Mr Bone Scanner

Well hello old friend, we meet again. It’s been a while, but even the nurse recognises me, I’m not sure if that’s good, she says we don’t get many patients talking to the machine. Well of course that explains everything, of course I said hello and thank you and good bye to the machine😃

3 hours prior to me greeting Mr Bone Scanner I had a radioactive dye injected in my body then told to come back in 3 hours. The radioactive dye should allow me to glow in the dark or even perform some Spiderman type thingy

So far no special powers, I’ll take that as if everything is ok then although I’m a tad dissapointed I can’t walk up the wall.

I spent quite a bit of time in hospital today, a lot of hanging around and people watching. It was busy today , I love the hustle and bustle of being in the hospital. I wonder if this common to other cancer patients or just people who spend a lot of time in hospitals. I strangely enjoy my time in the hospital, it’s a fascinating place. I even enjoyed my 2 weeks in the cancer ward, perhaps its because it’s a safe place to be, or I’m just strange. I did day when I went in that I would be positive, maybe that’s why my experience was good.

As I’m waiting for the scan a group of people come in to the lounge, they are obviously upset, it looks like a family. Something has happened and they are all comforting each other, I try not to look at them and impose on there sadness. This is of course another aspect of hospital life, people enevitably do die in these places. They don’t stay too long, I hope they are ok, and find their peace.

Being vegan

I’m eating a vegan sausage roll, its main ingredient is Jack fruit, tastes good, the only difference is sausage rolls are much cheaper. Being vegan shouldn’t be twice as expensive, should it? I’m vegan mainly because there are good reports into vegan style eating is good for cancer. I don’t mean it’s good for the cancer itself I mean cancer doesn’t like it and what ever cancer doesn’t like I’m all for.

A young father is playing with a very young child, you know the age where they cant quite walk yet can rapidly get into all sorts of bother as they continuously explore their exciting new world learning what to do do and what not not to do. Dad has him flying in the air, then doing that thing where you toss the child and catch it. Sounds bad in writing but perfectly ok unless you don’t happen to be a good catcher.😃

Various other people come and go whilst I fill the time in before my meeting with Mr Bone Scanner. A nurse sits down opposite me, she’s on the phone, I can’t help noticing how stressed she seems, her hands shaking as she texts someone. She looks tired, I want to just give her a hug and say thanks.❤️

The bone machine

My time has come and I return to have my photos taken, as I said at the beginning the young nurse recognises me from before and we instantly have a chat. She’s enthusiastic, it turns out that I was one of her first, she never told me that last time. “Would have been nice to know I had a learner operating the machine” I said. We both laughed. She is kind and explains everything in a kind and caring way, this great and kudos to the young lady many people might be a bit scared of this machine and it’s claustrophobic design.

I don’t remember the machine being this claustrophobic, it’s ok I tell my self and close my eyes and go for a walk around my favourite lake in my mind. You can go anywhere that you can imagine and the most amazing thing is your brain believes what you are thinking and so creating a feeling of reality. The scan takes about 30 minutes or so and it’s done. I thank it for helping me and say goodbye to the nurse. She says thanks and keep on talking to the machines.

Well now it’s the next day and another scan to do, this is a full CT scan. I’m going for a walk this morning with my sister and Woolfie it’s pouring down with rain but as you know there’s no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing.

We cancelled the walk Woolfie didn’t fancy it, but we he took one look at the window and curled up and went to sleep, and it’s a dogs life isn’t it. 😄

The CT scan went well, although holding my hands up behind me for 10 minutes is tough when your arms are so weak due to the lack of physical exercise for fear of upsetting the tumours and back fractures that I have, I’m planning next week to get myself a bit of upper body exercise using resistance bands as recommended by my pysiotherapist I’ve been seeing recently.

The CT scan is another adventure, if you’ve never had one just keep thinking on your mind it’s there to help you, think positive and the experience won’t be too bad at all.I suppose I’m becoming a bit of an exercise on the subject 😄

Time for some personal pondering

I’ve had a bit of pondering time before the CT scan and I pondered what is it that makes us happy. I’ve been mulling over this quite a bit because although I’ve got cancer I’m not actually that unhappy about my life right now

The thing is what do you measure happiness with and what do you measure it against.

Why am I not unhappy, I’ve got cancer, advanced cancer to be more honest. I should be ranting about how unfair it all is, and why me! The truth is I discovered what happiness really is and that was some years ago when I was struggling with life. What made me unhappy was my persistent search for happiness, and that’s a paradox if ever there was one.

We often search for happiness through our desire to have. Often our desire to have more, totally envelops our need to be grateful for what we already have. What we have is overlooked.

A simple example is if we all had an imaginary happiness jar what would you put in it to fill it up.

Let’s start with a new car, and that should top our happiness jar right up to the top. But how long would it last, sure the new car is amazing at first. Then you get used to it and that new car smell gradually fades away and with it the happiness jar starts to empty a bit. Next your neighbour pulls up with the latest model of your car and he chats to you about all the very latest gimmicks this car has now got. A little bit more of your happiness jar empties. You then see a new phone that you want but cant afford the payments, so your collegue shows up at work with the phone and shows you how good it is again your happiness jar empties a bit more.

You try to fill the jar back up by buying things that soon lose their value to you, but the jar empties more. People in the same job as you are earning more money, and you work extra to make your money up, you start losing family time and becoming more tired trying to achieve more, the happiness jar is running lower and lower everytime you try to fill it with material things.

This is just a basic way of looking at happiness, but in a lot of cases it’s true, but it certainly was for me in an endless quest to earn more money I was missing the true things that give happiness that were already in my life and sitting in front of me all the time.

I found happiness when I started to pay attention to my children, and my wife. I found happiness when I looked out the window and saw nature, the trees changing their colours, the sun rise and fall, the wonderful cloud scapes after a storm and the sounds and smells of raindrops, a smile, a kindness a walk the list is endless and guess what none of it costs me a penny.

The realisation that happiness is always inside you and around you if you just know how to open your eyes to see it, no matter what your circumstances true happiness fills the jar.

Yeh I’ve got advanced prostate cancer but I’ve also got a full jar of happiness.

Thanks for reading this, I my blog has always been about my thoughts, I perhaps my thoughts can help you reading this.

Work is not everything, take some time our to see the happiness that’s already inside of you, and just waiting for a chance to show itself to you.

Money will not bring happiness, once you stop being a slave to money you are a free person.

Love

Woody ❤️