Og's Blog Pt. 01

Another thing you can do is write down as much of your family's history as you can, like KiethD did. Genealogy can only give so much information, but family history is far more than "begats." There is, buried under the tarmac of some airport's runway, the remains of my great-grandfather's farm. My family only knows that because somebody remembered it and wrote down before he died.

I always thought that the family tradition that my paternal grandparents and the family lost their home to a zeppelin bomb in 1915 was just one of those stories, but a 2007 book on the zeppelin raids on London confirmed that where they lived had to be demolished after the bomb blast. The 1911 census shows their address but after 1915 that address ceases to exist.

13 Dec 2019

Latest pre-chemotherapy check, yesterday, shows I am still fit and active with stupidly good figures for blood pressure etc for my age. My blood/oxygen level remains at 100% which is almost unbelievable for someone with lung cancer.

However the medical professionals had advice for Christmas etc. - Although I have Type II diabetes I can eat and drink whatever I want. The diabetes isn't going to affect my quality of life before I die and I am unlikely to be around for another Christmas after this one.

14 Dec 2019

My wife has been active on Ancestry for over a decade.

Her family tree had a block that she sorted out. Her great-grandfather joined the army in 1905 and was advised to change his Polish surname if he wanted to progress in the army. He took his wife's surname and changed his first name as well. My wife knew that from her mother and knew both his new name and his old.

When she put that on Ancestry, she enabled other people descended from him and his three wives, to get past the block. They hadn't been able to find his birth or anything before when he joined the army because that name had no antecedents.

My paternal family tree is easy. I have an unusual surname and almost all people with that name, living or dead, are related. For hundreds of years they had been Parish Clerks in the City of London and their names appear in the Parish records of many city churches. One of my cousins found an interesting note for the year 1666 - The Great Fire of London. That Parish clerk recorded his wife's displeasure. He had acquired a cart to move the parish records away from the fire. He did that BEFORE removing his furniture and belongings from the family home. His wife thought his priorities were wrong. His retort was that his furniture and possessions could be replaced if he still had a job but if he had lost the Parish records, he would be unemployed. Most City of London Parish clerks did the same for which current researchers of family history owe a debt.

14 Dec 2019

My maternal family tree is complex. I and many others are descended from a late 18th century woman called Lettice Pryke. Her grandfather and earlier men were called John Prick - because they were cattle herders using a goad or prick.

She married, had twelve children, all of whom married and had similar numbers of children that all survived to marry...

Another ancestor is John Smith, the village blacksmith, son of John Smith, grandson and great-grandson of a John Smith. Tracing them was only possible because they lived in a very small village.

Another ancestor married a younger daughter of a noble family who were dispossessed for being on the wrong side of a dispute with the King. Because her father was a nobleman his family tree is known leading back to King Henry II and the Counts of Provence and ultimately to the Norse God Odin (or Woden), Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and through them the Roman Goddess Venus, the Greek Goddess Aphrodite and the Egyptian Goddess Isis. If you believe that? Even Julius Caesar's contemporaries thought his claim to be descended from Venus was spurious.

14 Dec 2019

My Paternal family were scriveners - public letter writers until about 100 years after Caxton when they became printers.

Someone in my family, including many of the women, could read and write for nearly 600 years. My grandfather was the last printer and a copperplate engraver. My son-in-law is now a specialist printer.

16 Dec 2019

Back from five hours of boring chemotherapy. I don't like sitting in one place for that long. I need to get up and move around, and with a cannula and line to a machine - I can't.

Except for the slight prick when they insert the line I feel nothing and have no side effects except thinning of hair in my beard and my bald spot has grown.

But it is boring...

16 Dec 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by _Lynn_ View Post

Good to hear you aren't having side effects so far.

If the other people having chemotherapy knew? They'll kill me.

I was offered - again - pills for nausea. I still have, unopened, the set of pills I was given after the first session. Today was my fourth.

But I took my wife to a restaurant for her birthday meal. I washed it down with a pint of Stella Artois. Many of my fellow sufferers can barely manage a dry biscuit and sips of water.

16 Dec 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by _Lynn_ View Post

I've lost several family members who had severe side effects from the chemo. Positive thoughts that yours continues to go well.

My brother had two sessions of chemotherapy and his only side effect was he'd be tired for half a day. But the third? he was vomiting relentlessly. He decided to stop and changed to trying to empty his wine cellar. He survived for another year in a happy alcoholic haze but left half the wine cellar to his widow and children.

He had intended that the remains of his wine cellar should be drunk at his funeral feast. His village disagreed. They provided so much free drink that even with 600 people drinking all afternoon and evening they still had several dozen bottles of wine and four full beer barrels left, and the whole village had a hangover the following morning. The Women's Institute did the catering and the village lived on the remainder for several days afterwards.

17 Dec 2019

I normally wear a Chicago Bulls 1998 NBA champions baseball cap that my eldest daughter brought back from when she was working in Chicago. I also have a Russian Foxtrot submarine baseball cap.

