For Off Topic Friday.
I am trying more and more to express myself through my paintings, using this as a vehicle rather than groaning on to my wife.
This is a mixed media painting of a sandy beach in south Wales. I am not sure how much of a backstory to give here, but . . . I have been handed over to a pain management team, all treatments for my metastatic prostate cancer having been stopped. Thus, as darkness approaches, a paler light is appearing.
On to my backstory: My oncologist at our very last meeting (Sept 18th, 2023) told me that she expects me to see out the remainder of this year and some -- she can't say how much -- of next year. She told me of a small tumour in one of my neck vertebrae, which is pressing against a nerve connected with my tongue. The latter has become somewhat distorted, making speech a challenge after about 30 minutes of talking.
My right leg, which had previously been problem free, has joined in the fun and is aching nastily between my buttock and ankle. Previously pain had been limited to my left leg, which for the moment is comfortable. But such is my right leg that I am taking opioid painkillers called Abstral to keep it dulled enough for me to carry out my daily chores (I am the household cook, for example). These tablets are making the world very fuzzy and two dimensional.
So in this painting I have sunset -- the anti-cancer meds -- followed by moonrise -- the painkillers. I wonder, though, does this painting express my deep concern for Jacqui, my wife and care giver? I am trying to let her know just as much as she needs of my day-to-day physical and emotional pain. I laugh, genuinely, at every opportunity. We hug as often as we can too . . . . almost to a schedule, but genuinely putting as much as we can into it. I keep threatening to play with her boobs, but am waiting to be told when.
There is a horrid sense of this being the last of everything. Will I see my last birthday on November 10th? Will this be my last Christmas? What of New Year? We have not talked in such terms, but I know the thought is at the back of my mind. Is it at the back of Jacqui's? How does one celebrate when faced with such thoughts?
I have been wondering about Jacqui having a little memorial do for me when I am dead and gone and she is feeling settled. I want singing and dancing -- the kind of carefree, don't-give-a-shit-if- anybody's-watching dancing.. The very last thing I want in the order of events is Fanfare for the Common Man. Not the version as composed by Aaron Copland, but the almost disco version recorded by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. My thinking there is quite simple. I grew up on a social housing estate in sunny West Yorkshire, in the shade of woollen mills and chemical factories. But my life took me far and wide, me ending up as a Professor in Geology and Palaeontology at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. That is, by the way, Professor in the British Commonwealth sense of the word -- me having published sufficient work, and of sufficient quality, to be elected as a Professor by comparable professors at other universities worldwide. (Americans tend to confer the title on anybody who teaches at a university, published or not.) As I am wont to gloat, "Not bad for a boy from a council estate, eh?" Hence my wanting that piece, as a joyful celebration of what this common man achieved, and people thoroughly throwing themselves into it.
I think I have written enough, and am wondering how many will have read this far. No matter, it's just the drugs rambling. I shall leave you to the remainder of your Sunday.
End of Dementia Journey