N3il's Blog

Last Friday, the 21st November was a years aniversary since I had my first major operation on my neck and although its been a very tough year I can look back a year on and be thankful to God and the great medical team that I’ve been under that I am still around to enjoy life and enjoy being with my great family and friends who have supported me through this year. It’s often be all these people who have encouraged me and supported me both practically, physically and spiritually along the way who have made the journey easier. So a year on I want to thank you all.

Further news to my last post. I had a call on Tuesday whilst waiting for the train coming home from London. It was one of my consultants rang me and said, “Hi it’s Rupert here (First name terms) we’ve been trying to get you sorted and to get your voice back before Christmas and we have a date, the 18 December, the only issue is that I’m away, but one of my colleagues who’s very good can do it, so do you still want to go ahead?”

My response was YES, very happy to go ahead, as they are just 2 smaller operations and it will also mean that hopefully I will have a better voice for Christmas. So the op is now booked for Thursday the 18 December. The 2 operations are both fairly quick and I could be out on the same day or at the latest the next day, so I’m happy with this news and can then enjoy Christmas hopefully having stronger voice in all the chaos!

As you can see from my current photo I’m still growing my Movember moustache and this is also to remind you that it’s still not too late to sponsor me, you can use this link below to get to my Mo space http://mobro.co/neiljeremy1 . So far I have raised £157 and our team of 3 has raised a total of £390 between us, but it would be great if we could reach £500 for the team by the end of the month.

Thanks again for all your love, prayers and support throughout this year. Neil

Today I had another appointment at Guys with Mr Obholzer one of the top consultants looking after me and today was about finding out whether I was going to have another operation to remove the small trace of tumour that had shown up showed up on one of the scans in August.

After a great summer life has slowly been moving forward and it’s also again been a while since I have put anything down on this blog and there’s a fair bit to write about.

In the last blog I wrote that I was about to start back working a couple of days a week, this started at the end of August and this has continued through September and October and I am now working 4 days a week with some old friends and colleagues. I found the first couple of weeks were pretty tiring but over the weeks since I have started to build up my strength and am now starting to feel a whole lot stronger as time goes on. It has also been great just to be back working again and using all my work skills and experiences, its been especially great that for the last 6 weeks been working with a number of good old friends and colleagues. I also had an encouraging week at one agency, as while I was sitting down to have my strawberry shakes for lunch on the first day there, another freelancer who I didn’t know, was sitting behind me, his name was Stuart and he just turned around and said to me “Ah that’s a familiar smell!” in reference to my shakes, its then turns out that Stuart had also been through a very similar experience to me, as 2 years before he had had another form of throat cancer and had been under that same consultant at Guys and had also had a stomach tube and we shared and talked all week about many of  our shared experiences. I was really encouraged to meet some else by chance in the same industry, who also had been through similar circumstances and who was now fit and well. Stuart like me had also been doing a blog of the whole of his experiences through his treatment.

Another medical milestone was reached in September, as after 7 seven months of insertion in my stomach, I had my stomach tube/peg removed, I had only being using since the summer to take medication. It has been a great freedom to have it removed. But eating is still an ongoing daily challenge as I am still feeding on 6 shakes a day, supplemented by small portions of other soft food, which is still a challenge to eat, but this is still slowly, very slowly improving and I very much now ‘Eat to Live’ and not as I use to ‘Live to Eat’, eating just doesn’t have the same pleasure as it use to.

As for ongoing appointments and treatment, I have found out at an appointment last week with Mr Obholzer that there is a possibility of needing another small operation towards the end of November but this will only we confirmed after another MIR scan this week and we will then get the results within 2 weeks, when a decision will be made.  Sue and myself feel fairly positive about this, as it would be a relatively small operation compared to everything else I been through. Another positive from our meeting was that we will now be able to progress the fitting of a bone attached BAHA hearing aid to my left ear, which would then enable me to to hear normally again. This involves fitting a platinum anchor/screw into my scull just behind my ear and this could be done at the same time as this next operation, this in turn could mean I could have full hearing in both ears just after christmas, as I would have to wait for a few weeks after the operation for the anchor area to heal. This will be a great improvement as I do struggle to hear people talking in environment that are busy and have lots of ambient noise going on around us.

