61. Charity places

If you don’t find a place in a race through the ballot, by applying early enough or with a good for age qualifying time, there is always the option to run for a charity, but it usually involves a minimum sponsorship of a couple of thousand pounds on top of the registration fee. It may not be the cheapest way to take part, and you may feel the moral obligation to cover any shortfall in the sponsorship yourself if you have already bled your friends and work colleagues dry in previous years. However, you could always organise coffee mornings or quiz nights to help you raise the funds.

I have given fundraising a lot of thought. Is it okay for me to raise money for my own benefit by supporting Myeloma UK*? Should I stick to raising money for other charities?

For a long time my mind has been on that London to Paris cycle ride, the Myeloma UK flagship fundraiser, but, at the moment, I don’t feel that I could achieve that this year. Perhaps a Miles for Myeloma challenge might be better suited to my abilities later in the year.

—oOo—

This week has been much busier than last.

I started with camera club, and at every meeting I discover that the more I know, the more there is to know. The speaker covered portraits, and who knew there was so much to consider in terms of light arrangements and posing a model?

I had innocently offered to record the event on video but I soon realised that it wasn’t a matter of just sitting the camera on the tripod and covering the whole scene. The speaker would start talking about her slides, then once I aimed at the projection screen she would turn to the studio setup and I would try to pan around and jerkily zoom in. She would turn a bright light on, then stand in front of it, so my camera was blinded and I could only see her silhouette.

The editing of the video is another story: I’m trying to learn about another software package – Davinci Resolve – and I have yet to figure out how to make that produce a video file that is not prohibitively huge.

—oOo—

Next morning I was off to the doctor’s for my pneumonia and shingles jabs, to which I am now entitled as an over 65 year old. I had to make a special point of asking for a vaccine that wasn’t live, in view of my new immune system, but the nurse explained that none of the vaccines are live now (making her life easier). I had one in each arm to “spread the pain” and at this stage in my treatment I hardly noticed the “sharp scratches” until overnight, when I knew they were taking effect due to the tender areas on my upper arms, but I expect most of you are familiar with that.

—oOo—

Later in the week I attended the Fracture Clinic, seeing the same surgeon who fitted the nail (that’s the medical term for the metal pin) in my leg at The Royal Sussex in Brighton.

He started by talking us through the x-rays taken when I fractured my femur back in February. He pointed out the holes that result from Multiple Myeloma in much more detail than we had been given before. The holes can be a millimetre or two across and although my leg is not exactly like the inside of a Crunchie bar, he said the bone damage was almost certainly the main cause of the fracture. Normally the femur is one of the strongest bones in the body and would not break with a simple fall; he usually only comes across a break when someone has fallen off a motorbike at 60 mph.

I went for x-rays and the cloudy patches you can see beside the bone show that it is healing very well, so hopefully there will be no need for any radiotherapy. I don’t need to go back for a further checkup at the fracture clinic, I should go ahead with any activities that I like and not hold back, and I am free to drive as long as I can stamp my foot on the brake pedal (which I can). The nail in the leg is strong enough for almost anything and he has seldom seen one damaged. I’ll put the horror stories of nails being bent by a strenuous spin class (which happened to my sister’s friend) to the back of my mind.

—oOo—

In my social whirl, I enjoyed lunch at the No. 7 coffee shop and two curries at the Nupur (different nights and dishes), which I hope will be good training for next week’s curry.

Over Friday’s Chicken Dhansak, I learned something about the history of the procedure to fit a nail in my femur: it was developed by a German doctor, Gerhard Küntscher, apparently in response to all the broken legs suffered by pilots crashing and parachute landings going wrong in the Second World War. At first the German military disapproved but later the method became the universally accepted standard of care.

If you have the stomach for it, here is a film of Dr Küntscher himself performing the operation on someone’s tibia in 1942. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen this before my procedure and I was unconscious during the hammering stage when mine was done. And, yes, I had to look away: it is very graphic and it might put you off your dinner – you have been warned!

—oOo—

To finish off the week we enjoyed a ride on Bunty, the Cycling Without Age trishaw, (thanks Emma and Andy) to take part in the village Jumble Trail, stopping at stalls around the village to see what they had for sale. We came back fully laden with a book, some biscuits and an inflatable boat. You never know what you might find.

—oOo—

As far as the Myeloma is concerned, I am into my third week of maintenance treatment and I’m experiencing no side effects from the Lenalidomide.

When walking any distance I still use the crutches to keep my posture but indoors I am becoming quite nimble and I’m returning to regular exercise. As well as following the UCLH physio routine every other day, I tried the static bike in the garage and found that my right knee bends far enough for a gentle ride. I have done that three times this week so far, watching Three Body Problem on Netflix, which is just the right episode length for a 45 minute session. I won’t try exerting myself too much yet. With spring and summer ahead of us, I’ll keep making progress on my fitness until I can attempt something worth sponsoring.

Thanks for reading and take care.

* If you would like to donate to Myeloma UK, you can do so here.

https://donate.myeloma.org.uk