A SHORT STORY

I thought I'd share a more lighthearted view of our journey to date this week as well, but you should follow this week's blog first, so this makes sense to you.

When Sheila first had her operation last July, we needed to keep our family and friends informed of her progress and to let them all communicate with her easily because they are scattered around the world, so we set up a Facebook group called Paloma the Stoma where I first shared this little story:

A Short Story

The husband of a cancer patient found out how chemotherapy is given in the UK.

He found out that the dose is worked out before treatment starts, in a very old fashioned way that’s not really great.

He then found out what a teeny-tiny therapeutic range chemotherapy drugs have. Too little  and they do no good, in fact, it’s worse than that, too little and not only do they do no good, they positively increase the chance of your cancer coming back and still make you feel bad anyway. Too much, and the drugs are toxic and make you feel so horrible that you stop before the end of your course - result, you don’t get get enough of the drugs that way either.

When the husband asked the Keeper of the Chemotherapy whether it was a true story he had been reading, the Keeper did a little dance to try to distract the husband.

But the husband didn’t like the Keeper’s little dance very much and impertinently, said so.

The Keeper didn’t like that much and said we should go and ask the Head Keeper of the Chemotherapy about it, so that’s what the husband and his wife did. They asked him if they ever did any tests to see if they had got their calculations right. The Head Keeper drew a deep breath and then did his own little dance. The husband really, really didn’t like that particular dance.

Now, the husband already knew that there is a test that can be done to check that the calculated dose is metabolised as hoped, because that’s all it can be, without doing any checking - not too much and not too little, but just right. The husband couldn’t understand why the Keeper and the Head Keeper kept doing little dances instead of doing the test.

The husband wasn’t a happy man; he did not like leaving such an important thing to guesswork, so he decided to try something the Keeper wouldn’t be expecting and surprise him with a present. He quietly talked to a lot of people about it, who thought it would be just so much fun to join in too, they decided to help.

The husband was sent a magic blood draw kit from Trump Land and he fixed for his wife to get a blood sample taken at a private hospital, whilst she was being filled up with chemo drug stuff and sent it off in a great big special box to a laboratory in Germany to get it analysed. It took the husband a long time to get that far and it was very difficult to figure out how to make it all happen properly, but he did it. Phew!

When the result arrived, it said that the Keeper was giving his wife way too much chemo drug stuff. Oh, what were they to do next? The husband wrote a little note to the Keeper, telling him that because he didn’t like his little dance, or the Head Keeper’s little dance, instead of doing a test, he was sending him a little surprise gift in the shape of some knowledge that he didn’t usually have and asking him when would be the best time for him and his wife to come and let him say thank you for his present.

When the husband and his wife met the Keeper, he said it was very interesting but he didn’t know what to do with his new knowledge because it wouldn’t fit on the yellow brick road that he was allowed to walk on and so he couldn’t adjust the dose of chemo drug stuff because of his new knowledge. Hmm.

Let me at him!

But then the Keeper had a bright idea himself. I know, he said, there are lots of other reasons I could adjust the dose that WOULD fit on the yellow brick road, you just need to say the right things when I ask you questions! What a jolly good idea that was - and it was his idea! He asked Sheila how often Sleeping Beauty came calling and how long she stayed. Sheila said yes she does, lots and she stays a long time when she comes. The Keeper asked Sheila if the Ice Queen bothered her very often and she said yes she did.

Well, he said, either of those girls coming round is a good reason alone to sort out your chemo drug stuff, never mind both of the calling at the same time.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The moral of this story is, if you take what’s on offer like a lamb to the slaughter, you never get to find out that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

True story.