Graeme Elmore is not walking!

Now you would have thought wouldn’t you? I mean, anyone with a normal sense of fairness would have thought that with cancer in four different places that I had enough to worry about – in the past month or so, two major operations, plus a fairly intensive invasive procedure. Then there’s all the scans and examinations and being pulled and shoved about by any number of people (all very kindly meant of course – no complaints!) to say nothing of the 22 pills I have to take every day and the fairly constant discomfort and the pain that is only just below the surface. Now that’s enough isn’t it? This is the man who, up to the moment when this lot was diagnosed had probably not taken as many as 22 pills in the preceding ten years! The chap who had flu once (very very badly – in fact I was convinced at the time that it was terminal flu!)) (In 1977), the man who can’t remember when he last had a cold or suffered a headache that hadn’t been caused by over indulgence the night before. I am the one whose medical file was so thin it really wasn’t worth saving – I who laughed at doctor’s surgeries and who cocked a snook at hospitals. Never ill. Always healthy. Never took time off work, never needed a sick-chit or paid for a prescription. Noël Coward, when talking about television once famously said: “Television, dear boy, is for appearing on – not for watching!” I rather felt the same about hospitals – they were for visiting other people who were the unfortunate ‘inmates’ not for being admitted to oneself!

Well I go back into Southmeads tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon for surgery on Thursday to remove the rest of my (healthy) thyroid in order that the vital radioiodine treatment can be used to maximum effect. In the meantime another problem has arisen. I am now finding walking problematical. Over the past few days my legs have suddenly become very weak and I am having difficulties in walking. I am walking – but slowly, rather unsteadily and not for long. No pain in my legs, though I am enduring steady pain in my lower back and a slight loss of sensitivity. So I went to see my GP yesterday who immediately packed me off to Yeovil General Hospital where I was seen by a very pleasant young Asian junior orthopod. All the usual observations were taken and he gave me a fairly rigorous examination. He obviously realised that something was wrong, but couldn’t place it. Next thing is a scan on my back and lower regions. That might happen today at Yeovil – or perhaps tomorrow when I get to Bristol, I am now waiting for a phone call after the doc I saw yesterday afternoon has had a chance to talk with his boss.

It might be something or nothing – or something fairly straightforward. My fear – before getting any results or having another scan – is that it might be a further tumour (no. 5) pressing/expanding on the nerves that control my limb movements. I hope to God it is not – so the sooner I get the phone call the better eh?

Fiona was still up in Scotland yesterday, so fortunately a good pal from my days in Faslane – Graham Wood – came to see me and very kindly agreed (insisted really) that he ferried me to and from the hospital and stayed over night and is here with me this morning in case I need to be rushed off somewhere else. Thank goodness Fiona returned late last night from Edinburgh having been met at Bristol airport by another Navy chum – Steve George. Where would I be without some really fantastic friends and family?

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