Trip Across the Water

by MD0MDI
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Plane Landing at Liverpool Airport

It was not too long after that I received a text message stating that I had an appointment with Mr. Lancaster in about 2 days time in Liverpool – Arrrrr….

I frantically called Paitent Transfers and I can only pressure that they are so used to last minute bookings, that I was booked on a flight to Liverpool in two days time and having to nominate someone to come with me, poor Sue got the short straw.

So the 11th August started off fairly alright, except when we finally go on the plan at Ronaldsway in the Isle of Man, we sore then start and stop the engines a few times only to be told that there was a problem and that we would need to get off whilst they fixed it, not really what you want to hear when you are boarding a plane. Anyway a little bit later we were told that they had fixed it thanks to the help of some gaffer tape and that we were now on track to get to Liverpool.

Once landed it was a fairly straight forward routine of collecting bags and walking to the exit where we met the allocated Taxi driver and we were delivered to ‘Start City Apartments’ in Liverpool and told that he would be back to c collect us later to go to Aintree for the consultation.

We had plenty of time to waste so we got rid of all the baggage and walked off into Liverpool city centre for some shopping. As a side note the ‘StayCity Apartments’ are really great, plenty of room, a kitchen complete with dishwasher, really comfortable and only about 5 minutes walking from the City centre itself.
 
Sue wanted to make the most of being able to shop in normal shops, after all, being from the Isle of Man we don’t see big stores, so it was nice, although I never found a KFC and the Apple shop seems to have moved, so missed that as well.
Sue Delduca looking through the menu
Sue Delduca looking through the menu
We managed to locate a Steak House, which Sue wanted, I was not too bothered but was happy to go along with any suggestions, this one turned out to be an ‘All you Can Eat’ place, great when your not feeling too hungry but went with the flow anyway, the food was  OK, slightly too over-cooked for our likings but certainly edible and for a brief moment it took our minds off the reason that we were here.
 
Later we were waiting outside the apartments for the Taxi driver who arrived exactly on time, you really cannot fault the Paitent Transfer organisational skills, everything was sorted, we just had to be there to meet what was happening around us. Thanks to the road works in Liverpool the trip t Aintree took a good 30 minutes, but was comfortable in Ian’s new Taxi.
 
The meeting with the consultant was really good, and bad, but more on that in a while.
 
Mr. Lancaster went through the videos from the Isle of Man of the Nose Camera, the MRI and the CT scans and then proceeded to shove a camera up the nose again, although he was blocked from seeing anything up the right hand nostril due to the cancer’s growth blocking the way and therefore I got the uncomfortable fun of having done again top the left nostril, im sure he was just doing it to spite me. Along the way he was explain what he was seeing to both of us and telling us kind of what was happening to my ears and throat.
 
After the camera he explained what was going to happen next and more importantly for me what the little blighter was called:

Extensive Nasopharyngeal Cancer with Bilateral Nodal Metastases.

Strange how knowing what its called was important, although I cannot pronounce it and will always call it ‘Fred’ or ‘Cancer’ from now on.

Now for the bad bits, what’s to follow. I will have to have a feeding tube fitted, mainly because I will find it very hard if not totally impossible to swallow even my own saliva let alone food, I have beed told that the treatment for this is not at all nice, all those lucky people with Liver and prostate cancers at least can eat and drink, whereas the treatment will cause blistering, ulcers and general badness to happen on all things soft inside my mouth, my tongue and throat will become too painful to basically enjoy anything at all, so I get tubes inserted and possibly the equivalent of baby food push directly into my stomach.

I do get to be pain medded up, if there is such a term, but I am hoping that this will be better than I am on at the moment which is basically not good enough, again more on this later.

7 weeks of Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy, and apparently not the nice stuff either, although I was kind of looking forward to my hair falling out so that I would not have to shave, but he informed me that this does not happen anymore due to the new chemicals they have available to them, so I don’t get a single break!

I need to have someone with me, I asked if Drew Barrymore or Davina McCall would be available, but sadly they do not offer that as a service.

I am going to be away from home for the entire time, fairly bored early own as treatment only takes 30 minutes or so, and later on I will be in too much pain to have any fun at all. My hope is that I can do a little fishing from the shore to take my mind off things as apparently I am being housed in the Wirral very close to the sea front.

And I was also told that it could take a few months to get back to eating and drinking normally again after all this, so basically told to look at around 6 months and pain and discomfiort.

So after an overload of long words, bad news, and even worse treatment to come, we decided to go back to Liverpool and find a nice restaurant for our last meal in the UK.

Turtle Bay Liverpool
Turtle Bay Liverpool

We managed to loc ate this little place near to the apartments, and the food (and service) was well scrum, really enjoyed it and certainly recommend to anyone reading this dribble.

Great Food at Turtle Bay in Liverpoola
Great Food at Turtle Bay in Liverpool

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