Dentist

It's all a bit quiet now. I am taking a small break while working from home.

It's 2 days since chemo and the effects seem to have kicked in. Tracey is a lot quieter and lacking in energy, not very talkative. She has gone to bed early the last 2 nights partly to get to sleep before I get there and, of course, because she is tired. She is off her food and looks a bit red. Not massive side effects but ones that could eventually grind you down. I just want to take her in my arms and make it all go away. The thing to do is to be chirpy and cheery, unfortunately I find I have to continually stop myself asking her how she is. I need a good supply of black humour to keep us both going.

Brenda is keeping the house running and keeping Tracey going (and me and the kids). Food and drink at regular intervals. I had some wonderful walnut bread toast for breakfast today and there is an endless supply of tea. During one of my breaks I managed to take a couple of photos in the garden, one of a toad and one of a long tailed tit.

"I expect you to die Mr Slug"

A birdy silhouette

Actually there was a small flock which were making a huge racket, but they move so quick I could only get one pictured against the sky.

It's the weekend soon, hopefully we will be able to get out of the house. Having Bren here means I may be able to get the boys out and about. I think they are going a bit stir crazy.

Well today I managed to miss a dental appointment. One of the purposes of the day was Vaughan and I going to the dentist at 11:50. This was for 2, 5 minute appointments for cleaning, my dentist had run out of cleaning material on Tuesday during our regular appointment so asked us back. We just forgot, Vaughan wasn't even up till 11:55. Well sod it! I am not rebooking these appointments. I think we can forgo the messing about. I hate dentists and am not going to be messed about further, even if it is my fault.

Well there you are, Tracey has just had a short walk and is now fast asleep and dinner is on the way. Man Utd are in the same Champions League group as Rangers and where are you Liverpool? I am thinking of giving my children middle names from my favourite place in Cornwall, Vaughan William Looe Tinsley. It's got a ring to it hasn't it? Or may be in Dorset Adam Brian Piddletrenthide Tinsley but I could go back to Noggin the Nog and use one of my favourite Somerset names for my little girl, Olivia May Torr Thurloxton Tinsley. Probably I won't do any of them as I don't have any votes to win.

Chris xx

Chemical brothers

Well our first experience of chemo. It is very strange to watch your wife being pumped full of nasty chemicals, alongside another 3 or 4 couples suffering the same fate. But I run ahead of myself.

Brenda arrived last night and a welcome sight she is. Regular food and a sense of continuity in the household. For all my love of chaos having her here brings the order we need to get through. I don't do order, I try but it doesn't happen so help is very welcome. Lots of cleaning done, house looks OK, not Bren tidy but well above Chris tidy. The kids worked very hard and Olivia is still handing out prizes from her draw.

There was a feeling of rising trepidation in the house as the evening drew to a close. Thankfully "Who do you think you are?" managed to occupy a good slice of the later evening. I am sure both our families are related to great people. I am definitely a descendant of Charles Darwin, Leonardo Da Vinci and Shakespeare. I am sure Tracey is descended from Titania and Venus. We ended up going to bed very late. This was no bad thing as neither of us slept very well. That last statement is tempered by me being awaken at regular intervals. I believe I was breathing the wrong way. We slept with the window open and a lovely view of Venus in the sky. The moon was overpowering most of the sky but it could not outshine this planet.

The morning was slow, up before 8:00 a light breakfast and just a wait for chemo at 11:00. There was tension in the air and I snapped indiscriminately at children and adults alike. Striking out is a defensive mechanism of mine (and most people), the kids get the brunt of it. They act so normal when things are not normal. Any way raised voices and off late. We still got to the RUH in time, the view across Lansdown was lovely in between the showers. We went in quick, I took the reading material and realised I had left my glasses in the car. No time to go back and get them. We sat down and waited. The cancer area at RUH is very busy so it is a good place for people watching, I play spot the wig which is really unfair and get regularly told to shut up by my wife who is acutely aware of how loud my voice is. In a few weeks it could be Trace, or it might be a headscarf, may be a tattoo or a permanent marker. Totally unfair and the figment of a sick mind. 

Anyway Trace is soon called in and chemo officially starts. Trace will give you details but this is where I have to sit and watch a very charming and overworked nurse pump huge syringes of chemicals in to her willing victim, my wife. My job is to hold on to an ice lolly  (Trace will explain) and sort out any reading or drinking material. There is plenty of time so I go back and get my glasses and Ipod ,which I don't use. Chemo seems crowded, all the people being treated are women and men are sat next to them looking particularly useless. This is not a participatory sport, it is a spectator sport. More akin to the trips people use to take to look around institutions like Bedlam. My role is to support Trace and I can't do anything else. I want to be able to give her a cure but I cant. I should have concentrated during Latin at school and become a doctor but with my luck I would have ended up specialising in rectal ailments.

