It’s been awhile since I wrote anything. Life has been a torrent and barrage of things slamming into me constantly like the boiling and roiling rain fall of a tropical storm. It hasn’t let up for weeks, and now I am totally sodden, bedraggled and weak as I trudge on to the next stage of this horrendous journey.

Maybe I was naïve to think that I’d gently meander from one ‘room’ to another as I passed from just being unwell to being ‘sick.’  But regardless of whether childlike naivety or simple bloody mindedness, that transition for me at least, has been anything but a subtle change alike the stepping from one room to another within my life’s mansion.

Over the last few weeks, the Toxaemia (my body now unable to filter the toxins and bad things out therefore poisoning itself to death) has come from the shadows, like a skulking wolf and claimed me. The deterioration has been so swift, that it has even taken my medical team by surprise. Emergency measures are now being employed as time for the structured route has run out. For all these years this illness has sat there patiently and quietly waiting, brooding but never rushing or pushing too hard. Keeping the reality of its insidiousness cloaked in bare recognition- until now.

The fire in my every joint and muscle incessantly burning away.  The literal cracking and creaking of my weakened bones. Pain emanating in a stabbing red rainbow from every part of my body – from my head to my toes- barely softened by the strong opioids I am now taking. My guts churning and growing with malignant tissue causing so much agony and disruption that the nausea, vomiting and retching is a welcome and distracting relief from it all. My body literally bursting at the weakest seams- my intestines forced out of their proper safe and organised place only held back by the tension of my skin -too risky to repair right now. My stomach, liver and other abdominal organs being forced up in to my diaphragm and against my heart and lungs. The breathlessness and dizziness overwhelming. I can’t tie my shoe laces now or pick something up off the floor without actually sitting down on the floor for falling over with dizziness and the need to puke. My memory failing, losing my words and making my speech gibberish at times. Forgetting where and why I am here. Awaking from childlike outbursts and tantrums, so suddenly embarrassing. Fear of engaging with the world around me because of these lapses. Dropping more than six kilos (14 pounds in old money) in weight in under a month probably the only amusing thing I mull over- it certainly beats Weight Watchers hands down- not that I actually needed to loose anymore of my once svelte and athletic body! Ha Ha. Even though I’ve suffered great tiredness for quite some time now, this utter exhaustion is something else and beyond imagination. I’m sleeping like an ancient person on the brink – almost all the time now during daylight hours at a ‘drop of a hat’ as they say. But then the long fraught nights filled with discomfort, sickness, pain and hideous nightmares just to wear me out before I arise for the challenge of the next day.

At this moment in my personal time line, this is my daily truth. It isn’t what people want to hear. Most only interested in the banalities of daily life. The polite, automaton expectation of

‘Good morning’

‘Good Morning. How are you?’

‘Fine thank you, and you?’ (As I’m expected to lie here)

‘Fine thank you.’

Anything is but fine thank you. The truth is rarely the truth. A lot of people shy away from the real truth, whatever it might be, either through indifference or discomfort or cowardice.

As a man of the world, I have learnt so much more about myself and more importantly about so many others around me over the last 6 months or so. I’ve met some truly wonderful and caring people but also I have met almost as many that are not. There lays the surprise. As a true believer in the inherent goodness possible of all human beings, the sometimes staggering and blatantly unfriendly and utter selfishness shown has been disappointing and deeply wounding. These people have tried to strip me of my dignity and my rightful place within my small part of the universe. Gone out of their way to hurt and upset, to lie and cheat and deliberately push away their responsibility toward a shared common decency; particularly even ‘stepping up’ the discomfort caused and driving  a direct impact on my decline, as I became more vulnerable and weak. Creating a needless vicious circle.

I’ve never once sort out sympathy, just as with many others that have the unfortunate fact of facing a Terminal or to use a politically correct vernacular – ‘Life Limiting’ condition, sympathy is unwarranted. But and a it is a big but, to ask for empathy and mutual respect and supported to face the last stages of your illness, your life, with dignity is surely not too much to ask?

For, those with a completely selfish disregard and lack of empathy, for all our sakes including theirs, is the true tragedy.

Anyhow. For now, I will fight on. In only a matter of mere weeks now, a single machine and dozens of drugs will try and keep me from the darkness of death. I know my family and friends are cheerleading me on with their pomp pomps shaking high in the air! Screaming, dancing and imploring like the ancient civilisations gone before us. I thank them for keeping my noise going! But in all honesty, I’m not just fighting for them but mostly for myself. I am not ready yet to find out the answer to the age old question of- what’s beyond the here and now?

That can wait, for a little while longer.