We have also seen a new change in the Jeremy family this September, as our eldest Dan, went off to Southampton University in the mid September. He has settle very quick into student life and has made many new friends. His course has started off busy and he has lots of lectures every day, which is keeping him busy and working hard. He has also got into the halls football team. Sophy has now started in here first year in Sixth form, which has been a bit of a shock, as the workload has significantly increased. Amy has also started her G

I have also got back to playing guitar again after 11 months, which has been another good distraction.

We now are now fast approaching the Movember time of year again. This coming Sunday I will start off being clear shaven and I’m looking for other guys to join my Band of Brothers team. As most of you will be aware Movember has been a significant time of year for me, as during the 2012 Movember campaign is when I discovered the lump on my neck, we are now 2 years down the line. So my motivation for doing Movember again is to contuniue to help men to be more aware of health issues that can effect all men.

I am looking for sponsorship during is time and you will be able to do this during the month of November by using this link http://mobro.co/neiljeremy1 

Thanks again for all the prayers and support that you all have given over this last year and progress is still being made and so watch this space and I will keep updating you of my progress over the next couple of weeks.

Summer is nearly over and the temperature has already started to drop, but we have had a good summer it’s also been a while since I updated my progress, so here we go.

We as a family have had a good summer as I have been together with Sue and the kids for the whole school holidays and I’ve loved having them around, or a least most of them as Dan has hardly been around due to a busy social schedule, but more of these later.

As a family we camped at New Wine a Christian conference for a week with 12,000 other people, where we did enjoy spending time catching up with many old friends. I managed to cope and adapt to the camping life without any issue, I just found I had to take time out to reflex and sleep when I felt tired.

For our second week we went down to the Manor House Sports Hotel in Oakhampton, Devon, with friends the Heath family, who kept us all busy and entertained with the many sports and craft opportunities. The hotel was a full board and the sports and crafts catered for all our needs and I ending making a wooden door number for the front of our house and a snail jigsaw puzzle from a piece of flat wood, bring out my creative skills.

Dan has had a great summer after finishing Sixth form as he had planned 7 holidays in 6 different places, these being Zante in Greece with school friends, the Isle of White with church friends. New Wine with us, the Manor House Hotel with the Heath family, then Soul Survivor with his sisters and the rest of the church youth group and lastly to Isle of White again with Urban Saints youth group from which he arrives back this week.

Whilst all the kids were away together at Soul Survivor, Sue and I managed to get 2 nights away at a very posh Spa Hotel called Champneys in Liphook, Surrey. When we arrived we was upgraded to the ‘George Best’ suite, which was a large suite with sofas, TV’s and a very large bed. We both had massages and used their bike to cycle around the beautiful large grounds and relaxed in the pool.

The summer was also full of exam results for both Dan and Sophy. Dan had to return for a night during Soul Survivor to get his 4x A Level results which we have to say were very good as he got A*, B, B, C, which are the results he needed to get his first choice place at Southampton University to Study MORSE (Math, operational research, statistics and economics). So we will now be taking off Uni in the third week of September, which again will be a big change for us all. Sophy also got her GCSE result last week and again she did very well getting 2x A, 8x B, 2x Cs =12 GSCEs also meaning she has got her place at her current school to study her 4 A Levels which will include Maths, Physics, Art and Psychology as well as a general studies course. As parents we are now very proud of both them and their achievements this year, which now allows them both to do the things they wanted to do.

As for my progress, I have made some good progress over the summer starting with feeding. I made the decision before New Wine that I would try to start drinking my shakes rather that putting then all though my stomach tube as it would be far easy to do whilst camping, this has since gone very well to the pout where this week my support team have suggested to also try to come off the other feed I was using and go totally over to the shakes, which I am currently trying to do.

