On its own – a very strong piece by friend Ian….
by Bernie Bell - 08:23 on 16 June 2025
On its own – a very strong piece by friend Ian….
"Nuclear Friday
Fuck this shit
Jun 13
Friday the thirteenth, and I’ve spent much of the day in and around the nuclear medicine department at Hereford County Hospital. This was so that I could have a bone scan. I haven’t had one since the beginning of my ‘cancer journey’ in 2020, and the oncologists want to keep an eye on the progression of my mets.
A bone scan appointment has two elements. First, they cannulate you, and inject you with radioactive gunk. Then, three hours later, you come back and lie under a gamma ray scanner, which takes about twenty minutes.
The cannulation was particularly tough today. It took an hour. Four technicians and a doctor stuck needles in me without luck. In the end, I was taken through to the ultrasound suite in radiology, where the senior technician succeeded in getting the tube into my shrinking veins. Then back to the nuclear suite, where they gave me a saline flush to check all was well, then a tiny little amount of ‘radioactive tracer’; then another saline flush. Then they send you away for three hours, telling you that, since you are now radioactive for the next 24 hours, you should avoid pregnant women and children. This isn’t easy in a hospital, so Hilary and I went to a local garden centre for lunch, a place we rightly guessed would be mostly inhabited by old farts.
Then back for the scan itself. You lie flat on your back, your arms lightly bound to your side, as still as possible as the scanner passes over you. It’s hard to lie on your back with nephrostomy tubes in. The techies needed to shift me down the scanner table a few times, which was also hard, since I have a lot of muscle wasting, not to mention my outrageous weight gain thanks to our friend Dexamethasone. I’m hungry all the time.
On the car radio, the news. Israel has launched an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. This could not have happened without US say-so. Trump, may his name be thrice-cursed-unto-eternity, is handcuffing senators, planning a vast military parade so he can cosplay Mussolini, etc etc etc. You know all this shit. Bad times are here. It’s hard to see what we can do as power passes from ‘us’ to Trump and the forces he represents. While we’re on it, Nigel Farridge represents those same forces. As powerless individuals in a world run by and for the criminally insane, it’s all but impossible to see what we might do about it, other than pop brown paperbags over our heads.
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre died a few weeks ago, and Andrew Brown wrote a great bit about him in the Church Times, which you read here. In this, he talks about MacIntyre’s idea of ‘little utopias.’ You can read more about that here. What we can do, MacIntyre argues, is strengthen local communities, and to focus on civil society, rather than a) hiding or b) shaking our fists at the sky or writing in about Trump, Netanyahoo, Putin &c. We can talk to our neighbours, join the town council, help build community facilities, do community driving, and so on. We act local and think global. We hold our families. Our day will come again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But come again it will.
Yesterday was a tough day too. In the morning, I had sudden onset diahorrea. I hobbled to the downstairs loo, but not before I had left a trail of liquid shit all over my legs, my clothes, the floor. In my haste, I’d left my phone at the end of the kitchen table so I couldn’t call Hilary, who was at work in one of our local schools. To my horror, I realised that, once seated on the bog, I couldn’t get up. I called for help. My neighbour Sue heard me, came in, and fetched my phone so that I could call Hilary for help. And then, bless her neighbourly heart, she helped me to my feet, and then back into my chair to wait for Hilary to come and clean me up. Bear in mind, if you can bear the thought, that I had no pants on, and the floor and I were covered in shit. That’s what our neighbour did for me yesterday. That’s the love that will light us out of these times.
I always like to play you a tune, and today it’s Queer Classic, ‘Builds the Bone’, by the Hidden Cameras. You will like it, I promise. I couldn’t think of anything better.
Thanks for reading Writing the Breaking Wave! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Writing the Breaking Wave is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Writing the Breaking Wave that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.”
*********
To which my response was….
“Ian – this is an exceptional piece of writing - even for you! Hitting nails on heads – mixing personal lives with WHAT’S HAPPENING – as those two things do mix.
I won’t go on and on – just wanting to say that it is bloody good.
Friend Carolyn, who lives in America, promotes Revolutionary Optimism…..
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=17190
…..which includes….
“Choose unrelenting hope. Revolutionary change, even in the face of unrelenting oppression, it not only possible, it is inevitable.
‘When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it… always.’ Mahatma Gandhi”
I’ll stop now – I’m getting worked up – which is what good writing should do.
One more thing – One of my prayers is …’Please be with Ian at this time and let him know your presence.’ If sneerers want to sneer – they can – I care not.
Sending much love lots
B”
I’ll add …..I have various things wrong with me, and sometimes I get fed up about it. After reading Ian’s piece, I ask myself what have I got to complain about? Seriously – not much at all.
Add your comment
