Time

It's pretty much impossible now to get the time to write. As I sit here I have two little beings bobbing around at my elbow. One munching loudly, the other (literate) one giving out about what I am writing. 
"Hey!" she says, "who are you sending that to?" 
"I'm not sending it to anyone, it's called a blog, like an online diary." 
But a public one, that anyone in the world can read. So I am sending it, to people I don't even know. 
Hello you guys that I don't know, hope you are all well. 
Though if you are interested in a stranger with cancer, I'm guessing you might not be all that well. 

I'm beginning to think that all people with serious illness should have small children. All those charities out there offering support for cancer sufferers, and not one of them provides the service of lending you a few toddlers for a few months. There's definitely a gap in the market. Because it is fundamentally impossible to be unwell when you have needy loud hilarious indefatigable terrorists rampaging around you all day, and hugging you with all their hearts at night. 
There is no time for pitying yourself when there is barely time for peeing by yourself. 
I haven't really mentioned my youngest bundle of deliciousness here, because the tears would short-circuit the keyboard, but suffice to say she makes cancer easy to ignore. 

So in return for giving all under-sixes free GP care, I think they should all be farmed out to sickly types for a few weeks every year. Toddler Therapy. I'm onto something here, I can tell. 

Damn Statistics

There have been some complaints (one complaint) about my glib reference to statistics in my last post.

Here is an interesting thing I read about the use of statistics in conversations about prognosis.

I like this bit - “Could it be that, instead of the cancer, it was his expectation of death that killed him?”

Books

I haven’t read too many books about cancer since this started, but I did read “The C-Word” by Lisa Lynch recently, and I surprised myself by really liking it. I had seen the TV adaptation (I recorded it and watched it on my own in the middle of the day, convinced it would be mawkishly terrible) and I sheepishly bought the book afterwards, still half-believing that it would be rubbish. But it’s not. It’s funny and insightful. While Lisa wouldn’t be altogether my kind of lady, she’s far closer to it that the other cancer types I’ve come across. She’s dead now though.

The other book I read was “The Guts” by Roddy Doyle, and it goes without saying that it is very funny. I probably read it a bit too soon after I was diagnosed though; I think I’ll go back to it again now with the benefit of hindsight and somewhat less shock-induced-brainfreeze.

This GP fella in Dublin has written about the animal-protein business - basically, some other guy wrote a book called The China Study, about how most Western illnesses are caused by eating too much meat and animal-derived protein, and we would all live longer and happier if we were vegan, and the GP guy thought that makes sense and told his cancer patients, and some of them lived and some died. I was on board early enough in the proceedings - when you really think about it, it kind of makes sense not to eat so much meat - but they both lost me about half-way through because even though the research indicates that small amounts of animal-protein are probably not harmful, they both decided well if a small amount probably isn’t harmful, then none at all is obviously even better. And I just cannot give up the aul’ cheese. Or icecream. Or chocolate. And so now if my cancer progresses (and statistically that’s a cert) then these boyos can blame my Leonidas- and Brie-munching and still be convinced that they are right in their assertions. And it adds a nice layer of guilt to the process for me - if only I hadn’t had that last gelatooooooooohhhh....