Ive been following your journey. I was delighted to read that the tumour has been shrinking as well as feeling your pain with the various treatments. Your description of the "tender tendrils" that is morphine reminded me (not a happy memory) of a bout of kidney stones*.
I am unbelievably impressed with your writing skills and your sometimes black humour. It really is tremendous prose and I am really hoping that you have decades to keep up the scribing.
Best of luck with it, man.
*I was out on my motorbike and had a bad pain in one of my nuts. I thought that I had trapped a bollock in my leathers, but the pain kept growing to the point where I had to pull over to throw up. I rode about 15 miles home with one leg dangling off the footpeg as I couldn't lift if up (handling a 160 horsepower superbike when you are feeling like someone has taken a running kick at your knackers is not much fun). How I managed to get the bike into the garage and strip my leathers off I still don't know. I managed to phone a taxi to take me to hospital. By the time it arrived I was on my hands and knees in the lounge in agony. He got me to the ER and I remember walking up to the nurses station and then hearing "He's going down" and feeling someone's hands grabbing me as I started to pass out from the pain. They got me on a table as they assessed me and told me that they were going to prep for surgery as they thought that I had a
torsioned testicle. Immediate surgery is needed if that was the case.
Eventually they worked it out as a kidney stone. I spent three hours lying on that bloody table screaming in pain. I remember to this day of my total loss of control and awareness due to the pain. Paracetamol by IV did nothing, so they eventually started with morphine injections. I can still remember the feeling of relief as that stuff hit the bloodstream. I'm not sure if it takes the pain away, I remember being very aware of what I can only describe as an iron bar being pushed through my back and out through my scrotum, but the morphine means that your brain almost becomes disassociated from that pain. Strange stuff and I can see why it is addictive. Your description of "tender tendrils" describes it perfectly.
