Drips, drugs, therapy, adverts, news and Hitler

 

Continuing my solo therapy with there not being enough resources for a one-to-one with a professional, deemed not suitable for a group online session, and in a lockdown ‘bubble’ with just one very tolerant but surely-wearying person, my “good to talk” parameters remain writing and sharing. 

That irks me from the start. Society pays enough lip service in its support of mental health but, as with most issues concerning “others”, there is no public action in demanding more resources and wider access to support. 

This year-long challenge of the pandemic has shown the fragility we have condoned within the medical and mental health services, elderly care and every other vulnerable group where isolation can take a heavy toll. 

I received no advice about any personal feedback, apparently just getting it off my chest is enough; there’s no need for a dopamine fix but I have been fortunate that a couple of pals, along with my family, have shared and helped me on my journey so far. 

I was supposed to have received some sort of missive from the psychologist after our last, and first, chat. That has not been forthcoming and I understand that. From what I gather that particular division of care has been redeployed, no doubt receiving a backpack of PPE and being sent off to the front line, leaving behind increasingly dusty shelves laden with tomes by Freud, Jung and Laing. 

Of course my recent health issues have dominated what I previously described as my “cumulative mass” and, at this moment, that is not easing. So here are some of my ‘Chemo-ments’. 

I write this in a lull and will probably be silent after this. I have about 36 hours after starting a new session of treatment where I can still operate with some clarity. After that it all becomes a bit weird. Apart from generally feeling yukky, there’s a mental aspect that is hard to articulate. It is almost an oppressive mood and perception. It is very unpleasant and I’m pretty sure it makes me as a person much the same. The quantity of pills I struggle to swallow could be viewed as a rescue to my system by the equivalent of the SAS wiping out the bad guys but, unfortunately, causing some collateral damage that will right itself. 

Unfortunately, I don’t really have that view. To me it feels like an invasion of an army of Doc-clad skinheads kicking the bejesus out of my innards, forcing my immune system to take refuge and for it to only emerge to start clearing up the mess after they have departed. 

However, right now I only have the effects from yesterday’s drips to contend with, the strangest of which is the sensation in your extremities to anything cold. Put your hand under a running tap when it’s cold is like a bolt of electricity; any cold drink has the texture of finely ground down razor blades, and this is taking an age to type because the tips of my fingers aren’t warm enough to feel the keys – a result of getting something out the fridge. This I call my ‘Es-chemo’ period’. 

After this I weary quickly and really need my wife’s support to feed and water me. In between times I sleep. Boxing Day saw me notch up around 18 hours, and virtually the whole day on the 27th. I am like a wounded Lone Ranger desperately reliant on my Tonto. This I call my ‘Chemo-sabe’ stage’. 

Horrible though these 12 days are, the intolerance it generates stays with me in the lull, but the thoughts are a great deal more considered and, perhaps, mellow. 

For instance, I was never all that fond of adverts, especially on radio, that rhyme. Now they drive me to distraction. Why does any business believe a rubbish poem is going to persuade me to hire a skip or buy a second hand car from it? It does the opposite. And my bewilderment over marketing/PR pitches reached new heights in the build-up to Christmas over an other perennial pet hate – this perfume adverts. They, are more or less, all following the same formula. There’s an exotic, privileged backdrop, and then a film star or model. What idiot with a wallet looks at a storyboard that involves someone I don't know on a horse riding through a city or a disgraced actor burying aftershave in the desert and thinks, “That’s a winner”? 

But zonked on the cocktail of skinhead drugs I absorb the news with an equally nauseating concoction of amazement, disbelief, horror, exasperation and anger. 

The shallowness of much of the reporting is astonishing, and even led me to defending someone who cited Hitler, and that’s not something I would do lightly. In the US, Republican congresswoman Mary Miller commented in a speech: “Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future’.” 

Now condoning how Hitler implemented that belief is a different matter. The only real criticism to be made of Ms Miller is that Hitler’s view, though valid and true, wasn’t all that original. The Ancient Greeks, Native Americans, communists, imperialists, just about everyone has said something similar. The fact that an evil dictator uttered a truism should not make everyone rush to force an apology. If anything, it should make us all think. 

And linked to that, we should maybe consider Hitler’s views in our own context. With millions of children in the UK dependent on home schooling, who are the ones who have the laptops and tablets and unlimited internet and printer access? And who are the ones waiting in turn to use mum’s pay-as-you go phone to trying and do their homework? 

I feel strongly about that imparity but not as much as I do about the national ridicule heaped on Jeremy Corbyn for his so dubbed “communist broadband” policy that was aimed at levelling the playing field for all our children. As a nation we are near the bottom of the class in our wifi access and the poorest, once again, are the lowest priority. 

Jeff Bezos has enough money to give every child a 7” Amazon Fire, and would probably receive a honorary knighthood as well as a multi-million future Amazon customer base for doing so. He could fund that with what he hasn’t paid in taxes. 

A final point that has really bothered me in recent days has been the pandemic denials, particularly the non-monitored proclamations from that legion of armchair experts, and the statement that more people should refuse the vaccine. 

This morning, one follower of a local newspaper, posted a link and highlighted the fact that 99% of those contracting Covid 19 will not die, so he would take his chances and avoid the vaccine. As someone else posted in support, the vaccine was only being rolled out to generate money for the pharmaceutical companies and greedy GPs. The message was one of avoiding the vaccine and go about living your life normally, without distancing and without facemask. 

One of the arguments regarding the 80,000-plus deaths in the UK is that the vast majority had an underlying health condition. 

So let me expand on that on a personal level, having spoken to hospital staff yesterday. Chemotherapy patients obviously do have an underlying health condition, the treatment of which means the immune system is at its lowest. If blue cheese and pate can pose a health risk then you don’t need to be too bright to work out the effects the coronavirus would have on you. 

As for the vaccine? Well the jury is out as to what effect it might have when injected into a depleted immune system, or a blood stream coursing with those bovver-booted skinhead drugs. 

So, looking around the treatment ward yesterday, you could see all kinds of people on various stages of their journey, from young mums to the elderly. Cancer, like the coronavirus, isn’t too choosy in the bodies in which it decides to infest, but every single one of these patients, through medical care, their own determination, and a bit of luck, are fighting to hold on to the one life we all have. To dismiss them as simply the 1% and an inevitable death is disgraceful and cruel. 

This is not a Darwinism, this is a simple lack of decency from a growing number of people in our midst. 

You can maybe question why Congressman Miller chose Hitler to echo a universal truth but the 99% argument and ‘go forth and contaminate’ message are the fascist comments of those who believe themselves a master race. 

The money-making of the pharmaceutical companies, the investors behind them, the neglect of the Third World countries in securing protection, all of these and so much more are deserving of further investigation. The questions asked should be with the aim of helping that 1%, not ignoring, promoting and participating in their cull. 

Now, I’ve a lawyer to find, my wig options to consider(!), and need to rise to the challenge of how to get fresh ingredients for home made soup before my internal skinheads start kicking off. 

Picture: Pexels