My other hats are a bit OTT:

A Canadian Mounties Hat

A Australian Army slouch hat

A Turkish Fez

A maroon beret

I don't have my cake on head hat any more as seen in my AV. I passed it on to my successor as Henry VIII but a neighbour has offered to make me a replica.

A grey Top Hat

A black bowler

18 Dec 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by oggbashan View Post

I normally wear a Chicago Bulls 1998 NBA champions baseball cap that my eldest daughter brought back from when she was working in Chicago. I also have a Russian Foxtrot submarine baseball cap.

My other hats are a bit OTT:

A Canadian Mounties Hat

A Australian Army slouch hat

A Turkish Fez

A maroon beret

I don't have my cake on head hat any more as seen in my AV. I passed it on to my successor as Henry VIII but a neighbour has offered to make me a replica.

A grey Top Hat

A black bowler

Quote:

Originally Posted by bucksumgal View Post

That's quite a collection of hats. With such an eclectic mix it sounds like each one has some meaning to you.

Also, from a previous message, I hope that Queen Bashan had a happy birthday.

Canadian Mounties hat: Closest to the Australian Scout's hat I wore back in England when on duty as a car park attendant for a Buckingham Palace Garden Party. I also wore my 24 inch razor sharp Wilkinson Sword machete which I carried as the winner of a Bushman's Thong. I promised, on Scout's Honour, not to take it out of its sheath. Most of the other Scouts were English and all wearing sheath knives but my machete was seen as more threatening.

Australian Army Slouch hat: Souvenir of my Australian School's Cadet Force who trained with Lee-Enfields, Owen submachine guns, Vickers machine guns, mortars and a few artillery pieces. Since my time they have acquired a few tanks...

Turkish Fez - swapped at a Scout Jamboree with a Turkish Scout for my green scout beret.

Maroon Beret: given to me by Royal Marine Commandos for completing their assault course - as a civilian - in a faster time than most Royal Marines and also for beating their record for circumnavigation of an island by going sideways around the cliffs without ropes or touching the base or the top of the cliffs. The previous Marine record was 28 minutes. I did it in 13.

Grey Top Hat: to go with my tailed morning suit at my daughters' weddings.

Black Bowler: Relic of my time as a civil servant in the Admiralty based in royal dockyards. I had to wear a hat when boarding any HM ship and doff it to the quarterdeck until 1965 when the requirement was replaced by a nod. In 1965 I had left my Bowler at home when I went to sea for a fortnight. I was wearing a disreputable trilby. When the regulation was changed I ceremonially disposed of the trilby into the Irish Sea.

20 Dec 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bramblethorn View Post

You've reminded me of my father's tale of a classmate in a similar school who managed to get excused from Cadets, normally compulsory, after an unfortunate accident (?) that convinced the instructors he shouldn't be anywhere near a machine gun.

The schools Cadet Force wasn't compulsory but if you were classed 'efficient', which 99% were, you could avoid two years compulsory National Service only needing to attend for an annual fortnight's refresher and a few evenings a year. If you opted to do National Service anyway, you kept your cadet force rank and could be promoted.

Shortly after my time, many of my ex-school cadet force members were in Vietnam.

20 Dec 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by rutger5 View Post

As always, Ogg, you have the most interesting stories which is why so many here are wishing the best for you. Reading about your hats reminded me of one of my favorite Britcoms "Are You Being Served". Of course like much of Brit society things had to follow a rigid hierarchy so it depended on your position on what type of hat you were allowed to wear. To an American it was beyond bizarre and I'm guessing things may have relaxed some by now. Make sure you stay upright until you can polish off your wine collection, at the least.

By the 1960s most Englishmen didn't wear hats, hence the change in Admiralty instructions for boarding ships. In HM Dockyards up to the 1950s the workers wore flat caps and the foremen wore bowlers. The clerical staff wore top hats until 1939. One of my predecessors in my post had bought an open Bentley from a bankrupt after the stock exchange crash. As an officer in the Civil Service his pay wasn't affected - then. One of his staff, who had learned to drive in the Army in WW1, used to drive him to work as he sat in the back, wearing a frock coat, top hat, and with his hands resting on a silver topped cane.

By my time, things were less formal. Hanging up in the office was 'the hat' borrowed by anyone of the staff who had to go onboard an HM ship. It was a much battered and misshapen trilby that was doffed to the quarterdeck and then stuffed in a pocket. I also had a white protective helmet - used by officers only. The workers wore yellow ones; the foremen blue ones. All had the Admiralty foul anchor badge on front. I wore the protective hat to visit any ship in the hands of the dockyard.

20 Dec 2019

More hats...

At my primary school in London I had to wear a school cap. When my parents moved to Gibraltar the uniform hat for both sexes in summer was a cotton sunbonnet that I hated. In winter the boys wore a school cap and the girls a straw boater. At boarding school back in England I had yet another school cap adorned with sports team colours because although I was very junior I was heavy enough for the first Rugby XV.

