Life, Cancer & Business

Someone once told me that life is what happens while you are making other plans so I must have spent a lot of time making them because Ive lived enough for two people. Then again as I write this second attempt to put my life into perspective, its against the backdrop of my second fight with cancer and this one isn't going away.

I still remember the day in 2022 when I was given a year to live. Everything became horribly painful to face and yet weirdly wondrous at the same time. Visits by family (we have 4 kids and 12 grandkids) became scary occasions for me because I became prone to bursting into tears with the sheer weight of the diagnosis. I had to discreetly nip to the bathroom to quickly get it out of my system, but gradually, like anyone with cancer, you find a way back into day to living otherwise it crushes you. Crying is a valve and a useful one for me, but for someone of my generation, born in 1962 and from a forces background, it was hard to get used to and its still not a spectator sport. Although as in all aspects of life, theres a caveat; whenever Im admitted to Hospital the tangle of emotions brought on by the fact that they missed the tumours on the initial scans and yet the fact that now I have to rely on them for my life, often makes the situation overwhelming as Im certain happens to others. The Staff however are patient, kind and discreet and I thank them. 

I was going to write this as a book but decided I was being a pretentious prick so Im doing the world a favour and writing a blog instead. If you find it entertaining, all I ask is that you consider making a modest donation to the Hospice at Home West Cumbria whose support I now sadly find myself in need of.

https://hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk/donate

So, before we delve into my life, lets deal with the cancer sized elephant in the room. In 2011 I had renal cancer and happily donated the part of my left kidney that was affected to research or to someones steak ’n’ kidney pie, I'm not really sure, and other than a minor nervous breakdown, I had rude health until my year from hell, 2022. Cancer came back, but not just the one this time, it brought friends and by the time I got through a painfully slow 5 month diagnosis, there were 7 of the little buggers eating away at my pelvis, stomach, right lung and pancreas. Under the circumstances 12 months seemed a trifle generous by the consultant but Im even happier that modern medicine gave me a suspended sentence that I'm still serving. Without the incredible support from Dianne however, I know id have been well and truly buggered.

Its not something Id recommend to a friend but if you do find yourself in similar shoes, dig deep, dont be afraid to cry, have hope and remember that vanilla Ice cream always works even when you feel nauseous!

So, Ive told you when it begins in 1962 but what about some context. I was born into a second generation Irish family into a 2 bed terraced house with an outside loo and no bath or other internal plumbing other than a single kitchen tap. The house was on James Street and the memories are great despite the cloud that hung over the whole family for years. I never fully understood it as a child but I was born only 17 years after the end of the war and memories of all the suffering and of course rationing were still raw. It was also more importantly only 15 years since my grandfather on my dads side was killed in William Pit the most dangerous pit in the Kingdom. As I write this, its 17 years since my own dad passed away and I still find that very upsetting to dwell on, so just how dad brought us up to not have a care in our world, feeling happy and safe, I’ll never know. The previous generation really did have a strength we can only imagine. 

We didn't have spare cash in the family but we had food and loving parents and we had proper old fashioned neighbours who cared for each other. We left that house when I was nearly 6 but I have clear memories of being taken into mums room by dad to see my younger brother Jim when he was only minutes old. I can remember my brother Stephen aged 3 sitting onto the embers of a bonfire and giving his bum an unexpected roasting. I can remember my elder brother David who I followed into the Navy many years later, getting lost on the Cleator Moor to Moor Row Railway line. That was a trick in itself because all he and my cousin Peter had to do was turn back! I can remember the Motorcycle Club on a Friday night on the adjacent Dawson Street. The bikers used to give us a bag of crisps to share if we were polite so we always were. I can remember hiding under the living room window with my mum because Gypsies were knocking at the door and she was petrified they would cast a spell on her because she couldn't afford to buy their clothes pegs; I can remember the water board sending a horse and cart with a water barrel on the back when all the water had been cut off; I can remember getting a slap for hiding under the table in the parlour on the day of Jims Christening party with the dish of homemade rum butter id nabbed, and I can remember Wayne Harrison who who later became a professional footballer and who was about the same age as David coming round to play. Wayne  always had a bag of sweets or crisps to share. I can also remember dad taking Dave and I to see Bobby Charlton at the Nights Club on the Moor in 1970 and thinking I was in heaven.

They are all happy memories of a black and white age when the telly finished mid evening with a rousing rendition of God Save the Queen. The week started with Sunday mass at Cleator and ended with weekend walks with Dad, something we kept up for over a decade. Ironically after watching some neighbours die distressingly painfully with Cancer in the 70’s, it became one of the things dad was always nervous about. He passed away cancer free while Ive enough to share.

When we moved to 2 Hopedene on Cleator Moors new Mill Hill housing estate, we felt rich. We had central heating as opposed to no heating and a fitted bath that dad could miraculously fill by turning a tap. The downside was bathing with 5 brothers all at the same time and knowing that the other 4 pee’ed in the bath. 

Mam bought our first car, a Ford Popular for a fiver in 1969 and we were kings. It had no windscreen washer system so dad made his own with an empty fairy liquid bottle, some tubing and some careful drilling below the windscreen. I thoroughly enjoyed my whole childhood and can only hope my own children were as satisfied with theirs, but after 18 months of part time jobs in the Working mens club and serving petrol at the Forge Service station, mine was over and it was time for me to flee the nest and so I followed Dave into the warm embrace of the mob (Royal Navy). 

