Survival
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog as I’ve turned most of my ‘downtime’ into creating YouTube videos which, if interested, can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/@BriKinsella/featured
However, I’ve returned to the keybored (sic) due to a podcast I did with a Polish lady Anita Odachowska. She had been directed to my YouTube channel by a friend and Porsche enthusiast who watched ‘Cancer in me, but me in a Porsche across Europe’
Anita has vast experience in the media and working for government agencies, I can’t seem to successfully embed her website into this post so if interested search anitaodachowska.pl
But her podcasts are based around the following:
- “On This Side” , the subject of which may surprise listeners of my verbal columns from the podcast Fabryka Słowa, because it is woven around death, mourning, trauma, depression, and my mission is to wisely accompany people suffering after the loss of someone close, helping them find a new meaning in life, and to make those who have not yet experienced anyone’s death aware that it is right next to us and to teach them to accept that it will come someday, and to encourage them to take better care of the quality of their lives.
Her friend, having watched my video and got an insight into my present situation, thought that my story ‘fitted’ with her podcast profile.
The podcast was done about a month ago and although my thoughts haven’t changed I still have had plenty of thinking time whilst my European touring wings have been ‘clipped’.
Having just completed my first course of six chemotherapies, who knows how many more lie ahead, if in fact any? But I suspect there’ll be plenty more treatment lying in wait over the horizon, that’s why I don’t look towards the horizon, any thoughts other than my immediate future lie tucked away in a box which I keep the lid firmly on.
So what’s this ‘survival’ thing all about you may wonder?
Whilst lying awake in bed during the early hours, let’s blame the steroid dexamethasone, or as my great friend Andy refers to it ‘Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ 😆 I got pondering what I’d been through last year which took me to the title of this blog post.
Since the birth of humanity, I think I may be right in thinking that the basic survival needs, discounting being attacked by an animal, were to be able to eat, drink and stay warm. Those basic needs are still present today, not living in a flash house, having a Porsche 😉 or motorbikes 🙄 , having the latest mobile phone or biggest telly, earning vast amounts of money so we can be the richest person in the graveyard, these are maybe nice luxuries to enjoy but are far removed from our survival needs.
We don’t give these needs a second thought because for the vast majority of us they are a ‘given’, we’ve had them all our lives, it’s been natural so why would you even give it a second thought? Until………. it’s taken away!
Now that applies to most things we have which we take for granted in life, from a loving relationship which is lost, to things as minor as “The internet’s gone down”! Or there’s no mobile signal, OMG how are we going to survive?
Last year, as many of you know, particularly those close to me, things got a bit dodgy. To use a footballing term ‘my life hit the post’ or at least the ball was cleared off the line 😬.
Yes I was warm, but the other two basic needs of being able to eat and drink were taken away from me, the tumour in my oesophagus had quickly grown to such an extent that they struggled to get the feeding tube past it and into my stomach. I hadn’t’t eaten or drank anything for five days and for the remaining five weeks survived solely on a ten hour daily liquid feed. I lost two stones (over 12 kgs) in two weeks and aged ten years. Fortunately I survived my nine days in hospital straight from my first chemo, in no small measure due to the intervention of my great friends Joe and Andy who could see that I wasn’t being properly cared for and instigated the obvious administration of saline. That may just have saved my life!
The combination of the three chemotherapies I had eventually allowed me to swallow again, the tube was removed which was one of the best feelings ever, and I could increase my bodyweight by actually swallowing again!
I had seven weeks before the robotic assisted full day’s operation was due at the end of June. I was told that after it my life would never be the same again (and they weren’t wrong there) and that it could take a year to recover, which obviously takes me to June 2024. Yes life isn’t the same and I will spare you the list of things that are ‘not the same’ but it’s a great life, there are moments in every day that I am completely comfortable and pain free. And when I’m not, I know it’s only temporary and will pass in an hour or few.
Of course the oesophageal cancer I no longer have as the tumour was removed, so just for good measure I now have it in several places in my body but hey, that’s life (for some) and any daily uncomfortable issues I have serves as a reminder that being pain free and comfortable is yet again not a ‘given’ but something I would imagine most healthy people don’t give a second thought to because it’s natural of course, until it isn’t.
So why am I rambling on and what is the point of this blog post? Maybe that I want you to know that despite the physical challenges I have, and still enduring, I am very fortunate. At present my mindset is very good and again that isn’t a ‘given’. Some people really struggle emotionally and mentally through cancer, maybe I’ve developed a coping strategy or I’m just so thick that I don’t concern myself with anything other than this moment?
I ended one of my videos with a time-lapse of the setting sun over the Mediterranean with these words which remain my present take on life.
“There are too many positives in my life to list, from my lovely and supportive family and close friends, simple moments in life like being physically comfortable, being able to eat and drink, ride my bike and drive my car, go for a walk in my beloved Lake District, to watching the birds on the feeders in my garden. Maybe experiencing the emotional and physical traumas I have over the last four years has raised even further my appreciation of what I have? It seems that suffering has become the catalyst to enhancing my life even further. I know that challenging times lie ahead, but I’ll deal with that when I get there. I am not going to spoil this day, hour or minute worrying about the future, it would be a waste of my beautiful life”
Here is the YouTube of the podcast Anita did with me:
https://youtu.be/eNXlltsIBMs?si=pfY-VJb3jj6doiUT