Herry's Health @ 2022

Herry leading the senior steeplechase at Winchester 1959

I have enjoyed good health almost all my life, good fortune that I must owe to my parents. In particular I inherited plenty of stamina from both of them, and was captain of running at school as well as 'Best Recruit', in the SAS Selection Course of 1970. I played tennis regularly in my teens and 20's and in my 40s took up swimming, and carried on until I retired in 2006. I also used a gym until I moved to Stockbridge from London in 2011. 

I very rarely had to take time off work as the result of colds or 'flu. so my immune system must have been strong. I have also never suffered from any allergies or tummy upsets, which I put down to the sensible attitude to hygiene at home, particularly in the kitchen, and being brought up with dogs.

My first slight health problem occurred in Japan in the 1980s when suffered some chest pains at night and went briefly to hospital where there found nothing amiss. On returning to London, my doctor, Webb-Wilson, said 'It's probably just that you don't relax enough. Have a whisky in the evenings!'. It didn't recur  I also had some serious nose-bleeds, resulting once in having my nose cauterised in a Tokyo hospital. I also suffered from pleurisy caught in Saudi Arabia in the late 70's. Fortunately I was on my way home anyway, and recovered when I got back. 

My first major health problem occurred in 1990, when I had 'flu badly in the winter and stayed in bed for about 10 days, dosing myself with Nurofen. My weight went down to about 11 stone (68.5 kg), which was welcome, but alarmingly, a couple of months afterwards I suffered with the most debilitating depression. I had no energy and didn't want to see anyone. I also couldn't stand noise and music and didn't eat, so my weight went down even further. Fortunately my loyal secretary Jo kept people away from me as much as she could as I hid away in my office. It wasn't until I went to Australia in June to relieve Prue, who was trying to manage Radha who was taking drugs and needed a break, that the problem was found. 'You look terrible, she said, and then asked what pills I was on. I mentioned sleeping pills, which I had been getting from my local friendly chemist without a prescription, and she said 'Throw them away!' - which I did. And within a month I had recovered. However, It wasn't until I was walking through an airport a couple of years later and caught sight of the cover of Time Magazine, which had a photo of the sleeping pill that I had been taking - Halcion - on the cover, labelling it a 'suicide pill', that I realised how close I had come to being another statistic.  

Nothing more occurred until I retired (in 2006) until 2010, when I had some kind of rheumatic pain in my right thigh and left arm, probably caused by polymyalgia, although it was never diagnosed as such despite visits to several doctors. I treated it with Nurofen and it went away naturally after about six months.  

My next illness was far more serious, when a soft-tissue sarcoma was found on my left buttock and thigh in early 2015. After five weeks of radiotherapy at Southampton General Hospital to shrink the tumour in August and September 2015, I had an operation to remove it that was expertly carried out by Professor Tim Briggs and Costas Gikas at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore in October, followed by another operation in December to clean up the wound as it wouldn't heal. As it was, it took until April 2016 for the wound to stop weeping.

I had some reduced mobility as the result of these operations and the radiotherapy,  but otherwise recovered well. I had regular scans and X-rays at Southampton and the sarcoma didn't reappear, although they did keep a careful watch, particularly on some black spots on my lungs. By 2019, this surveillance had reduced to once a year.

I had polymyalgia again in 2016 following my operation 2016 and this time it was diagnosed and treated with steroids. The problem disappeared after about six months, but was probably brought on by the 'trauma' of the operation.

My next brush with cancer came in late 2019 / early 2020., with initial symptoms appearing in the autumn of 2019  and colon cancer being diagnosed and operated on by Frances Goulder in the Royal Hampshitre Hospital, Winchester on January 2020. 

I had been to see Dr Ed Gibbons  at Stockbridge Surgery on 2nd December about the pain in my stomach and he 'fast-tracked' me to a specialist at Winchester. I saw the gastroenterologist on 31st December 2019 and she arranged for a scan, which took place on 9th Jan. The result came though on Monday 20th when I saw the surgeon Frances Goulder and she told me that I had a large tumour and that she would operate the next day. Following a successful six hour operation I came home on 29th Jan and was able to recuperate reasonably quickly with the help of a nurse, Marianna Lampard. I have had scans every three months since coming out of hospital and I declined chemotherapy, and although two lymph nodes did show signs of being infected, they didn't changed over the course of a year. I have also had a colonoscopy that came back negative. My reason for declining chemotherapy was the calculation, with which the oncologist, Dr Rao, agreed, being a 25% increase in my risk of catching Covid due the the reduction in my immune system from the effect on my while blood cells, and only a 15% increase in overall life expectancy over the 50% base, though having chemo.This decision was of course taken just as the pandemic was beginning to take hold and no one then foresaw such a swift production of an effective vaccine.   

I think it’s possible that in January 2020 I had a mild dose of CV without realising what it was. I started to feel ill just after New Year and was actually not on good form at the New Year’s Day lunch  and was much worse at Kei's birthday on 12th January. I don’t remember exactly how I felt, but the unusual thing that I do remember, is that I couldn’t breathe properly and had to wait sometimes several seconds before being able to take a breath. It was quite scary to others, though fortunately I wasn’t too worried as I had never had any problems with breathing or my lungs and my breath did eventually come before I became seriously agitated. Curiously I also had hiccups which lasted the best part of two weeks and was troubling even at night, though I did eventually get to sleep. I don’t remember feeling terribly flu-ish but I did have the chills and in general was not well at all. I did however start to feel better around 8th Jan and my hiccups stopped and I could breathe again.I didn't visit the doctor for this illness, and so I don't really know what it was..

The operation of course rather overshadowed my illness and I assumed that the two were connected, but now I am not so sure, particularly as there is growing evidence that the CV was running around in December 2019 and not just in January 2020 when it was first announced.  Interestingly, though if course it might not be connected, we had a long lunch with our Chinese friends Chao and Robert (and Nigel) in London on 28th December. I can’t remember if any of them had recently been in China, though they probably had. 

I had a return of polymyalgia in the summer of 2020, again probably brought on by the trauma of the operation, but this time Stockbridge Surgery declined to give me steroids and sent me to a rheumatologist, who x-rayed my right had (which was particularly swollen and painful) but didn't advise any treatment. I treated myself again only with anti-infammatories - two 400ml ibuprofen at night being the main one, as my arms were at their most painful in the morning. However, the polymyalgia has at last disappeared (December 2021) coincidental with the start of chemotherapy (see below). .  

My last check-up for my sarcoma was in Southampton in November 2021, and was clear, but on the same day I had a call from Winchester Hospital.  Dr Rao had been looking at my latest CAT-scan and found that I had a tumour in my peritoneum as well as a lesion oj my liver. He recommended chemotherapy, and this time I acquiesced, and began eight cycles of chemotherapy on 13th December 2021 that will last until the end of May. I am of course triple jabbed and also had a flu jab in October 2021.

Herry (15th December 2021)

The story now continues as a separate entry here 31st January 2022