Author Archives: Topherwelch

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, we lived in a house on the outskirts of Port Sunlight village, 156 New Chester Road to be exact. To the rear of the house were a set of garden allotments, which were a great playground for children of my age. We got up to allContinue reading “The pram”

The Fifa world cup has only just finished. Unfortunately, neither Wales nor England came out victorious, although both gave a fairly good account of themselves. My memories of the world cup go back to the final in 1966, the year England did manage to win. We were staying at my Nain’s house in Barmouth. IContinue reading “Roadblock”

Today marks two years since a glioblastoma was discovered inside my head. Since then, I have had one operation, radiation therapy, electric field treatment, cytostatics and loads of different tests and scans. After all of that, I am still here and feeling healthy. The results of the latest MR-scan will be here soon. Then weContinue reading “Two years”

Spring and summer, for me, means getting out into the countryside. Either for long walks, bike rides or a round of golf. Churchill once described golf as an effective way to ruin a good walk. The way I have been playing lately, I tend to agree. Being out in the countryside also means being exposedContinue reading “Tick the box”

I just took a look at the read-statistics for my blog for the last couple of weeks. On average the site receives a visit every third, which is quite good considering that it has been neglected for some time. Almost half a year has passed since my last entry. For the past six months, IContinue reading “All quiet on the western Front.”

Knitting has become very popular in recent times, and while I cannot claim to be a pioneer, I can trace my knitting roots back to about 1966 (The same year England won the world cup in football). My mum was an avid knitter and would regularly produce loads of items as an opportunity presented itself.Continue reading “Knitting, a pastime for all”

Winter arrived in Uppsala a few weeks ago, with temperatures getting as low as -17 °C. This led to most of the shallower lakes freezing over. There was an insignificant snowfall during the cold period, most of the snow melted when the temperature rose to slightly over zero for a few days. The result wasContinue reading “Significant shrinkage”

The agonising wait for the results of the PET scan is over and the results were good news. The scan showed an absence of areas with uptake of the radioactive marker, which means that there is no tumour activity present in my brain tissue (there was no feedback as to the presence of other activity!).Continue reading “Hair”

I got the results of my latest MRI scan a couple of weeks ago. I followed a short period of worry about what they may, or may not, reveal. When they finally arrived in my medical file, we could read a load of technical details about uptake of contrast agents and a few other thingsContinue reading “The Shining”

While doing a postdoc in Sherbrooke, Quebec, I was invited to Rhode Island to give a seminar about my research. Bitte and I drove from Sherbrooke to Rhode Island, a journey of 550 km. Our car was a second-hand Renault 5. It did not have air conditioning, so with temperatures in excess of 30 °CContinue reading “Stow the chowder”