Anyway, 2 hours later and its over, Trace looks a touch redder but the side effects don't kick in for a little while, if at all. So we are no longer chemo virgins and are now waiting till the next appointment on 17th Sept, yet another great birthday for Vaughan. IT was almost a positive experience, no surprises, no pain. I even managed to look as they put the needle in the vein, aren't I the brave one!

So its back home, Tracey has had a sleep and granny has entertained the kids. Can't wait for work tomorrow.

Chris xx

Staycation, relaxation and contemplation

Well our holiday is nearly over in more ways than one. I have enjoyed the last two weeks much more than I expected. It's been a time of Castles and Palaces, aeroplanes and fishing and a visit to a farm. Not a bad time at all and thanks to being at home just a little more money to spend than usual. A time for relaxation and contemplation, may be even a bit of navel gazing.

Tracey has mentioned most of the things that we have done so I won't bore you with the details but I will give you the benefit of a few photos showing the whole family having fun.

Beware of giant child

All the kids carry knives these days

Did we have to bring my brothers?

So next week back to work, this would usually be a concern to me but really it doesn't bother me any more. Next week is chemo.

I have lots of worries about chemo, not the least of which is sharing the house with three teenagers, one of whom works with animals and a wife who will lose some of her resistance to infection. We need a sterile environment, we don't have one. Short of dipping several of us in boiling water for a period there seems little we can do to improve. I am on rubber glove duty for the rest of the weekend and an inspection from Tracey's mum is due on Monday. It would be awful for Tracey to catch a bad infection just as the chemo is working. The real challenge will be keeping animal bugs away when Livi comes back from the Kennels and restarts college again, there may also be some issues with the rabbits. 

I do wonder how I am going to cope with the changes to Trace in the next few weeks. Trace is strong, a rock for me (I know, it should be the other way round). She has coped very well so far.  am girding my loins at the moment.

It seems such a long, long treatment. Weeks and months, perhaps years to go. I hope it doesn't start to grind us down. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of my daughters book (of whom I am very proud as I am of the way all three of my children have faced this) and do some fund raising. I fancy a sponsored walk. Later in the year perhaps.

One big problem is that I have suddenly realised that I am going to have to clean the toilets for the next few months. How does that work? I have spent many a long evening shouting down the big white telephone but no time applying cleaning fluids to it. Tracey will have to give me instructions. Hopefully the washing fairy won't go away during this period.

So we start a 3 week cycle (listen to me "we" I mean Tracey of course), three chemo drugs taken 3 times every three weeks. Then another drug taken 3 times every three weeks (goes in bright red, comes out bright red apparently). And then on to radio therapy.

While I am talking about illness during this surreal time when my whole family life is in turmoil and we have become centered on our own problems, one of my good friends, Clive, has suffered a heart attack. This was two weeks ago. I talked to him this week and he is on the mend which is a good thing. I have known Clive for 35 years and he is possibly the most fun and dangerous thing alive when he is camping. The best fire builder I know, with the strongest torches and loudest laugh. In the old days he could always be relied upon to chuck a sneaky firework in the fire at three in the morning just to check who was awake. Jane has suffered him for years and will be suffering him more now. She knows just how to cope with him. Strange to think that this heavy drinking, fearless pyromaniac works at a nuclear power station. Get well soon Clive, I will visit.

It seems insignificant to report this but I have also been to the hospital this week. I have been suffering from a cough and shortness of breath. Seems likely this is due to acid reflux and am on medication to fix it. So I am off fatty food and spicy food and late night eating. I suppose I have been diagnosed with being a fat little git, good diagnoses.

Well there you have it a few thoughts on the past and on the future. Thank you Sue H for all the help you have given to Liv over the past couple of weeks.

I leave you with a comment of the day from Farmer Giles

Bye Chris x

Camera Obscured

We are on holiday, at home, at the moment so opportunities to blog have become few and far between. So have the reasons to blog. When I am having fun my blogger's chair remains empty.

No pictures last time but lots this time. Recently I have been a little hard on Wiltshire and what it has to offer. When you have lived next to the sea and the moors Wiltshire's offerings can seem a little bare. But I do it a great disservice. Stonehenge, Avebury, Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury Plain, Cain hill locks, Longleat house, Stourhead Gardens. Look them all up, world heritage sites and great places to go. Even when I am at work I can be in the countryside, on foot, in my lunch hour. So big up Wiltshire. There is a great mix of beauty and just a little of the decay you would expect everywhere.

