The lighter side of morphine

Since the Big C diagnosis I've been moved onto morphine based pain killers. The pain is centred around my chest, specifically the front breastbone at a level of the top of my lungs and round the back at about diaphragm level it's felt like i've been rabbit punched in the kidneys, this latter pain is thought to be what is sometimes called referred pain as the actual source of the pain is my spine but the pain is felt more radially. Getting the morphine dosage right is a complicated process which involves trying to understand the background level of constant pain, which is addressed through pills and taking a liquid based medicine called Oromorph, to deal with fluctuating spot pain. It's not an exact science and it partly depends on an individual's capacity to handle the fluctuating pain level.

One of the side effects of morphine in general is sleepiness. From a mental acuity point of view my best time appears to be morning. Thereafter, my alertness level can be variable and I've found myself asleep in my chair at odd times of the afternoon, evening and night. Sometimes I experience what you might call an enhanced daydream. I have a feeling the doctors may refer to it as an hallucination and possibly a sign that I've overdone the Oromorph. The transitions though can be spectacular, moving seamlessly from reading a blog post or newpaper article to being in the middle of the live event, or having dinner with someone who was in the story. The daydreams are incredibly vivid, rich in detail and content. I certainly have a somewhat better understanding of why addiction is not uncommon for those who take high levels of painkillers.

Recently though I've been experiencing a much less glamourous outcome of the sleepiness which I thought I'd share with you for a laugh, although you must promise me not to snort too much bearing in mind the general loss of dignity implied by what I'm about to tell you. Basically the problem has become falling asleep with a drink in my hand. What happens is that I slowly become aware in my sleep that I have fluid beginning to soak my shirt or trousers, I come round enough to work out that I'm spilling the drink in my hand onto myself and experience a kind of physical knee jerk that flings most of the rest of the drink over the rest of what I'm wearing and the chair I'm sitting in. This is disconcerting the first time it happens, it becomes both funnier and more annoying the more times it happens. It's easy to say that I should just put my glass down when I'm not actively drinking from it, but as a relatively high functioning individual, I can only say that I hear where you are coming from, but you try it!

The immense lack of dignity is going to come when I finally have to accept that I can't control this any longer and need to use a children's sippy cup. How mortifying.... but I have a feeling that in the fullness of time I think I may come to see this as one of the lesser losses of dignity involved in my care.

On the news front I was not in any shape to travel any distance today (Saturday) so I had to put my trip plans on hold for now. I have a call to return on Monday morning which I think is about arrangements for me to start my chemotherapy, I remain hopeful that we can start on Thursday but it's not yet in the bag. The other thing on my mind today has been the why of blogging about my cancer. I think I have two reasons. The first aligns with the view of the Macmillan Cancer charity who remind us that cancer will affect all of us at some point in our lives and 1 in 3 of us will actually be diagnosed with the disease. I'm just doing my bit to help with that awareness campaign. I'm not sure to what extent there is still a stigma attached to being diagnosed with cancer, if I'm honest I think those diagnosed with depression and other mental illness probably have a tougher time in that respect, but if there remains a cancer stigma, this is me doing my bit to help clear that away.

I think the other reason is that if I can help one person, someway down the line, who when faced with neck muscle and shoulder blade pains which then start to move randomly around the back can push for further tests to diagnose cancer as early as possible (and therefore improve their odds or life expectancy) then I will have been able to leave that help as part of my legacy. My other score for the day was a trip to the Apple shop in Leicester to buy an AV cable for my iPad. Sine I've had the iPhone I've been building up a collection of TV programmes and movies, which I have been playing on the iPhone in the evenings when travelling away on business. More recently I've been watching them on my iPad, but now I have the cable I can play them from the iPad through the huge TV in the living room - using the iPad as as a kind of portable DVD player. Awesome! I've gone right back to the start of Life on Mars and I have every episode of "The Wire" and "House" up my sleeve.
Sent from my iPad

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