I was thinking the other day about school and how some pupils never missed a day in Four years at High school and still couldn’t read or write at the end of it. All high school taught me was how to punctuate sentences and paragraphs and if it wasn’t for that I’d’ve been better off staying at home for Four years. In Fourth year I actually did stay at home enough times to get me in front of a childrens panel. At one point, being put into care was mentioned and auld Scud let out a laugh and said – ‘for pluggin the skill’?- to which a panel member replied that it was the law. My faither’s reply to that was ‘if that’s the law mr Bumble was right aboot it’. Anyway my attendance improved after that – not that much but enough to stave off incarceration at ‘Schoolag 17’. The point of this story is that unless you’re going to be a prefect and get lots of A and O levels( or whatever it is these days) they should just let you stay at home for Four years.

The cancer Diaries – 26.11.16

It’s now late November, Fifteen months after being diagnosed with the blood cancer and although I feel a bit stronger than I did this time last year I feel as if I’ve not really come forward all that much. My hair still has the Boo Radleigh look and my skin is dry to the point of feeling like it’s on fire. I could say I’ve got a cold sore on my face but it would be more accurate to say I’ve got a face on my cold sore. I’ve been in my bed mostly over the last Fortnight – there’s no effort in going to my bed- everything else seems to be a huge effort. Getting up, having a bath, changing, taking my tablets, making something to eat, answering the phone – I just want to escape into sleep world and not have to think about how abject things are at the moment. Pumphy Juniors are playing well , though. I’ve got a draught excluder at the living room door in the shape of a snake and it’s Yellow and Black- the Pumphy colours.

The stem cell Diaries -Nov 12

It’s been about a Month since I came out of the Festern General and I feel a lot better than I did when I was there – apart from the itching. From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet it’s just a constant scratching – in bed or in the bath. Sometimes I scratch so vigorously that I have to stop myself in case I have another Heart attack – it’s a pain in the arse. My tablets are just bewildering – I don’t know if I’m taking what I should be or not taking what I should be. Davy put some of the anti itchy cream on my back on Thursday and it felt great and I told him it felt great but it would feel better if it was Judith the weather woman.

THE STEM CELL DIARIES

I got home from Hospital last Monday after the longest Four weeks of my life – by Fuck, what an ordeal that was. The first couple of days were fine, then I got the stem cell replacement on the Thursday and Friday. The girl who brought the stem cells in was a beautiful Maria Sharapova sound alike from Poland whose name eludes me. She was talking about her Dog who was ‘turning into man – making love to my bed. ‘ I might have to cut off his Balls’. The stem cells themselves are in bags that go through a drip into your body and they’re brought in a vat of that stuff Walt Disney got frozen in. I got Four bags of the stem cells one day and Three more of the thin, watery Tomato soup the next day. The day after that was the ‘Pearl Harbour’ chemo where I had to fill my mouth with Ice cubes for the Half Hour that I got the chemo. The next week was my ‘Shackleton endurance week’. This was the week when my immune system reverted back to when I was a days old baby. It was F–k— awfy . It seemed to be a Morphine induced world of Hallucinations and pain or discomfort somewhere in my body. Ah didny eat, couldny face the food, so they fed me nutrients on another drip for a few days. Diarrhoea every day exploding oot ma arse like a Billy Cobham drum solo – wiping ma bum after a Billy Cobham drum solo was particularly painful. The Pearl Harbour chemo destroys or affects so much that you’ve got nothing to fight anything apart from your will to live. Your dietary tract is the first to go so that eating, swallowing and passing food is a proper pain in the arse. As if all that wasny enough to get on your wick I came out in this awfy looking skin rash. From my head to my toes I was purple, like an Aubergine or a Blueberry. It’s almost all away now but my skin is so dry now that when I scratch it falls off like powdery snow. Still, every day I was in Hospital ,I always looked upon it as another day that I was getting better – and here I am, a year after a Heart attack and a week after being in hospital for a Month for a life saving procedure. It’s good to be alive.

The cancer Diaries -17,6,16

It looks like another year of chemo at the Festerin’ General after the cancer has now reared its ugly heid in my Spleen. What will happen regarding the stem cell treatment is beyond me at the moment. I think this new chemo will, hopefully, keep me alive so that I can get the stem cell treatment but if I can live through the Sweden Italy game that I watched on Telly today I can live through anything. I was gutted about not being able to go with Davy to France for the Euros. We would’ve been at the Croatia v Turkey match in Paris – Thirty Two years to the day since we were there for the 1984 opening match. It turned out that I could’ve gone with Dave after all – the match was on the Sunday and I had chemo on the Monday and the chemo was cancelled on account of there being new cancer in my spleen. The Boabby Thomson cancer bus has been a great lift – beautiful scenery in the summer time is good medicine.