In Australia, the sixth (and last form before university) wore lightweight two-piece suits, a school tie and a trilby with a hatband in the school colours, unless you were a sportsman when you could continue wearing a blazer with the sports colours around your pocket and on the school cap. The school regulations insisted that you wore the hat (or cap) when entering or leaving the school. If the temperature reached 100 degrees F you were allowed to take your jacket off; if 105, your tie as well. For my final examinations we were in a glass-roofed hall and the temperature reached 108. We were allowed to dress how we liked.

20 Dec 2019

My own poem...

Farewell

So what if I am about to die?

I have lived my life and that's no lie.

I have tried to help my fellow man,

doing what and when I can

Sometimes I have failed, it's true

Perhaps I had no effect on you.

But I live to the last without regret

Remembering the best til I forget

When I've gone, remember me

Until you too cease to be.

21 Dec 2019

Not a good day. I slept badly until about 8.30 am then back to sleep to 11. Once up I was very wobbly and eyesight bad - can barely see the screen even with glasses and eyepatch. This is a reaction to chemotherapy.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Without spellcheck I couldn't even post this.

23 Dec 2019

Yesterday was better than the day before.

On Saturday I was operating at about 20%; yesterday about 60%. I managed to add a couple of hundred words to what would have been my ninth Winter Holidays entry and went to a restaurant with my wife in the evening. The restaurant was possibly too much. I was very unsteady on my feet when we left and it wasn't alcohol.

This morning? About 80%. One of the minor irritations is that because of long-standing back problems I can't get in and out of a bath. I have to shower but because of being unsteady on my feet most of the time that is very risky. I managed this morning.

25 Dec 2019

Grr! I've caught a head cold, probably from my last visit to a local supermarket.

It is irritating, annoying and because my immune system is depressed by chemotherapy could be very worrying. So far it is nothing more than a sniffle but I have to be careful.

26 Dec 2019

Ogg; ...The doctors are reluctant to say how long I have got but the latest estimate is while I should reasonably expect to be around for Christmas 2019 I should assume that at best, even if chemotherapy works, I will not see Christmas 2020. I'd like to prove them wrong but not if I have to survive months in a hospital bed. I prefer to die with my boots on.. Quote:

Ogg. I have seen this Thread for quite awhile but couldn't bring myself to post anything. Not because I didn't care, but out of weakness and a lack of words that could express my feelings. I still don't know what to say that would make either of us feel better.

How is it that we can become so attached to people so far away? You're the worst I think, but that's because you're so open and willingly vulnerable. I've loved your stories and I've loved your gentle continuity over these years that seem to have passed so quickly. Now I admire your bravery in the face of hardship.

My only consolation is that as you let us into your life over the years, I have seen a life well lived...and I've learned from that. You've seen and shared things that few of us would have known about had it not been for your written words offered here for free. I'm still learning from this that you are sharing with us now. Perhaps the best honor I can offer are the tears in my eyes at this moment as I write these words.

You know it already, but you are loved and respected here. May this season of hope fill you. May the love we all offer you be enough payment for all you have given us. I have been touched by cancer on more than one occasion, the most recent my wife and soul mate. But as you so wisely have said; We all die. I say; Death is part of Life. I think this Creation is perfectly made, thus death too is perfect. I also expect to find you writing away when (if?) I catch up to you up there — maybe then we will finally meet face to face. ~

30 Dec 2019

I am now officially an anomaly...

Today I went for a review with the oncology specialist to find out the results of the recent scan and how I am coping with the chemotherapy.

To my surprise, and to the specialist's surprise, the chemo has reduced my cancer cells. That wasn't supposed to happen. The decision to start chemotherapy was finely balanced. It was supposed to be palliative only, reducing the spread and speed of the cancer. But the cancer has retreated.

Apart from losing hair, I have had no side effects of the chemo. Although I am the only person in the county with Lambert-Eaton, and the only one my specialist has ever treated it is supposed to be aggressive and very difficult to treat.

I have two more scheduled sessions of chemo and then another scan in February. If the chemo continues to attack the cancer, I might be suitable for radiotherapy which had previously been ruled out as pointless. Even so, radiotherapy won't cure me, but my survival might be longer than previously thought.

I am an anomaly, confounding the medics, including my medical daughter who can't understand why I am so apparently fit and well - particularly as she has experience of patients with Lambert-Eaton. My blood/oxygen level remains stubbornly at 100% - which is almost unique for anyone with lung cancer.

Perhaps the prayers and good wishes of my friends on Literotica are helping?

31 Dec 2019

Today should have been a quiet day before the family celebrates Christmas tomorrow (another long story involving too many December birthdays!).

But the good news has spread around my friends, neighbours and local dog walkers so there has been a constant procession of people congratulating me and bringing alcoholic gifts...