As for eating proper food, at the Spa hotel I had my first taste of food since the last operation and I had my first 3 course meal, starting with soup, then risotto and finishing with ice cream, admittedly it was very small portions but it was food and I am trying to make slow progress each day. My swallow is still not great but its improving, it will probably never be back to normal, but as I eat more, hopefully my swallow muscles with get stronger and I will be able to eat more normally. Again my support team are encouraging me to eat more and to re-learn these eating and swallowing skills that I’ve lost since the operations and radiotherapy.

The fitting of a Baha hearing aid has been on hold since the last operation, so I’m still half deaf and my voice is still very huskie and weak and I do find it hard to talk to others in busy/noisy environments. This probaly again won’t get any better without other medical help and both these issues will need to be discussed at my next appointment.

My skin and the scar on my neck have healed very well, but the muscles in my neck and left shoulder still give me a bit of a problem and get a bit sore when I’m using it or sitting on an upright seat working and this is mainly down to how my posture which has changed since the operations.

Since getting back from holiday I have had both a CT and PET scan, but won’t be getting the results of these till I get another hospital appointment with a consultant, which I’m currently waiting for.

Other good news is about work. 2 weeks ago I had 2 days paid freelance work that I did from home from an old colleague and next week I have 3 and half days more work with some other old friends at one of my old design agencies that I worked at a couple of years ago. This will mean travelling up to Euston each day and working in their office for the day, so I will have to manage my energy levels, which have been improving, but still have away to go. But hopeful I will be able to cope with the workload for the week, even if I am tired by the end of the week. It is a start back to work but also I know I need to get back slowly and even 2-3 days work each week will start to get me back to some sort of normality.

Lastly I’ve almost had to buy another new wardrobe as my weight is now below 12 stone, the lightness I can ever remember being since my teenage years. So the summer has been pretty positive and we’re seen some good progress and hopefully this is only the start to life getting back to some sort of normality and again want to thank the many friends who we have caught up with over the summer who have been to encouraging and supportive of us as a family.

Hi guys,

Again it’s been a while since I wrote any update on my progress and it’s now been 6 weeks today since my last operation. So what’s been going on?

After the operation I did make a far quicker recovery from an energy point of view than I had made from the previous operations, as I was given high carbohydrate drinks to take 12 and 5 hours before the operation and these really made a big difference to my quick recovery from the anaesthetic. I was also released from hospital as I mentioned before only 3 days after the operation.

Since my release my progress has been pretty slow, my energy levels have been a lot better and I have been able to do far more with my days.  My swallow has also been made worst from the operation and my swallow is taking a lot longer to make any improvements. I’m currently still having most of my food and drugs via my stomach tube. I have had another Videofluoroscopy which has shown that my swallow is fairly safe, meaning its going down the correct place in my throat, but it doesn’t mean swallowing any liquid or food is easy or straightforward, so this hopefully in time will get better.

As for my neck itself, the external scars again have healed very well, but internally my neck is still pretty sore and the skin is a lot tighter than before, but this does slowly improve over time. With my hearing, the Baha hearing aid operation was put on hold since the last op, but hopefully this might get back on track soon.

I might still have to have further treatment to tackle any leftover cells but this won’t be as invasive as the radiotherapy and could possibly only involve injections. I have a appointment and MRI scan this week and so hopefully might out further info. I have found it hard this time to have gone from making such good progress before the operation, to having been knocked back a few steps after operation and having to go through the slow recovery progress again. But again I have had my great family and many good friends around to support me and kept me going to this time.

We are now as a family are all off for the summer holidays and we go away camping at New Wine conference for a week with 12,000 other families in Somerset and then staying in a hotel for another week with another family in Devon, so we’re all looking forward to this break together. My plans are then to try to get back to some sort of work.

So overall please continue to pray that my swallow improves so that I can start to eat normally again and that I can get back to working soon and that I will find suitable work that I can slowly get back into action and that I can kept on bing focused to getting better and back to work.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support at this time.