Sing at the Bing – 29,5,16

The Pumphy Music festival, or Bingstock, was a great success but was marred by the death of a well liked Pumphy man, Eric Clark. I remember Eric fixing my Dad’s old Austin Cambridge, Morris Oxford and old Wolsley – you only see these old cars on ‘Time Team’, now, dug up in a Romano – British settlement. I was so sorry to hear about Eric, but knowing him as I did, the last thing he probably did was tell a joke and leave whoever he’d just told it to with a smile on his or her face. The actual event went well and the combination of Live Music and friendly familiar faces made for a great day. The Cawburn was bouncing, too, although I’ll not be back as the Orangina’s complained about ‘Sunshine on Leith’ getting played on the Karaoke and it was stopped. I felt awfy all day and was sick at night. I’ve not felt great since chemo last week and there’s more tomorrow and a cancer jag on Tuesday – another PET scan next Tuesday and a possible spleen Biopsy after that and, hopefully France with Davy B. F–k Cancer and the Rangers.

The cancer Diaries – 24,5,16 -cancer and Pink Floyd

Well, I got my big scan result a week earlier than expected and it was mixed to say the least. I am responding well to the new chemo, the lumps and bumps on the outside have gone and the cancer on the inside has receded. My blood counts are as good as they’ve been since all the treatment began and my heart has made a good recovery since my Heart attack. However, the scan showed up a shadow on my spleen which may or may not be more Lymphoma. If this is the case, it is apparently quite serious and I think they want to batter on with a bit more chemo and start the stem cell treatment within a Month. I will know on Friday if the Spleen is looking cancery and I’ll need a Biopsy for that fairly soon. The Doctor dropped a bombshell when he said I’ll probably have to cancel the holiday to France with Davy for the Fitba’. I will definitely fight my corner on that One. The Doctor said that in the build up to the stem cell treatment there will be visits to St Jocks and the Festern General almost every week, but surely a week in France won’t do any harm – IS will probably kill us anyway. Three per Cent of the people who go through the treatment die and my way of thinking is that I could die if I go on holiday but I could die if I don’t. Also, I don’t fancy not having a Spleen – Davy was telling me about it and the stem cell stuff. He and Hamo are great when it comes to my ailments and the do’s and don’ts. Davy gets his stuff off Julie who is an ex Nurse and has an extensive knowledge of Nursey things. Hamo is Googly boy and will look up cancery stuff and tell me what’s what. I don’t bother reading the stuff the hospital give me, mainly because I struggle to see wee writing, even with the reading specs. I’m just counting down to the day when they tell me I’m F–ked and beyond help. So, I’ll plead with them to let me go on holiday. It’s Bingstock on Saturday and I’m looking forward to it, hugely. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to open the proceedings as I was very kindly asked to do. I have had a lot of problems with my Mouth and Throat recently and struggle to speak sometimes and being in front of Hundreds of people isn’t the place to struggle to speak when that’s just exactly what you have to do.  I treated myself to a bit of retail therapy today. I bought ‘The best of the Commodores’, mainly for ‘Easy’ – well, only for ‘Easy’, to be honest, and it was only £2.99. I also bought Pink Floyds ‘Atom Heart Mother’, at the more inflated price of £12.99 and First impressions are good but I’ll have to listen to it a few more times to become familiar with it. I’m less keen on the post ‘Dark side of the Moon’ Pink Floyd- I think that, apart from ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Shine on Crazy Diamond, the ‘Wish You Were Here album is a let down. ‘Animals’ is a bit boring in places and if you take out ‘Comfortably Numb’, ‘Hey You’, ‘Vera’, ‘Run Like Hell and ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ [ the single ] from ‘The Wall you’re left with a lot of pretentious Shite – but that’s just my opinion – I always preferred to watch the Film on Magic Mushrooms or Acid rather than listen to the album. As well as ‘Atom Heart Mother’ my pre ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ Pink Floyd CD’s are ‘Meddle’ [ my favourite], ‘Obscured by Clouds’, and ‘Ummagumma’. I also ordered a sound track with a Birdy song on it I like. I joked with the assistant that I’ve got quite into Birdy recently, having bought her Second and Third CD’s – add to that the fact that I’ve been listening to a live Leonard CohenCD  quite a lot recently and that’s a lot of Three o’ clock in the morning slash yer wrist stuff, but it’s not all doom and gloom and there are upbeat, catchy songs among them, too. On the food front I bought a big bit of Cod that will do me tomorrow as well, Broccoli, Red Onions, coriander, and Rice. I put a fair bit of Coriander in with the Broccoli along with some Pepper and Salt and some Turmeric. To the Rice I added some Salt, Pepper, chopped onion, Turmeric, Lemon Juice and Lime Juice. I  fired the Cod into the Fanny assisted oven, along with some chopped Red Onion, chopped Garlic, chopped Coriander, Lemon and Lime Juice, Salt and Pepper and Two chopped Tomato Halves. After that I had some Colombian Coffee and Walnut cake with some Madagascar Vanilla Custard and Blueberries and Raspberries. I had a nice cup of Assam Tea and a Chivas Regal and Ginger Ale to finish off. It’s Davy’s Birthday tomorrow and I Want to get him a cup of Tea and a Cake.

