JANUARY BLUES (GREYS?)

I returned to Dr Herzog's clinic just after New Year for another 10-day stay. The clinic had been quite quiet over the festive period, but elaborate Christmas decorations were still up.

Main entrance to the clinic, festooned with lights

Rather kitsch, but 10 out of 10 for effort!

Lots of people have commented on how positive I always seem, so I'm sorry to disillusion you, but I had a few low days there this time. I'd been very tired even before I arrived (I think the skiing took a lot out of me), and after the escapism of a holiday, followed by Christmas and New Year celebrations, being back in a medical setting was an unwelcome return to reality. Plus I went down with a cold, and felt rather miserable and sorry for myself. It's funny how you get used to coping with the big stuff, but it's the little things which feel like the final straw and bring out the self-pity! So I wasn't particularly sociable at first, and didn't go out for my usual walks (the weather was a bit depressing too, not cold but almost constantly grey and rainy and windy), and instead spent a few afternoons curled up on my bed, reading or watching DVDs on my laptop to distract myself. I also used Skype a few times to talk to close friends and family, and that was a wonderful morale boost when I needed cheering up. 

By the second half of my stay I'd stopped moping, and I enjoyed getting to know my fellow patients and their accompanying partners / adult children / parents / siblings. As ever, it was fascinating, reassuring and awe-inspiring to hear their various stories. There are almost always similar themes, but of course every person's experience, and response to their situation, is unique, and although occasionally I'd get to a point where I didn't want to talk about cancer any more, most of the time I find it really interesting. I think that not only does it validate, and give perspective on, my own experiences, but also focusing on someone else takes me out of my absorption in myself and my health. In some conversations, especially with people on their first visits, I was able to pass on information about how the clinic system works (or sometimes doesn't!), just as others helped me negotiate it when I first arrived. Now that I'm not working it's harder to find opportunities for feeling useful and knowledgeable, so it was great for the ego to be able to be back in that role again!

All went fine with the chemoembolisation procedure - it's never particularly pleasant, and I'm always a bit exhausted and sore afterwards, but Professor Vogl, the surgeon, is happy with how I'm doing, and so is Dr Herzog - so I'm booked in for early February for the next one. And as usual all the other treatments have been very effective in raising my energy levels and keeping my immune system relatively unimpaired. So I've come home with the positivity back in place!

A break in the clouds - I guess there always is one if you wait long enough....

TECHNOLOGY (UPS AND DOWNS)

Quite a few people have told me that they like following the blog but they don't know how often to check it, and wondered if they could be alerted when there's a new post to read. I had no idea how to do this, short of emailing everyone each time I post something (which would rather defeat the object), but I've discovered from the husband of a fellow patient that there is a way! involving a device called an RSS reader. Andy, who's at the clinic with his wife Jen, is extremely techno-savvy (their blog is impressively high-tech, putting mine to shame since half the time I can't even put photos where I want them!) and he's kindly given me permission to copy his instructions here for how to set it up. 


If you use Microsoft Outlook for your emails, you can configure it to download automatically any new content. To configure Outlook 2007:

• On the "Tools" menu, click "Account settings"
• On the "RSS Feeds" tab, click "New"
• In the "New RSS Feed" dialogue box, type the blog address (http://sylvia-sylviasnews.blogspot.com )
• Click "Add", then "OK".

The RSS feed can be renamed if required by right-clicking and selecting "Rename folder", and additional RSS feeds (for any other blogs you want to follow) can be added. Once you've done this, whenever I add new posts to the blog they'll automatically appear as unread items in your Outlook RSS Feeds folder.


Alternatively, there's an RSS reader app for iPhones and iPads, where you can add various RSS feeds (i.e. any blogs you'd like to follow regularly), and all new content will be downloaded to your device. The app is called MobileRSS, and can be downloaded for free from the Apple Store.


Hope this makes sense, and that you find it useful! Thanks to Andy for letting me know about these 21st century innovations... 


On the downside of technology, last week my email account started spouting spam, sending out junk emails raving about a cheap site to buy iPhones (if someone hacked into my account, they clearly don't know what a Luddite I am!). Apologies to anyone who received these. Hotmail quickly blocked my account, which is good, but unfortunately I couldn't prove that I'm really me until I got back to the UK yesterday, so I was incommunicado for a few days. All's sorted out now, and I'll be posting about my recent clinic visit as soon as I've caught up with my inbox.

SKI HOLIDAY

My week in Val d'Isere was just great. I hadn't quite let myself look forward to it too much, in a kind of superstitious fear that something would go wrong with my health and I wouldn't be able to go after all (maybe I was scared that Fate would punish me for the audacity of going skiing in between chemo treatments...) But all went well and it was lovely to be back in the mountains. And it snowed and snowed and snowed! Unfortunately that meant the conditions weren't great for the first few days: blizzards, high winds meaning that lots of lifts were closed, very poor visibility, thick heavy powder - knee-deep in places even on piste - which was hard work to ski in, and temperatures up to (or down to?) minus 25 degrees centigrade with wind chill. 

View from my window mid-week

8 a.m. on departure morning

I found the skiing pretty hard going to start with, and I was a bit worried on the first day whether I'd be strong enough to cope with the physical exertion; but I gradually got back into my stride, and when the weather improved and the sun came out at the end of the week, I enjoyed some truly exhilarating skiing. I took things a bit easy, made sure I got decent amounts of sleep, and certainly skied quite carefully, but I was delighted that I had enough energy and stamina to keep up with all but the keenest skiers at my level. And to make the most of the wonderful fresh snow!

View down the valley to Val d'Isere

Ridiculous amounts of snow (for comparison, the guy is 6' 4")

Glorious views above the clouds

Coffee stop in the very welcome sunshine

Last run of the day

My fellow skiers were a very nice friendly bunch, and although I don't drink these days (I reckon my liver can do without the extra stress) it was still very sociable. I even spent one evening dancing to one of the live bands - proved to myself that I'm not past it yet! I'd decided not to talk about my situation, and although that meant slightly misrepresenting my life (e.g. talking about work in the present tense), it was just so nice having conversations about all kinds of things from ski stories to world politics, rather than cancer and treatments and supplements and medical matters. It was like a holiday from the preoccupation with my body and my health which has become "normal", a reminder that I do have other interests and sides to me, and it was just wonderful not feeling defined by cancer. 


At the same time, I didn't simply slot back into how I felt on previous ski holidays - the routine and structure was the same, but I'm not: the past year has changed me, and I realised that you can't ever go back in time to a younger you. I also became aware how much pressure I'd put on myself to have "the most amazing time ever" (which, as you can imagine, is a pretty high expectation to have of any holiday!) and I had to get past a bit of disappointment that the week wasn't transformative or transcendent. That said, it was really good fun, it was a brilliant break from my rather tame day-to-day life, I loved having a different kind of challenge to rise to, and it felt like an enormous achievement, both physically and emotionally. So a wonderful end to 2011!

Icicles above my window at dawn