Aware that other things have been preoccupying me of late, I thought it was time to add a post to the website
While responding to some (positive) comments about older posts on my website I realised that I had not posted anything for many months. My excuse, if excuse is needed, is that I have had several months of ill-health – a silent reminder that the body has a tendency to deteriorate the longer we survive.
The most obvious indicator of gradual decline has been the arthritis, especially in my left hip which has been a growing worry over the last two years. A hip replacement was mooted at the end of 2025. But where should it take place? The nearest hospital in Bristol (where all the hip-ies in my street had been done) had a wait time of 41 weeks for an initial consultation. The other Bristol hospital had a 101 week wait! I opted for Bath where it was only 21 weeks.
Eventually, after an Xray and a meet up with the surgeon, I was put on The List, BUT at my ‘pre-op’ interview it transpired that nothing could progress until a positive result had been received from a chest Xray for a recurrent pleural thickening of the lining of my lungs – the result on an illness following an assignment in the Far East (Taiwan). In due course the result came good, but because the NHS Trusts in adjacent cities do not communicate readily it took a while for Bath to get the green light.
Never mind adjacent cities; there are two NHS Trusts in Bristol and their computer systems are not compatible. I am sure I am not the only one for whom this has proved problematic. North Bristol NHS Trust deals with my respiratory issues, while University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (sic) in the city centre are handling my treatment for polycythaemia vera, a form of blood cancer, I am told, that I will die with rather than of. Problems arose over which medications were causing what side effects. As the computer systems do not talk to each other, one consultant had to consult with another consultant using snail mail (and we all know how efficient Royal Mail is these days).
Anyway, back I went to Bath for a second pre-op interview where the anaesthetist decided that given my portly physique I should be tested for sleep apnea lest I stop breathing during the op. Equipped with a snazzy piece of gear I as sent home to Bluetooth myself up to my smartphone so the experts at a private hospital used by the NHS could surveille my sleeping pattern. It required me to shave a patch on my hairy chest and literally stick a monitor on below my neck, wired to a bulky gadget on my wrist linked in turn to a pulse oximeter on my finger. All well and good until I pressed ‘go’ and discovered that the internet was not working in my bedroom. I then had to dismantle the contraption and negotiate with Sky for an additional router booster.
When that did not work (there was clearly no notion of future-proofing cottages with thick stone walls when mine was built 150 years ago) I had to wait until a Sky technician found a hole in his schedule to come and further boost my signal. We now have four boosters! So three weeks later I tried again, with success, but it took the ‘experts’ another five weeks to analyse my sleep pattern and get AI to compile a report putting me in the clear.
In the meantime I got called in, after a routine blood test, for a prostate biopsy – the dastardly organ having swelled to almost four times its normal volume! It was an extremely undignified procedure, and not without pain. Only 4 of the 17 snips they took revealed any indication of a cancer. I was reliably assured that I shall die with the condition rather than of it, and was put on a ‘watchful waiting’ programme. Fortuitously the quarterly blood tests and consultations will coincide with a similar arrangement for my other cancerous condition. Two for the price of one. I suppose I should be grateful. I am so much better off than friends and family who have succumbed to the Big C.
Unfortunately the biopsy left me with a really nasty urinary tract infection that laid me low for almost two weeks. To complicate matters further a modicum of incontinence has now been added to the constipation caused by some of my medicines! Luckily over the summer NHS Occupational Therapists had a ‘special toilet seat’ installed, along with an extra banister to help me get up and down stairs, and guard rails on either side of my low-lying bed to assist entry and exit. I now hobble about with a walking stick I nicked from a sister, muttering the rubric the OT professionals taught me for coping with stairs ‘Up with the good; down with the bad’.
I used this period to start growing my winter beard after my Sicilian barber visited and cropped my locks.
The beard enables me to fulfil my function as Santa Claus to the local kids at Christmas.
I have toyed with the idea of running an ‘Even Santa Gets Cancer’ fundraiser, hiring myself out for Xmas parties and the like.
However but I doubt I would survive an Enhanced DBS check with a terrorism charge hanging over my head.
(I am still waiting for my day in court.)<https://www.mikejempson.eu/2025/11/30/thoughts-on-an-arrest/.
All 3,000 of we putative terrorists (for holding up cardboard signs) must wait until at least 19 January when we are not obliged to turn up (says the hearing notice) at Westminster Magistrates Court to find out if and when we will be prosecuted.
Much depends upon an imminent Supreme Court decision about the proscription of Palestine Action. Who knows how long that will take to be made public. If they don’t tell the government to drop this ludicrous proscription, we could be clogging up the courts for years, even if they do decide to try us in batches of 5. So much for freedom of speech and opposition to genocide.
Over the summer we have been feeding a sick young fox that has been haunting the garden. Having gradually enticed it into a humane trap this very morning, it is now being looked after by `Secret World’ <https://www.secretworld.org/>
When it is fully recovered they say they will return it to its territory (my back garden)! Since foxes have made off with 20 of my chickens over the years, I am not enamoured of the plan. We might end up with a pet fox instead of poultry.
Back to my other bodily conccrns. Next stop Bath again for a series of consultations which I hope will result in a date for the hip-op. One friend told me he had been skiing after his op, but having never ski-ed before I doubt I shall emulate him. Another told me her friend is now like a spring chicken. Which reminds me, I have told myself I shall start keeping chickens again in the Spring (the last three having succumbed to the neighbourhood foxes last Autumn|).
A final decision on that will be made when I return from my convalescence on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, promised by old friends who run the Marangu Hotel. <https://www.maranguhotel.com>
More when my hip is replaced.