Lets start with the river Biss. From the the bridge by Trowbridge Library I have seen roach, dace, chubb, perch and even a pike lapping up the sun and ducks, long tail tits, kingfishers and waxwings. My latest spot was a crayfish crawling around by the blind house next to Bowyers. These are mixed with shopping trolley's, road signs, plastic bags and rats. 

A fish needs a bicycle

To move on from the grime there have been a lot of good spots for me recently in and around Trowbridge and Biss water park.

A little green damselfly

Butterfly and ladybird

Butterfly paradise

Chubby little friend

Some of the beauty id eventually tarnished by peoples inability to put things in the bin especially when they have had a few. The old town bridge in Trowbridge is a great meeting and drinking place for people old and young, bottles are the result.

Ten green bottles

Ten more little green bottles

Shame about the last two photos, I am now outraged of Melksham, maybe I should start a campaign to get them cleared up. Something for the future.

Finally I have managed to get a picture of yet another dragonfly that landed in my garden. here it is. 

Bit of a muddled background but quite clear.

Well I will do a holiday special but I think Trace has already done some of that and there are some lovely family photos which I might also include. Livi is doing very well with her draw at the moment and I might get some pics of her washing cars.

Next week is another big hospital week for us, Tracey sees the chemo nurse and I have to go for lung function tests. Adam is also due to have his braces removed very soon.

The premiership is about to start so I am getting my spot on the sofa ready.

Till the next time.

Chris x

Chris Tinsley State of mind

Well it's been a week and its holiday time for us. Nothing arranged but maybe that's better, no packing, no long drive yet. But that's for another blog, what has been happening.

Well no blog doesn't mean nothing happening it just means no crisis. I'm still obsessed with the photo taking, the family may force me to extract the camera from my rear at some point. I try to limit the pictures to lunch time and walk around on my own. I still feel a bit uneasy trailing a camera across the main Trowbridge park past all the children and and people lunching. I'm not sure whether that's me or a reflection on society.

Just a small political point to start with related to my work in a local authority. I celebrate the demise of ContactPoint this week. I have had limited contact with it at work and I think most of us are really pleased to see it go. No government should hold a database of all our children, over 3 million at the last count, particularly not the last government and I am glad that this discredited coalition of the needy and the nasty have done one thing right at last. Of course everything else they are doing is just plain wrong and the sooner they fall apart the better. Adios Lib Dems, good riddance Conservatives. Don't get me started on CCTV!

The family move on, Trace is looking and sounding better. I think I am now used to the scaring and have become, sort of, blind to it. It's just Tracey. I don't help with the exercising as much as I should (at all) but Trace just gets on with it. The children sometimes rub her feet but I don't. We don't walk or exercise enough. But we have got in to some sort of routine, which works.

My mind is much clearer now, "pull yourself together, get on with it". Time to reflect has been useful. I suppose the next emotional watershed is chemo. I am sure we will get through that, (listen to me, "we", I mean Tracey, she gets treated, I read a book). I wonder what sort of family we will be on the other side. I like to think we were close before this, perhaps we weren't as close as I thought. Now we are much closer, to sort of quote Joni Mitchell " you don't know what you got till there is a possibility that a pernicious disease is going to take it away from you". Many people in our situation begin to live for the day, I think that may be the way forward. Today I will put my feet up and watch telly with scant regard for anything that is going on around me showing a complete disregard for the things that need to be done. No change there.

I have found time to look at how I interact with my close family. I have already mentioned Tracey. With the children I remain bad tempered but getting better. Adam and Vaughan look after me, particularly Vaughan who also looks after his mum. Adam likes to play games with me. We always go off together if we are visiting anywhere. I am at the moment continuously slaughtering him at darts, he will get better and is practicing lots but I am the daddy. This is revenge for all the lessons he gives me at computer games. Vaughan is spending more time with his friends which is a good thing. He is more of a confidant for me, he already dismisses me as a rival as he is already far ahead of me at everything (in his mind). They are both wonderful.

Olivia is a special case, she is doing very well at the moment, persisting with things that she needs to do but doesn't really want to. She still uses me as a taxi but I think that's what dads are meant to do. Just occasionally she shows the sort of affection that I want. I indulge her but that is my privilege, I expect her to look after us when we are old and infirm (next year).

The wider family remain supportive, Tracey had a lovely visit from her brother this week. I am in constant contact with my cousin Lyn and my brother continues to send his love. He probably won't be reading this as he is a bit of a technophobe which is no bad thing. Parents are there for comfort.

So there you are, all words, no pictures, Chris Tinsley state of mind.

(Picture special next time?)

Chris xx

The Saturdays

Just thought for a change that I would talk you through a normal Tinsley Saturday as a contrast to the all the changes that we have gone and are going through. Life carries on.