The cancer Diaries -12,5,16

What a glorious week we’ve had, weather wise. I got a wee bottle of Baby Bio for my plants but ah canny get the C–t open. From about half Three till sunset I get the sun in the living room window and the plants love it – so, I thought a wee feed would do them good. Anyway, I’ll have to wait till Saturday now when  Chrissy Thrower comes through to Livi and she’ll know how to open the plant food. Chris could grow Orchids in a freezer. I’m hoping to get some Lemon Balm and Borage – Balm for Tea and Borage for being pretty. I had a nice dinner today – Three Cocodamols for my starter, smoked Cod with a slice of Tomato and knob of butter cooked in the oven along with roasted red, yellow and green peppers, a chopped Tomato, Lime and Lemon juice and a spoonful of honey and salt and pepper – it was the business. I had sliced Jersey Royal tatties, as well. For my last course I had Blueberries and Raspberries in some Strawberry Yoghurt. I managed a wee wander round Livi Centre today, although I was struggling to begin with and thought I’d made a big mistake, I got a second wind and was fine after that. The leg was a bit sore when I put weight on it but it was more the draining effect of the chemo that I was feeling and getting up the stairs when I got home was an ordeal. I’ve got this nose thing going on at the moment, too, which is getting on ma Tits. Every time I blow my nose I’m bringing out a not inconsiderable amount of blood on the tissue – every Fifth or Sixth blow and I can feel a thud on the tissue as this scary lump clot of blood or snot or brain appears. The Doctor said not to worry as my blood test results have been better than they have been for a while, but, sometimes it can be quite disconcerting to see the equivalent of the First day of the Battle of the Somme in your hanky. I get my big scan next Friday [20th] – chest, abdomen and hips and within Ten days I will know whether it’s get busy living or get busy dying. In January I ordered the ‘Steel magnolias’ sound track and ‘Four Scottish Dances ‘ by Sir Malcolm Arnold from HMV. They phoned last week to say they were both unavailable and today, with the refund I bought ‘Obscured by clouds’ by Pink Floyd. I’ve got a few pink Floyd CD’s – Ummagumma, Meddle, Dark side of the Moon, Wish you were here, Animals and The Wall. If I could only take Two to a Desert Island it would have to be Dark side of the Moon and Meddle.

The cancer Diaries -9,5,16

While browsing on the Pumphy history site ‘snarlgrunt.com’ I noticed that the BBC are doing a series on Aphrodisiacs in food and they discovered ‘Mary Berry’s Dirty Cakes’ in the National Library. This was thought to have been long lost, in fact, some scholars disputed it’s existence in the first place – it finally proves Mary, Queen of cakes, is a lot older than she lets on. The book has been Caramel dated to 1480 and this would make Mary, Duchess of Muffins, a few years older than what her Bus pass is saying. She was unavailable for comment this morning but  left a tray of freshly baked ‘Casanova Croissants'[ from her book] for the reporters outside.

The cancer Diaries -7,5,16

This time last year I was waking up in Bordeaux at about the same time as Scotland was waking up to an SNP landslide in the Westminster election. Yesterday I woke up to the Tory party being the official opposition in Scotland. I don’t know what shocked me more. If, Twenty years ago, you had said to someone, anyone, that the SNP would be the Country’s leading political party and the Tories would be the main opposition party, there would have been a phone call and within Fifteen minutes men in white coats would have been administering a Coma inducing injection of Largactol and the person would have slipped out of society, never to be seen again on account of being a dafty. It’s a sad day for the Labour party – Keir Hardie, Nye Bevan, Michael Foot and Tony Benn will be turning in their graves. The Scottish Labour party has been destroyed by the Central belt Mafia over the last Sixty years and as a result we now have the Tories as the main opposition party. From now on Scottish politics will just turn into another Northern Ireland with the God save the Queen, Union Jack wavers on One side and the Nationalists on the other. Ibrox on match day will resemble Trafalgar square on VE day and this will spread until it gets out of hand. === Anyway, I got more chemo yesterday – felt shite before and after it. My hair is beginning to turn that pre fall out way and there are wee aches and pains. I got stuff to read on the stem cell treatment and if I’m well enough to have the procedure it won’t be easy. They said I would be in Hospital for at least a couple of weeks and that as well as being effed physically it also eff’s you mentally.