More to come folks but in the meantime, dont forget to support the Hospice at Home if you can and of course visit our gorgeous wee shop on Lowther Street for a bottle and a chat.

https://hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk/donate 

www.richardsonsofwhitehaven.co.uk

Its time to rethink the High Street

 After years of championing the cause of the High Street, Ive had to admit it's now time for a major change, particularly in Whitehaven. I believe that Councils now have powers to restrict certain types of shops from opening and may even be able to reverse planning decisions of the past and with that in mind, we badly need a review of the existing stock and some of the occupied stock.

King Street was once the jewel in the crown for Whitehaven and was even dubbed the golden mile, but these days it's a sad almost derelict street with one or two gems here and there. Lowther Street is in danger of heading the same way and if it's allowed to go down that route, the two most notable shopping streets in the town will be lost for a generation or more.

I appreciate that people may be using barbers a bit more than in my heyday of hair but how did the town go from one barber shop (Davids) on Church Street to the dozen or more we have now? Can they all be genuine businesses?

On top of this, a shop was allowed to open on Lowther Street with garish outdoor lighting and signage that wouldn't look out of place in Benidorm but it does look right out of place on Lowther Street and yet where's the enforcement. We had to get approval for the type of lettering allowed on a traditional sign and yet that shop can get away with signage that a Dutch sex shop would be proud of. 

Few of these new types of business want to take part in the community either which just makes large parts of the town feel hollowed out.

It's time for a review of all the shop units, at least on Lowther and King Streets. I dont know if its possible, but Id like to see several permissions refused retrospectively and the businesses moved on and id also like to see the potential uses for the existing empty stock clearly defined. If needs be, some of them even on King Street may need redefined as only suitable for residential use, especially the ones that have stood empty since the financial crash.

Office use, cafes, bars and residential need to be the order of the day but also a special restriction on retail to ensure that units are only filled with the type of shop the town needs. Its a time for brave decisions but if we continue to allow the free for all that currently exists, several more units will be occupied. but by the type of businesses that suck the community out of the town and we dont need that.

Ideally we need to ensure that no more barber shops, nail bars, mini marts or vape shops are allowed to open in the heart of the town and that is going to take a determined effort by planners but if we dont act soon, the rot is going to set in and it is a rot. Once the balance of units are filled with these types of business, it's going to make it so much harder to persuade shoppers to visit. 

Whitehaven is on the up in so many ways and the arrival of Levels, the Edge and the revamping of the Rum Story are brilliant for the town as are the new bars and restaurants currently being developed, so I would urge the planners to support these upgrades to the town with some hard hitting decisions on the retail units and to do so soon.

We are now into our 30th year in Whitehaven and the changes weve seen in that time are heartbreaking to be honest, but there is a chance now, a window of opportunity if you like, to protect what we have and enhance the town for the next generation, but its going to need positive action from the County Council, supported by the right noises from the parish council but at present all I hear is the sound of silence!

www.richardsonsofwhitehaven.co.uk

Statistics my arse!

Have you noticed that the word runs on statistics? Every statement is qualified by some stat or other whether its to do with politics, sport health or virtually anything you can imagine. I get it that statistics can help give some clarity in certain areas of life, but I do wish they would apply more caution when it comes to health.

In 2022, my wife and I left the Carlisle Cancer centre with the knowledge that I would likely be dead in 12 months because thats what the stats said. Those words defined the next 6 months for us until two things happened. The first was that I had a cracking scan result showing that the medication Id been put on had reduced the tumour load significantly, and the second was the realisation that I just didn't feel like a person with only months left on the clock.

Unfortunately for a web junkie like myself, cancer stats cover everything and even if you beat one, it still leaves the trail of stress in its wake. One stat said that the average number of overnight admissions prior to death for a cancer patient with metastatic renal cancer was 3. 

I guess that means I must be dead following my last admission in November just gone, however as I entered January, another stat loomed and it's really scary. According to all the major health sites including the NHS, I have a 10% chance of getting to next January but while Ive had a bit of a rough time lately, I really dont feel like a chap with 11 months to go. Ive acquired more tablets to add to my daily regime and a rather distinguished walking stick and in the last week a water retention issue left me looking like Humpty Dumpty according to my empathetic business partner Louise; but 11 moths to go? I think not. This wee wine merchant is already planning the next Christmas drive in the shop and it doesn't include plans for a send off in a box on the 31st!

I've come to the conclusion that medical stats are best read and consumed by medical professionals and in an ideal world, their details would be heavily restricted. This to me is one of the downsides to the open information world we now live in since the internet was born. Dr Google as Ive often heard medics refer to health searches in the web is an addiction for anyone with a serious diagnosis and whichever way you look at it, according to the web, Im buggered.

So whats the point of this ramble I hear you say? Well, if you are just starting this awful and scary journey read your body, not your browser. Yeah, I know, it's easier said than done, especially when dealing with 5 and 10 year statistics but one thing I have learned about Cancer is that you cannot predict the bugger.

Everyones body reacts differently to tumours, to medication, to surgery and above all to stress of which this journey is full. Medical statistics are meant to be read in context as highly generalist numbers which may be useful to drug companies and to hospitals for long term bed planning. They definitely aren't details that you should be linking to your google calendar!

Anyway, after a year where the tumour in my stomach took to bleeding on a regular basis, causing me to learn a lot more about the blood transfusion service than I ever wanted to know and where the main tumour nearly did kill me with a bad secondary infection, Im still here and Dr Google can sod off.