision.

I am still typing like a pirate with an eyepatch.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

The Ogg rocks!

You’re amazing, Ogg!!!!

 

[yukonnights]

The Ogg rocks!

The Ogg! The Ogg! The Ogg rocks! So happy for you and your loved ones.

 

[fifty5]

This afternoon I went out into my front garden overlooking the sea.

The wind was blowing my hair - the first time that has happened since chemotherapy reduced the hair on my head to a fuzz. It is growing back.

It was only when I reached the front wall that I realised that I had left my walking stick in the kitchen. That is the furthest I have walked for months without a stick, and I hadn't even noticed!

Rock on, Ogg! I am so glad that it is going well for you!

 

[R. Richard]

It was only when I reached the front wall that I realised that I had left my walking stick in the kitchen. That is the furthest I have walked for months without a stick, and I hadn't even noticed!

Well, there is your problem. Pirates use a cutlass, not a stick.

 

[oggbashan]

Well, there is your problem. Pirates use a cutlass, not a stick.

As I said in another post when young my father's office was lined with Naval Cutlasses used and damaged during the battle of Trafalgar.

I used to practice cutlass drill with them, and the now obsolete naval exercise of double cutlass swinging. Cutlasses were heavy but they improved my shoulder and arm muscles.

Cutlass swinging was probably stopped because the risk of an accident with a sharp blade was high. Even 150 years after Trafalgar the cutlasses were sharp even if showing damage from use in combat.

This is a video of cutlass drill ( from 0.30):

https://youtu.be/YiIDHPO54BI

 

[Handley_Page]

All Hail, king Ogg

 

[oggbashan]

More on Trafalgar...

In my father's office, there was a brass plaque on the wall to commemorate that Nelson's body was stored there before shipping back to England.

That office and the whole complex was demolished in the 1990s despite protests from local historical bodies.

But our official residence in the Old Naval Hospital had history too. The main living room had been an operating theatre where many amputations had been carried out after Trafalgar. It was being used as a hospital until the 1930s.

The key to our coal cellar - a vaulted chamber with a masonry arched ceiling - had a brass tag saying 'X-Ray room'.

 

[LWulf]

As I said in another post when young my father's office was lined with Naval Cutlasses used and damaged during the battle of Trafalgar.

I have a family heirloom cavalry cutlass (saber?) from the American civil war. It doesn't show much use, but it's dull. I'm not sure of the difference, but a cutlass is one sided, and short. This isn't that short, but it's also one sided.

My grandfather found my dad waving one around one day (when he was young, natch'), and took it away, then broke it.

Sorry, but are you bringing that up because you're using the cutlasses for physical therapy?

 

[oggbashan]

...

Sorry, but are you bringing that up because you're using the cutlasses for physical therapy?

No. That would be too dangerous. It was dangerous then but my instructor was one of my father's colleagues, an ex-Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer, who had taught cutlass drill to recruits in the 1930s.

I try to keep fit within my limitations but swinging a cutlass would worry my neighbours. I can't do it indoors. Although my house was built in 1939 the ceilings are too low. My father's office had 15 feet ceilings.