Glad I married Princess Fiona

I was looking through some old photographs yesterday and came across this one which I thought you guys might like.  As you can see, despite being an ogre, Shrek is actually quite a handsome chap 🙂 However, more to the point, Princess Fiona is as you would expect, beautiful and radiant. There’s a bit of a story behind this picture as Chris was in fact not very well at the time.

This picture was taken in Anaheim (LA) in Disneyland California in 2008. We were there with Chris’s brother Gerry (a mad ex paratrooper) and his lovely wife Babs.  Poor Chris developed a mild pneumonia on day 1 when we were in San Francisco having been a bit peaky on the plane. Despite a $600 antibiotic ‘shot’ in the jacksie, she spent the first couple of days in bed and was still not right when we drove from there to Yosemite; and then onto Death Valley and Vegas. She was actually starting to perk up by the time we got to LA but still looked weak and pale. Fortunately the photographer was able to put some colour in her cheeks and as you can also see, was able to put some flesh onto mine 🙂  Joking aside, looking at some of the other pictures from that period, I was certainly a bit ‘chubbier’ than I am now.

I could write a book on that holiday, there were so many ‘incidents’ and laughs (might use some of them for post walk blogs).  Chris and I intend to repeat some parts of this holiday in the very near future – it’s such a fantastic place.

Some ‘P’ words for the medical geeks 🙂 (ha ha takes one to know one…but feedback indicates you like these)

Pulmonary Embolism

A few weeks after being released from hospital following my big surgery in Nov 2010, I was ‘summoned’ to Bournemouth Hospital to RV with my Nurse having been informed ‘pulmonary emboli‘ had been spotted on my right lung following a scan.  She gave me a pack of blood thinning injections and demonstrated how to self inject. I remember not thinking much about it but when I got home, I decided to study it carefully (as Ronny Allan does….). My study revealed some ‘frightening’ stuff and so very thankful this was spotted when it was.  My Oncologist had initially prescribed the injections for 6 months, however, I’m still taking them today more than 3 years later. Not complaining as it’s a necessary evil.  My stomach is sometimes covered in small yellow and purple bruises which provides a talking point whenever I have to take my shirt off at the GP or Hospital.   The ‘my wife’s a husband beater‘ joke is now wearing a bit thin….. 🙂

Today I will inject for the 1218th time!  I will be injecting myself daily during the walk.

Primary Tumour

Primary Neuroendocrine Tumours can be notoriously small.  Despite this they can still do a lot of damage!   Some Neuroendocrine Cancer patients have an unknown primary site (10% ish).  Mine was located as a ‘mass’ in the terminal ileum, the most distal part of the small intestine where it connects to the cecum, the pouch between the small and the first part of the large intestine (ascending colon), via the ileococal valve.  All of these bits were removed ‘en bloc’ due to extensive mesenteric disease. The appendix hangs off the cecum so I can now say I’ve had my appendix out too!  The appendix is actually a fairly common place for a Neuroendocrine tumour – it is in fact the second most common disease of the appendix (clearly appendicitis is top).  You can find out more about these aspects of my treatment by reading here:

http://wp.me/p4AplF-3t    (Ileum)

http://wp.me/p4AplF-2w  (Fibrosis)

Thanks for reading, please feel free to share.

See you tomorrow

Ronny

Twitter : @ronnyallan1

Author: Ronny Allan

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