Blog Tracker
02-12-2015, 10:40
Visit the Northern Beer Blog site (http://www.seanliquorish.co.uk/blog/?p=2093)
It’s only been a journey of 10 weeks, but it has seemed a lot longer since I had my last drink at the end of September. *I’ve now finished my therapy and am 3 weeks post treatment. *I’ve emerged relatively unscatched compared to what may go through and been told by both the teams at St James Cancer Centre and the team at Huddersfield that I’ve done really well. *I put this down to myself adopting an attitude that whatever it took to come out of this best I’d do it. *The last 3 weeks of the treatment and the first ten days post recovery was hard, both mental and physical, but I’ve turned a corner. *Life is not normal by any means, I’ve still got a lot of work to get back to the eating ability and having taste as I had 6 months ago. *But I feel myself again and that is a big thing.
My wife said to me about 10 days ago after visiting one of my best friends for the day that it was good to “have the old sean again”. **Over the months of treatment as it gets harder to talk, you get more withdrawn and minimise how much you engage in conversation, keeping it to the essentials. *You don’t have the energy for what would be the normal social discourse between husband, wife and family. *It affects the whole family, you don’t realise it does until you come out of your own bubble you create to cope while going through treatment. *As the psychologist at St James said “you stop being a patient and start being a person again”. *Little things like being able to sit at the dinner table, have energy to play with your kids and hold a sustained conversation with your spouse don’t mean a lot (they are taken for granted) until you can’t do it.
But the other side you miss is your social life, and for me that did revolve a lot around the pub. *I’m still not fully drinking as it interferes with medication I take, but being out and drinking decent non alcoholic beers was nice. *It’s even better when you move onto ale shandy which is my normal drink currently, hopefully I’ll be drinking properly sometime in the first month of 2016. *I’ve tried to visit pubs as much as possible to give my mind some sort of normality and looking back can track my progress. *6 weeks ago at the heart of my treatment, I popped down to the Cross Keys, Siddal for the band on a Sunday afternoon, lasted about an hour before I was knackered, had very little conversation with people and fell asleep on sofa when I got home. *My visit 10 days ago, I only left the pub because I had dinner at home, enjoyed a few shandies, felt no tiredness, was happily chatting for the duration and wasn’t tired when I got home. *That is a big jump. **When I go out, or we go out as a family at a weekend, nine times out of ten we’ll have a drink somewhere and getting back into this routine has brought some normality back over the last few weeks.
Most of us consider ourselves to have friends and acquaintances. ***A lot of our acquaintances we know from the pub from hours of beers and conversations. *However what I have found through this experience is that some acquaintances I know through the local pub trade are willing to go the extra mile, even in small ways. *In some important ways I’ll come out of this period of my life a richer person in the important ways. ***This is why we should value our local pubs and those we visit further afield, they are vital social hubs and as important as any other business or service we use on a regular basis.
I’d like to thank everybody for their support over the last few months and I’m glad to have kept doing this column throughout, although many thanks for the offers of contributions from other beer writers in the area. **Also the best of luck to a friend in the trade who is going through the same treatment at the moment and having a far worse experience of it. I consider myself lucky when you see what other go through.
More... (http://www.seanliquorish.co.uk/blog/?p=2093)
It’s only been a journey of 10 weeks, but it has seemed a lot longer since I had my last drink at the end of September. *I’ve now finished my therapy and am 3 weeks post treatment. *I’ve emerged relatively unscatched compared to what may go through and been told by both the teams at St James Cancer Centre and the team at Huddersfield that I’ve done really well. *I put this down to myself adopting an attitude that whatever it took to come out of this best I’d do it. *The last 3 weeks of the treatment and the first ten days post recovery was hard, both mental and physical, but I’ve turned a corner. *Life is not normal by any means, I’ve still got a lot of work to get back to the eating ability and having taste as I had 6 months ago. *But I feel myself again and that is a big thing.
My wife said to me about 10 days ago after visiting one of my best friends for the day that it was good to “have the old sean again”. **Over the months of treatment as it gets harder to talk, you get more withdrawn and minimise how much you engage in conversation, keeping it to the essentials. *You don’t have the energy for what would be the normal social discourse between husband, wife and family. *It affects the whole family, you don’t realise it does until you come out of your own bubble you create to cope while going through treatment. *As the psychologist at St James said “you stop being a patient and start being a person again”. *Little things like being able to sit at the dinner table, have energy to play with your kids and hold a sustained conversation with your spouse don’t mean a lot (they are taken for granted) until you can’t do it.
But the other side you miss is your social life, and for me that did revolve a lot around the pub. *I’m still not fully drinking as it interferes with medication I take, but being out and drinking decent non alcoholic beers was nice. *It’s even better when you move onto ale shandy which is my normal drink currently, hopefully I’ll be drinking properly sometime in the first month of 2016. *I’ve tried to visit pubs as much as possible to give my mind some sort of normality and looking back can track my progress. *6 weeks ago at the heart of my treatment, I popped down to the Cross Keys, Siddal for the band on a Sunday afternoon, lasted about an hour before I was knackered, had very little conversation with people and fell asleep on sofa when I got home. *My visit 10 days ago, I only left the pub because I had dinner at home, enjoyed a few shandies, felt no tiredness, was happily chatting for the duration and wasn’t tired when I got home. *That is a big jump. **When I go out, or we go out as a family at a weekend, nine times out of ten we’ll have a drink somewhere and getting back into this routine has brought some normality back over the last few weeks.
Most of us consider ourselves to have friends and acquaintances. ***A lot of our acquaintances we know from the pub from hours of beers and conversations. *However what I have found through this experience is that some acquaintances I know through the local pub trade are willing to go the extra mile, even in small ways. *In some important ways I’ll come out of this period of my life a richer person in the important ways. ***This is why we should value our local pubs and those we visit further afield, they are vital social hubs and as important as any other business or service we use on a regular basis.
I’d like to thank everybody for their support over the last few months and I’m glad to have kept doing this column throughout, although many thanks for the offers of contributions from other beer writers in the area. **Also the best of luck to a friend in the trade who is going through the same treatment at the moment and having a far worse experience of it. I consider myself lucky when you see what other go through.
More... (http://www.seanliquorish.co.uk/blog/?p=2093)