First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

11 Responses

1. edith greenberg says:

   August 16, 2008 at 11:46 pm

   Thank you for this. It helps to understand what you were feeling.
2. Victoria Neumark Jones says:

   August 17, 2008 at 9:22 pm

   It is not for nothing that Latin “pateor” is the root for “patient” and means “I suffer”…. it is all about suffering.. courage mon amie!
3. The Bolter says:

   August 21, 2008 at 2:07 pm

   Nothing personal, but POOR YOU - having ones energy ( ergo, joy of life ? ) semi-permanently removed takes a giant leap of faith and trust; no easy task amid our media fanned tin pot ’scientists’ busy sneering at religion and belief systems all round

   However , ‘ heard this one ? ‘ :

   Q ” What’s the difference between God and a consultant ? ”
   A ” God does not think he is a consultant ”

   Despite sound survival instincts demanding a hasty exit any which way up , our bodies are a lot more resilient than we might think ; chemo really can work miracles - sticking with the programme is a brave but ultimately sensible move - even when the hammer horror film side-effects ( corpse-like appearance / ‘chemo cut’ hair do ) contrive to demolish what little spirit is left altogether

   It can be difficult to take medicine seriously considering the not too distant treatments of the recent past ( many of which seemed to have shocked the body / immune system into recovery rather than had any direct effect ? ) ; once our then family GP wrote an ‘ emergency hospital admission ‘ letter for a tonsillectomy - which I quietly folded and left in my teenage pocket ; convinced the bug was nothing more than a respiratory tract infection bought on by a Belmondo inspired affection for Gitanes

   Years later this proved a good move - apparently the operation was simply a fashionable one at the time, practised far too widely, given the risks involved

   However, if, as the docs now know , stress hormones delay wound-healing - whilst it would be insane not to question everything ,
   perhaps worrying too much about prescribed treatment could
   reduce the desired effect and possibly even ‘ sour the blood ‘

   On the bright side, from what I have observed, chemo side-effects
   are so tiring, patients are unlikely to have the energy to throw themselves into the Thames before they get better ; but they ought to take up the counselling offered by kind Macmillan staff anyway

   Meantime, in relation to what we add into the mix of our blood, personal experience showed that on a subconscious level our bodies do seem to know best : following a luckily ‘routine’ op last week
   ( well, routine for them, perhaps ; and yes, in a comic moment, reassuringly tried to leggit from the ‘recovery’ room - despite significant dose of morphine - legs temporarily out of order and sitting in a large pool of crimson fluid ) it is almost impossible to swallow anything synthetic - only fresh, hand-made by elves nosh will do, and in easily digestible amounts ; as if the appetite compass gets automatically re-set to ‘health’ by the petit mal of general anaesthetic

   A surgeon chum presrcibes large bars of chocolate, squashy sofas and a video … I, personally cannot wait for Usain Bolt’s triumphs on You Tube. Meantime, Boris Johnson’s “Who Do You Think You Are ? ” is a universal painkiller - ought to be cloned for Lourdes - and
   the star himself headhunted to rule the world before it is too late

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00d56ky/
4. The Bolter says:

   August 22, 2008 at 11:07 am

   ‘ Any feedback on these themes , or any others that you think I should consider , is very welcome ‘

   Boris’ fine conclusion :

   ” We are not the ultimate expression of our genes .. we’re just
   the temporary custodians of these things .. it’s fundamentally,
   in the end, incredibly democratic ”

   might be a fascinating philosophical horizon to consider - and
   might even appease the destructively dim ‘class warriors’ too ?
5. Susan Greenberg says:

   August 22, 2008 at 10:35 pm

   Hello Bolter, thanks for keeping an eye on me, as it were. Medical lore has it that chemo patients generally put on weight, so perhaps they are all following your surgeon chum’s advice. In my case, I went on a diet as a way of feeling in control of something, and as a result everyone now says how well I look — which is funny really. Also enjoyed the Boris Johnson TV episode, though thought it says more about his writerly imagination that it does about his strengths as a politician.
6. frances borzello says:

   August 24, 2008 at 3:08 pm

   The Susan Greenberg piece was so unusual, bringing the mind into it. It was also admirably concise. However, I found I wanted to read a little bit more about the mind thing — explaining it a bit more because I think it is a really unusual idea. Susan, do you actually mean that the lack of white blood cells affect the mind ? Or do you mean the lack affects the brain, a physical thing, as in liver or kidneys?
7. Susan Greenberg says:

   August 25, 2008 at 12:18 am

   Thanks for the question. I feel I am straying into tricky territory to do with the old mind/body debate, without being an expert, and will try to pull together some thoughts in a separate posting. Meanwhile, I think my idea is that whatever gets added or subtracted to the blood affects the whole body; what affects the body affects the mind; the mind and the brain are related but not identical; and feelings come from a complicated process involving both the body and mind. What do other people think?
8. miranda says:

   August 29, 2008 at 11:26 am

   Yes.Thanks for this.Sounds familiar.Reminds me,with a shudder,of last year.I remember speaking with a friend who was nearing the end of her treatment as i was just beginning mine.She seemed so vulnerable and exposed…Skinless.Raw.A psychic translucency.I vowed to myself that I wouldnt let it get to me like that.It did though.
9. Being a patient at First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog says:

   August 29, 2008 at 5:31 pm

   [...] about the personal experience of illness in a broadly analytical way. The first posting looked at blood, and how its condition affects our mental [...]
10. Reports from the cell face at First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog says:

    September 10, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    [...] first in the series will focus on blood: how the composition of what is flowing through our veins can affect the mind, and our existence [...]
11. The end of certainty at First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog says:

    September 11, 2008 at 11:58 am

    [...] is the third in a series related to my cancer treatment. The first posting looked at blood and how its condition affects our mental state. The second, on patienthood, promised more [...]