Olivia almost always works at McDonald's on Saturday and Sunday. In some ways this is a bit of relief for us as it gives her money in her pocket and she is not hanging round the house all day. The one downside for me is that I usually (always) let her drive to work. So an 8:00 start for Liv means that I get up at 7:15 (sort of). I am told that I indulge the girl and should make her walk, about a mile and a half. I choose to give her a lift and now let her drive.

Anyway, up early. At this point I should explain about my alarm clock. I set my clock for 7:15, well actually I set it for 7:16 and if it was 7:30 I would set it for 7:31, I just don't like the more rounded numbers so I always add 1. So 1 minute out, except that I also set the alarm clock 12 minutes fast, just to keep ahead of the game, so that's 12 minutes fast minus the 1 added minute. Actually when I checked this morning it was 14 minutes fast, it has crept forward, so that's 12 minutes fast minus the 1 I add on plus another 2. So when I say 7:15 I actually mean 7:02. Got that everyone? It works for me and I am sure everyone does something similar. So here is the view from our bedroom window at 7:03.

A grey start to the day. A quick cup of tea, smarten yourself up, you never know who you will meet when you step out of the door. Also you have to ask yourself the question, does it get any better than this. I'll leave you to judge.

Please note how I have cleverly avoided the double chin, this is not Photoshop, it's just a good angle.

Drive Livi to work. For those of you not from these parts here is Melksham MaccyD's, bet it looks a lot like your own.

Drive home and fill the car up with fuel and get the Saturday newspapers. Then it's time to put my feet up and watch a bit of yesterday's cricket.

After that there is still no movement elsewhere so I put the filter on the pond and set up a dart board for the boys and me. It's outdoors and a little on the low side. I am sure we will get by.

No, bread! A quick trip to the Coop and it's crumpets all round. Normally I have cereal for breakfast, at the weekend we have breakfast together, usually toast, occasionally something else.

Tracey gets up, highlight of the morning. All the things I have failed to do are pointed out to me and rectified. A coffee pot is cleaned. It's also time for the first phone call of the day.

Somehow I manage butter the crumpets incorrectly ?????? I am not allowed to put the jam that Tracey desires on to her crumpet, only she can manage it properly.

Boys get up and breakfasts are eaten. It's crumpet and telly. I squeeze in a bit of cricket and motor sport viewing and still have the time to show Adam who's the daddy at darts. And that's it for a while.

A friend come round for Adam and he is gone.

Tracey wants a walk. She wants to got to Smallgrain which is a picnic spot near Devizes and by a nature reserve, so I am not going to say no and off we go.

The walk was brilliant. There was a bit of complaining, mainly because I was taking photos. I was either too far in front or too far behind. The other two were a little gang. This part of Wiltshire is beautiful and teeming with wildlife. I have a few photos.

I start with this picture just to show how the rolling hills look, Vaughan took a far better image of this a few years, I might put hat up at some point. This is where we were going.

It's a small nature reserve and can get busy. It does have striking views and a bit of a stiff climb in the middle, so it was a challenge of sorts.

By the way I have been requested not to put people in these photos so no Tracey and Vaughan here. 




I've spoken about the views, here is a little look at the Lansdown monument which is above Cherhill's White horse, sadly on the other side of the hill. Also a quick look at the runway at Lynham which many of you will know from the telly.

 

 

No Dragonflys today but I do have a few flower pictures, a bee and a butterfly which is blue with it's wings open. Interestingly one of the flowers is from the nightshade family, Woody nightshade I think. 

 

This was a lovely walk, just long enough, very sunny and very refreshing.

By the time we got home it was just after 4:00pm and I got a text from Livi. It was very measured but it meant "where are you?". I had forgotten to pick her up. I flew to MaccyD's (not easy in a Micra) and she drove us home.

The next big thing was tea. I went to Sainsbury's and did what I hope will be most of a weeks shop. We get other things when needed.

Does it look like enough? You will notice the Indian, Indian for me Vaughan and Tracey, Pizza for Adam and Livi has decided not to eat with us. She goes out with friends before it is completed.

Well dinner was served at about 7:30 and was lovely, we both had a single beer and sat down to watch a disappointing nights TV.


We decided to watch a DVD. Rob has lent us the first series of Dollhouse. It's by Joss Weedon and stars "Faith" from that series. We are both getting in to it. It seems to be many layered although that might be due to my limited brain power.

At ten I got a text "Dad can you pick me up at 11:00 at Chantell's". A quick look at the watch. "make it 11:15". So at 11:15 out I go get Livi and drive one of her friends home as well, she only lives around the corner. Just time for another episode of Dollhouse then off to bed.

Except the filter is still on the fish pond so it's out to turn it off and say a quick goodnight to the rabbits. In bed by 12:30.

So that's it, a very typical Tinsley Saturday and I love the normality of it all.

Chris xx