Enriching A Terminal Life

Small changes add up

Jun 08, 2025

I went to the dentist for my annual check-up. No major work other than penicillin to hit an inflamed gum and a deep clean next month. I’ve been with the same dentist for fifty years, the longest single relationship I have ever had with anyone. Like the Ship of Theseus, the dentist has changed over time, I’m now on my third incarnation, each transformation resulting in a younger model while I continued to get older. The one thing that hasn’t changed in those fifty years is the technology, still sticking needles in and drilling teeth. That’s all they did back in the seventies, and fit false teeth to old people. Now they fit false teeth to young people as a fashion statement.

I completed my first edit of my short story. The last few lines typed through a veil of tears. I took that as a good sign. Next week I will begin the second edit, skimming out unnecessary words, deleting where I have tried to show the reader how good a writer I am, basically getting me off the page. I don’t know when I will be done with the editing, one of the advantages of not going for publication. I’ll write it up in a nice book along with a few other short stories, handwritten, as a present for Alison. I might place the stories on Substack for people to enjoy, perhaps offer a few handwritten copies to interested readers.

The solicitors are arguing how much I am worth, mine say a lot, theirs say hardly anything. I try not to stress about it, there is little I can do, but it is something of a worry-worm moving around in my thoughts.

My health is a bit of a movable feast at present, there’s lots of energy crashes during the day and for the love of all that is holy, I cannot get warm. Yesterday I was wearing thermals and a thick pullover and a padded gilet. I sat reading with a thick tweed blanket across my legs. I’ve found that a hot water bottle, before I go to sleep, under my knees is good. And if I wrap my cannula tube around it I can warm the oxygen going into my bloodstream. I’m quite proud of that innovation. Part of the problem is that I’m not getting enough freshly oxygenated blood around my body coupled with far too much old carbon dioxide being held in the cells.

Another issue is my appetite that has plummeted, they said it would. In the last six months I have lost twenty-five pounds in weight without trying. As I was/am overweight this is no bad thing other than my body is not getting sufficient fuel to generate its own heat, and as I am almost totally sedentary my body is not warming with movement, hence feeling cold all the time.

It is common for me not to finish a meal now. Just having one course, whereas I used to have pudding with custard, cream and ice cream. Snacks have also gone. I had a bar of chocolate last weekend that we finished last night, seven days, something unknown before this year.

It took a month or two to realise this was happening and to develop a strategy to deal with it. I knew I wasn’t going to put on weight, that it would keep falling as my lungs became less and less usable, the two graph curves keeping company on their downward trajectory.

Thankfully my practice nurse told me during my blood sugar results (46mmol) to forget about restricting what I eat, just go and enjoy yourself, the asbestos is going to get you way before diabetes kicks in.

We’ve focussed on taste, portion size, music and conversation. For me taste is not just the taste, it involves texture and memory and the length of time something can be savoured. There are high notes and low notes, sweet and sour, and umami. Umami is the one that most fast food focusses on I guess, that slathering on a McDonald’s breakfast sausage patty and the hills of salt in a Domino’s pizza. I like crunchy, soft and chewy too, even with Heinz Tomato soup, my favourite, and toasted cheese and onion sandwich to dip in.

I read Butter, the novel by Asako Yuzuki, this week (don’t read it if you are on a diet, fasting, or hungry). What caught my eye was rice with melted butter and a few drops of soy sauce. It sounded so good we tried it with a bowl of new potatoes, something we regularly have with butter and chopped spring onion. This time we added the soy, a small puddle on our plate to dip the buttered potato in. It was a revelation. The combination of hot potato starch, melted cold butter, and the meatiness of the soy sets the mouth tingling with sensation and taste. Taste hits in waves. The firmness of the potato with its creamy earthy texture, the sweet slipperiness of the butter coating the tongue with richness, and the umami of the soy, tangy at first but warming into a pleasurable hug. We will, of course, add this to our already extensive list of good things to eat.

I have come to realise that fast food is wasted energy for me, leaving me unfulfilled and unsatisfied in time. Fast food takes seconds to eat. I used to eat at the table like that too. Food was to be consumed, something separate from the rest of the day, an interrupting fuel stop. My loss of appetite changed that.

I worked out that to eat healthily I need to put a basic amount of food into my body. The best way to do that was portion size. Smaller portions more frequently eaten, whilst not meeting my old intake level would certainly help. Food presented in bowls so I can choose as much or as little as I want. And food that was of high quality and tasty but not mountainous. Food hand-crafted by Alison from fresh ingredients and well spattered books. We’ll spend a little more money, but I’m not spending money on getting out on to the hills now so that equals out. And no processed food, or very little, Fig Rolls get a free pass.

The ambience of eating is part of the process. Along with small portions of exquisitely flavoured and textured food, I want to eat slowly. Partly; to give time for the food to digest while my body is being assailed by numerous pills and potions, but also to slow my life and spend more time with Alison talking about the things that interest us. Alison’s new work in materials and colour and form. What we are reading at present and anything we would suggest passing on to each other. The clothes Alison will be making next. And why is it still cold out. In the background we’ll play Bill Plant, John Coltrane, Moby, Nick Cave, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Dave Brubeck, low so I can hear what Alison is saying (almost completely deaf on my right side now) but still have the pleasing comfort of the music. We don’t want anything loud, Bjork aside, nothing that stirs emotions in the body. Eating for us needs to be a slow, gentle, meander of taste and sound and thoughts spoken softly.

All of this is part of enriching our life, replacing if you will, the excitement our old used to give us. Now we savour time and togetherness. Little by little we make small changes to how we live, the food we eat, the interests we have. Filling the void of that old larger life with slower, smaller moments of rich intensity, helps both of us deal with the terminal illness that has taken residence in our home. For a few moments, and more moments than that, we believe in forever.

Take care and good luck

Paul

(Butter and soy sauce. Who knew!)

Heading For The Exit

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