MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Not from Art School - this is displayed at the Archaeological Museum

The Art School has opened again. Tim and Janice, our teachers have returned to Crete after an exciting year or two off teaching in Peru.

So it was wonderful to take the day off from radiotherapy minding to get home for 36 hours midweek and pootle up to Kastellos to catch up with the Art Class crowd. Some had been in the process of having homes built, others had been having a few health problems too, but it was GREAT to see everyone again while we tackled “dry art contour drawing” with gusto and shared news along the way. The morning ended with large drawings in charcoal and chalk and very dirty hands! Since I have been living, breathing and sleeping homecare, nursing, hospitals, doctors and medical miscellanea for such an age, I was trying to keep a lot of updates low key and avoid boring everybody and straying into the realms to “too much information”. No matter how hard I tried to steer away from hospital traumas, it was nearly impossible, but I did my valiant best.

The weekend was raging hot, but it was lovely to catch up with friends on Saturday for a belated birthday and “hooray-I'm-back-home-in-Crete” meal with our pals Stuart and Kathy.  We also spent an energetic hour trying to release a sparrow that had fallen down the chimney and was flapping about inside the log burner every time I walked past.  This is the moment when you realise that having mosquito netting over all the windows and doors is a bit of a disadvantage.  Our idea was to catch the sparrow in K's fishing net and deposit him outside.  In the event, the bird flew straight through the holes in the net and round the house for a few minutes while we grappled with mosquito screens but quite quickly exited through the "scream door" in the front porch, none the worse for his ordeal.  

We telephoned the UK estate agents about the sale of the house in the UK. It seems that they have loads of viewings but not much real interest. I suppose I will need to get there and make some decisions about making the house more attractive. I thought the last house sale was the one to end all house sales, but it seems not. As I want to return to the UK as soon as the current treatment is done, it is probably as well that things are not proceeding too rapidly and there is somewhere to stay. We are not sure whether K will make the trip or not, but I hope so.

Gregory's coffee shop is a haven of near normality ...

We found a small harbour and cafeneon, not far from Heraklion.  An ideal place for K to
dream about having a fishing boat and to spend a morning.

I got back to Heraklion on Wednesday to the hospital with freshly made bread and a few supplies. Thursday, we queued for aeons to get the definitive low-down on what is happening next as regards radiotherapy. What with the language difficulty and everyone in a rush, K was not quite clear what was happening and we have been given so many versions, we wanted to dig our heels in and get the facts straight. Firstly we were told by the Urology Department that 4 weeks radiotherapy would proceed with hormone treatment, then when we arrived at the radiotherapy department we were told that there would be no hormone treatment but there would be 7 weeks of radiotherapy plus a little chemo. Then the idea of chemo was dropped. Then there was some mention of this session of radiotherapy stopping at the end of the week but differently focused treatment would start at some later date and so on. Confused by all this? Yes, we were too. The Doctor and Radiographer were very defensive about our questions, so we explained that we did need to know exactly what was happening, about the hostel booking and that no one had explained the process to us clearly at the outset. We thought it best not to mention that we never did receive a diet plan either and have been relying on one published by Nottingham Hospital for patients having radiotherapy to the pelvic area. Thank God for the internet and the advice of UK friends; we would have been completely in the dark otherwise.  

Anyway, all the Greek patients wait around for entire days to get seen while English patients are regarded as being a bit of a pain. How dare we have the presumption to waste important people's time by expecting answers to questions? It does not help to see British TV adverts for, say, Macmillan Nurses or Cancer Care where medical professionals seem to have unlimited time for social niceties, one-to-one explanations, help and support “at a time like this” … the milk of human kindness uppermost ... and we ponder whether there is any truth to this representation of care back home or whether we are imagining la-la land. One poor lady we know from the hostel had received chemo treatment in the morning and had been waiting since 7.00 a.m. to see the Doctor. It was now 5.00 p.m. The thoughtfully provided water cooler had run out of cups days ago, so she had had nothing to eat or drink all day waiting for the Doctor to see her. She did not dare leave the queue to miss her turn although she had tried to scoop up water from the wash basin tap in the loo. (I wouldn't fancy it, even when well and healthy). I left K in the queue and toddled off the the shop to get bottles of water all round and bought a few packs of cups on my next trip to the supermarket. This is so normal in a place which is understaffed at the best of times whilst the holiday season can wipe out any of the rudimentary systems in place. From my vantage point, it is very hard to find out what the systems are unless there are kindly other patients to tell you because nobody else has the time. The absence of ONE member of staff is really telling and the poor lone doctor left working this week must be at breaking point.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that the economic crisis in Greece is not his fault and he is at the sharp end of it, like everyone else here.

How all these artifacts in the Museum survived centuries of earth movements is a bit of a mystery!  Hot bath anyone?

Hey ho! All these grumbles were interrupted by my bed shaking like a jelly on Friday morning and after New Zealand and another last year, I knew instantly what it was …. EARTH TREMOR! 34 km deep and 4.7 magnitude. Kimon did not feel it in the basement but the hospital is the only place I have felt them in Crete.

We will be so glad when this is over and we can have a rest from white coats for a good, long time. 12 sessions to go and we are praying that the machinery holds together, since every day of delay costs extra.  

Kalo tiki!